A 74-year-old Edmonton woman suffered a broken arm and black eye when a man attacked her as she tried to protect her small dog from a Rottweiler running loose on the street.

Cecilia Cunningham was walking her Shih Tzu named Scooter on Tuesday when the Rottweiler charged her.

She was trying to shield her dog and shoo the bigger dog away when a man ran out of a nearby house, hit her in the back of the head and knocked her to the ground, she said.

"He says, 'How do you like this?' and then, smack! He got me on the side of the head," she said Wednesday.

"I didn't expect somebody to attack me. The person came across the street and I thought he was just going to reach down and get his dog by the collar and take him home, eh? You don't expect somebody to haul off and sock you one."

Construction worker Lee Lindeburg, who witnessed the attack, couldn't believe it either.

"He hits her from behind at a full run; she hits the ground," he said. "Like, the ground rushed up at her and she couldn't stop it. And he starts kicking her, kicking her, you know, a defenseless person right on the ground, yelling at her, 'How do you like it? He's a nice dog!"

Police spokesman Andy Weiler said three men walking by intervened, stopped the attack and called the police.

"So when you talk about stories involving Good Samaritans and people being at the right place at the right time, that's definitely the case here," Weiler said.

Cunningham's arm was broken in three places. Doctors expect it will take her at least six weeks to recover.

She said she moved to Edmonton eight years ago because she no longer felt safe living alone on her farm.

A 32-year-old man has been charged with assault causing bodily harm. He will appear in court Nov. 16.

He has also been given two tickets under the city's animal control bylaw, one of them for letting his dog run loose on a city street.

An average adult Rottweiler is about 60 centimetres tall, compared to about 28 centimetres for an adult Shih Tzu.