Dogs

I am a dog lover. We always had dogs and cats when I was a kid.

If you read various cycling websites and literature on the subject , you'll get a wide variety of opinions. I will share mine here.

My encounters with dangerous dogs have been rare, but some of the cases have been interesting. I believe that most dogs are just trying to assert their property boundaries, and will stop barking at you when you're in the next lot. Some will sort of chase you to the curb, but then stop. This is their right, so it's ok. You can easily tell by the dog's body language what its intentions are.

The older dogs will sort of stand there and woof, not bothering to expend energy. This may trigger some of the younger dogs to sound off down the road, however, so keep an eye out up ahead.

I almost had to mace a dog last week, I was cutting through a park, and the owner hit a tennis ball in my direction, the unchained dogs sprinted after it. The Alpha-dog saw me and decided to chase me instead. He looked like he meant business. I stopped, whipped out my pepper spray, and aimed it in his face from 10 feet. The owner yelled "oh he's harmless, he just wants you to pet him!"

Then he's like: " Come back here, Satan!!!"

Have you ever heard a dog owner say "Oh, he just wants to rip your face off!!!" ????

The dog was pretty smart, he knew I had a long range weapon. He backed off. I can still see the evil look in his yellow eye. He was some sort of husky-mutt mix. The other dog he was with just wanted the tennis ball and did not succumb to this peer pressure.

If you get on the other side of the bike, you now have a "shield" , and raise it to look even more intimidating. If you show no fear, they usually back down, especially if they sense you are weaponized.

My most beloved cycling-route dog is an old farm dog who lives on a ranch in the Southern Berkshires. He comes sauntering out, wagging his tail, just to say hello and hang out and get scratched a bit. This dog has had no stress in his life. He's a cross between a collie and an Australian Shepherd.

The owners are never around the barn, they're always off- site or in the field. You just have to see this place, it overlooks a swampy green valley, then there's Mount Washington, that forms the border between CT and NY.

(No, not THE Mt. Washington, sorry)

I remember once we were bow hunting for deer and we were stalked by two wild dogs in a deep thicket. I head a twig snap right behind me. All of a sudden, there was a mangy Rottweiler and a Golden retriever. The Rottweiler was the Alpha-dog. and was making lunging advances, as he growled and flashed his teeth. My buddy and I looked at each other like "you gotta be kidding me." He sighed and reached for his knife.

He had grown up in the farmlands of Honeoye NY and had seen this before. These were definitely feral dogs.

I did not want this to continue, so I put a blunt-tipped arrow right over the dogs head into a sapling, splitting the sapling in two. A great shot, If I must say so. The dogs whirled and were gone in a flash, you could barely hear their retreat.

Any dog that would come up on two obviously armed men like that during hunting season is a threat, in my book.

Many of these farm area dogs are "half-wild". They will run free during the day, chasing deer, causing trouble in packs, breeding at will, but then return home at dusk and lay by the fire. Some may even have collars. Survival school teacher and expert tracker Tom Brown wrote about this
in his book "the Tracker" . The New Jersey Pine Barrens had many packs of wild and semi- wild dogs. We saw many dog tracks hiking there in the winter in Lebanon and Batsto State forests.

When you ride in the hinterlands you do get to know who's-who. So just be prepared in various parts of your routes. Again, these encounters are extremely rare.

Most of the time you can outrun a dog that is in the road chasing you. But if you have to use that can of "Halt", understand that you may then have to deal with the irate, often idiotically drunken owner...


"What the hell did you do to my dawg?"

So use the spray as a very last resort. It might not be a bad idea to call the cops immediately and report the incident in case the owner tries to retaliate. The cops can triangulate your cell's position on GPS.

Obviously this is more critical on a solo ride.

If the owner gets in your face, be gentle and say in a military or cop-like tone; "it's a very mild brand of deterrent, my vet recommended it. He'll be just fine in about twenty minutes! Sir, I'm really sorry, but he was in the road, not on your property. He was chasing me, and trying to bite me. I understand he's only trying to defend his territory, but again, he shouldn't have been chasing me down the middle of the road. I have alerted the authorities, they are on the way".

Keep your distance from the owner, do not let them near your bike.

This scenario has never happened to me, but I can definitely see it happening. People in rural areas have no problem jumping in their pickups to chase someone down.

The only other time I had the daylights scared out me was when these two dobermans stuck their heads up behind a stone wall and sounded off as I climbed a hill and rounded a bend at the top slowly. I almost fell over, still in my clips. But these satanic looking dogs were just having fun, they were probably snickering like "uhuhuhuh!!!. Hyuk, hyuk!!!!.. that was cool"! It was like a scene from the Omen.

Many thanks to the inventors of the "electric fence". This has in recent years made my rides through suburbia more bearable. As for places like Devil's Hopyard State Park, Dudleytown, and the misty thoroughfares of Satan's Kingdom, you're on your own pal!

Try Biljack biscuits, they work too sometimes...

peace out

Rob