As a good friend of mine used to add to all of his emails, "some people are alive today only because it is illegal to kill them".

You did the right thing. Drawing your gun would be correct only if the dog was close enough to threaten you and you really believed you were in danger. All dogs are naturally inquisitive and if left to their own devices they will roam, and sniff everything within their entire world, including you.

Cane Rosso dogs do resemble pit bulls, some are even red, as the name implies, some are black or maybe other colors. They're bigger than most pit bulls, even the American Staffordshire as far as I know. If they left their ears alone they'd be cute but those clipped ears make them look nasty.

You didn't say how close he got but dogs are unlikely to simply run at you except by command unless they're already running or you do something that gets their attention (for whatever reason and however insignificant what you do might be; dogs are weird that way) so 30 feet is about as close as I'd allow before I pulled a gun.

At some point if possible I'd call the owners to call their dog.

***GRJ***