Bikers!

[willhslade]

Hey,

I'm a dog lover, I've got two of my own. But I ran into a weird situation today.

I was biking to work, and this woman had two dogs off leash. Medium sized labradors. They gave chase and I found out that you can't outrun dogs on a bike. I got off the bike. They were barking loudly and aggressively the whole time. I tried talking calmly, but they wouldn't stop. I was a little bit scared of escalating my voice to frighten them, but in retrospect, would it have worked? I imagine I will run into this again, and I'd like to have something effective, and ideally nonviolent.

Thanks,
Will

 

[Dog-Training-Outlet]

Needless to say the dogs should have been leashed. If you see the woman again I would nicely ask her to keep her dogs leashed as there likely is a leash law...Most counties have them even if you're not in a city or town. If you see dogs running freely another option is to call animal control. Owners need to be responsible and must abide by local laws and control their animals so they're not a threat to others.
It is unnecessary for you to have to deal with this again!

I have a neighbor that has three large and aggressive boxers. No one in our neighborhood has fences but most have dogs. Many of them do let their dogs roam around which isn't a huge deal since most of them are small and non threatening however these dogs were another story.

Two separate occasions my children were playing in our yard when they let their dogs out and the dogs ran straight for my 3 year old daughter! She loves animals but was completely terrified over the incident. The dogs owners tried to catch the dogs but they were unresponsive. I talked to the owners and asked nicely for the dogs to be restrained. They acknowledged and agreed to put up a fence. They did nothing and a few days later the dogs were back running at my daughter again. I did call animal control after notifying the owner once again.
Animal control let them know about the leash law and the dogs were not let out again and a fence was installed within days.

Unfortunately owners are not always proactive. If I had let this behavior continue, I am certain the dogs would have hurt my daughter or one of the other children in the neighborhood as they & the adults were ALL afraid of them. To the point they wouldn't walk past their house!

 

[bubbatd]

To me you did the right thing by stopping ,but I would have turned around and gone back to the owner ,

 

[Tsume'sMom]

I use an air horn. We have alot of strays, where people just dump them out here, and when I bike with Tsume I keep the air horn hooked to my belt. If a random dogs starts chargeing after us I stop quickly, put Tsume in a down stay and calmly stand between the dog and Tsume, blow horn.

Now you could do it faster, just stop and blow, becuase you don't have a dog with you to protect. The air horn is often loud enough to scare them off very effectively. Where as allot of the sprays, like "dirrect stop", have not been effective in my experiance.

 

[Tankstar]

Id get some dog pepper spray and spay any dogs chasing me.

Drives me nuts when I ride with Blaze (or by myself) and idiot owners have their dogs with no recall offleash. I dont care about the dogs who are offleash with a recall, and not chasing me. as Blaze does it with other people/dogs/bikes he ignores it all.

We always have morons around here with idiot dogs. I might even buy some mace.

 

[OutlineACDs]

Agree with everyone.

Next time tell the lady that there is a leash law (if there is one) and you feel threatened by her dogs and wouldn't want to report her.

If there isn't a leash law, just tell her you don't appreciate being chased and while you understand its her right to allow them offleash that if they bite or injure someone she is still liable.

If you are on a bike you can always hop off and put your bike between you and the dogs. I have done this a time or two.

Like others suggested an air horn, small water pistol, or pepper spray is useful. Be careful with pepper spray because if the wind is blowing in your direction it can cause the spray to come back on you.

 

[Maura]

The dogs are probably not socialized to bikes. I would stop as soon as the dogs alerted. Let them come up and sniff the bike. If you stop immediately, they are not going to be as excited as if you gave them a run. Give them some time, if they will sit when asked you can give them each a little pet and a few kind words. Don't get on the bike until they have lost interest and you have some distance from them. Walk the bike, don't get on until you can see that either they have lost interest or the owner is holding them.

If you do engage the owner of the dogs, I would ask her to find a way to get her dogs used to moving bikes because a child would be terrified of her dogs giving chase.

 

[OutlineACDs]

The dogs are probably not socialized to bikes. I would stop as soon as the dogs alerted. Let them come up and sniff the bike. If you stop immediately, they are not going to be as excited as if you gave them a run. Give them some time, if they will sit when asked you can give them each a little pet and a few kind words. Don't get on the bike until they have lost interest and you have some distance from them. Walk the bike, don't get on until you can see that either they have lost interest or the owner is holding them.

If you do engage the owner of the dogs, I would ask her to find a way to get her dogs used to moving bikes because a child would be terrified of her dogs giving chase.

Not trying to be rude, but it's not his responsibility to accustom these dogs to bikes. They aren't his dogs and he is out trying to enjoy a bike ride, or possibly trying to get to work. He can't be hopping off his bike and giving 100's of dogs time to acclimate to it.

He needs to take safetly precautions to keep himself from getting hurt and he needs to confront the owner about being more responsible.

 

[Maura]

I reread the post and there are two dogs, not hundreds.

I don't see anything wrong with learning how to handle the situation in a positive way. I used to be a bike rider and I encountered many dogs, most of them without an owner present. I found this to be the best way to handle things. Yes, the owner should have better control of her dogs, and maybe she will in the future. But, there will be other dogs.

I don't know if you have ever used pepper spray or mace, but there is no guarantee that it will stop a dog, especially one that is driven. Ultimately, it is up to Will to decide the best course of action, not you or me.

 

[Criosphynx]

my solution isn't non violent so I wont go there . I would try pepper spray or the air horn first then if thats more your speed


If I stopped to "help" every stray that chased/approached me, I'd have no time for my own dogs.