I sincerely believe that I prevented my oldest and middle daughter's face being eaten off by two very amped up dogs one July 4th many years ago. Dogs got out of a neighbors yard and were quite worked up over the fireworks. My daughters were 30 or 40 feet away from me walking up to go see the fireworks show, and the dogs came at us with quite obviously ill intent. I tried to scare them off, but they just circled wide of me and headed toward my girls. I didn't shoot at the dogs as I did not have a safe backstop that direction. I did shoot a round into the ditch bank next to me. The dogs heard that, tucked tail, and ran.
I learned a few lessons that day. Keep small children close to you (we live in the country and I was comfortable with distance then, but not anymore with small children). Just because you have a gun and a justifiable reason to use it doesn't mean you safely can. Had I shot at one of the dogs, who were nearly in a full run 30 or so feet away from me, I would have been shooting directly at someone's home about 100 yards away. I suspect a large stick may would've done me as much good as discharging a firearm, with less risk. But alas, I chose a "less bad" option and it worked out.
Tons of nights as a cop I was quite happy I had a gun. Obviously. But that doesn't count in context of CCH I don't think.