This is certainly a 'streched' item to infer something which may or may not have happened.
It is possible that Edward waved his stick at the dogs to stop them fighting, or banged his stick on the ground to distract them.
The fact is, no-one really knows, and heavy hints are being dropped in the general area of cruelty.
Not a major leap for our Eddie - after all his dogs are fighting over the corpse of a defenceless bird which he has just shot, so it's not as if he can be called an animal lover in the accepted sense of the word is it?
It's the price you pay for leeching of tax payers and spending your free time shooting birds for fun, so he hasn't really got a leg to stand on here.
That said, if he didn't hit the dog, the media are wrong in trtying to infer that he did, and whip up the attendent furore among animal lovers.
Why not let's concentrate on the barbarity of what he DID do, which is shoot a load of pheasants for the fun of it - THAT we can be sure of.
Moron!