How would you have reacted? (read details)

this happened last summer. we were camping on a river, way way out in the middle of nowhere, 35 miles in on an unmade road. there are campsites, the area is frequented by fishermen and hunters. we were through for the day and I was sitting on a low stump in the fading sunlight watching the river. I noticed, walking along the beach, was a woman and two large bull mastiff dogs. they were quite far away. Very quickly, one of the dogs bounded up to me and started sniffing my face. I froze, I have never seen a dog this big in real life. The other dog was sniffing around in the bushes at the campsite. They both were wearing electronic collars, the woman was screaming for them to come. She walked up and told me she was trying to train them with the collars but, with a little laugh, told me it wasn’t working very well. (she was holding a remote looking thing) No sooner has she said that, my husband, who had been inside our camp vehicle stowing his fishing gear, opened up the side door to come out. The dog that had been sniffing the bushes,growling, tried to leap into the vehicle. My husband shot the dog dead. The woman was now hysterical, my husband told her to get her other dog out of there or he would shoot it too. A big scene ensued, state troopers came, blah blah. No charges were leveled but these people are sueing us in civil court. what could we have done differently? It all happened so fast…