Dogs, Walkers, Runners & Cyclists.

[Moss]

We need to get-along while we're on, or get off. The : Keep em on a Lead Debate.

http://road.cc/content/news/76129-s...-taff-trail-dog-incident-makes#comment-146286

 

[Crackle]

FFS, not another one of these threads.

 

[wiggydiggy]

Was the dog wearing a helmet?

 

[Little yellow Brompton]

We need to get-along while we're on, or get off. The : Keep em on a Lead Debate.

http://road.cc/content/news/76129-s...-taff-trail-dog-incident-makes#comment-146286

The bit that never gets mentioned when the press talks about "The Taff Trail" is that the vast majority of the complaints , (and you can see a hint of that in the quoted article ) come from one very small ( about 3/4 mile) section of the 50+miles.
The problem section is "Hailey fields" a set of playing fields with a huge number of dog walkers. Now this area even has it's own pressure group " The friends of Hailey fields" , but it is not by any stretch of the imagination the busiest stretch of the Taff Trail either for bikes or pedestrians. What it does have is a very large area , ideal ( in their mind ) for dog owners to let their charges run aroud in and a long establsihed tradition of letting dogs crap all over it to the detriment of every sports player who use the fields.

 

[Mile195]

Everyone's got to look out for everyone else to a certain extent, but sometimes there's going to be accidents, whatever you do. Sometimes bad-luck's a factor. Dogs don't have road sense, and physics govern how quick bikes can stop. That's just life, and no amount of pressure groups or debating can change it... I feel sorry for the dog and it's owner, but these things happen.

 

[Crackle]

With slight apologies to the OP for my initial reaction, I'm not sure what the point of these threads are except to breed resentment. I use a shared use leisure path like the Taff trail every day, sometimes twice a day. I run on it, cycle on it, walk on it and in every case I have a dog with me. I guess I am the very definition of a multi-use user, if only I had a horse.

Incidents are vanishingly rare. I've never, in 4 years, had one and in the 10 years I used it infrequently before that I never did either, unless you count nearly hitting another cyclist when neither of us should have been cycling on it as it was no cycling at the time. That they made it a shared use path, I'm eternally grateful for as a cyclist and see it as a privilege to use, not a right.

I have seen two incidents: A bloke hit a dog and went down in a kind of slow motion crash and a cyclist, going way too fast on a narrow section and not slowing down for anyone, clipped someone's shoulder, hit a hedge and just recovered himself but apart from that nothing. And yet resentment from all parties exists and sometimes comes out in the letters page of the local rag.

I'll give you a little anecdote because I'm feeling generous. I've just come back from a run with the dog. We came across one dog who every time he sees us chases us and runs between our feet. I'm only one trip away from a muddy entanglement and so today I decided to tackle it. Did I boot the dog, yell at the owner, scream obscenities: No. I stopped, called the dog over, stroked him, introduced him to my dog, they all had a good sniff and then I waved to the owner and we carried on, sans dog chase. A few minutes later we came across a horse on the cycle and pedestrian path and not the bridleway. Did I yell, shout, instruct the rider to get off, no. I called the dog from heel and slipped his lead on, called out to the rider if it was OK to pass, who thanked me and replied it was and her horse loves Labradors and we carried on. Just a few moments later we came towards a Jack Russell and I could instantly tell he didn't like my dog and that the owner was not going to get hold of him. Sure enough he darted between my feet but as I was ready, I leapt over him, turned and smiled at the owner.

I suppose what I should really have done is started three separate threads on here expressing my displeasure but I guess I'm just not that inadequate.

 

[CopperCyclist]

Crackle sums it all up. Complaints can quite often say more about the person complaining than the actual incident.

It's even shown it the one mentioned in the OP. Dog owner doesn't state whether dog was under control or not (I use this term rather than on a lead), and focuses more on the speed of the cyclist being the factor that caused the injury - where to be honest I'd think once the impacts made, speed has less to do with injury and it's all about relative weight of dog to bike.

As with Crackle, I both cycle and walk dogs on a variety of paths. My dogs are rarely on leads on the paths, but they are under control. They are called to me to heel and stay when we approach a corner or pass anyone else, regardless of their mode of transport, and if the other person looks a bit wary I will clip them on a lead purely to give the other person some confidence. Like Crackle, I also have no incidents to report... though I'm sure if someone else was in my shoes they'd point out some things that didn't register to me as issues.

 

[youngoldbloke]

Recently I have been bitten on the ankle by a lurcher, dangerously menaced by a Jack Russell, and on a club run a colleague seriously bitten by a Weimaraner (needed hospital treatment). In all these cases the dogs were roaming free outside their owners homes, treating the lane as extension of their territory, and we were obviously trespassing. OK these weren't shared use paths but they were shared use roads. We should be able to expect dogs to be kept under control by their owners.

 

[Moss]

Seems you all agree : "We need to get along while we're on" a walk - run or cycle; afterall, good etiquette and a well mannered attitude costs nothing. Woof, it's mans best friend.

 

[Little yellow Brompton]

With slight apologies to the OP for my initial reaction, I'm not sure what the point of these threads are except to breed resentment. I use a shared use leisure path like the Taff trail every day, sometimes twice a day. I run on it, cycle on it, walk on it and in every case I have a dog with me. I guess I am the very definition of a multi-use user, if only I had a horse.

Incidents are vanishingly rare. I've never, in 4 years, had one and in the 10 years I used it infrequently before that I never did either, unless you count nearly hitting another cyclist when neither of us should have been cycling on it as it was no cycling at the time. That they made it a shared use path, I'm eternally grateful for as a cyclist and see it as a privilege to use, not a right.

I have seen two incidents: A bloke hit a dog and went down in a kind of slow motion crash and a cyclist, going way too fast on a narrow section and not slowing down for anyone, clipped someone's shoulder, hit a hedge and just recovered himself but apart from that nothing. And yet resentment from all parties exists and sometimes comes out in the letters page of the local rag.

I'll give you a little anecdote because I'm feeling generous. I've just come back from a run with the dog. We came across one dog who every time he sees us chases us and runs between our feet. I'm only one trip away from a muddy entanglement and so today I decided to tackle it. Did I boot the dog, yell at the owner, scream obscenities: No. I stopped, called the dog over, stroked him, introduced him to my dog, they all had a good sniff and then I waved to the owner and we carried on, sans dog chase. A few minutes later we came across a horse on the cycle and pedestrian path and not the bridleway. Did I yell, shout, instruct the rider to get off, no. I called the dog from heel and slipped his lead on, called out to the rider if it was OK to pass, who thanked me and replied it was and her horse loves Labradors and we carried on. Just a few moments later we came towards a Jack Russell and I could instantly tell he didn't like my dog and that the owner was not going to get hold of him. Sure enough he darted between my feet but as I was ready, I leapt over him, turned and smiled at the owner.

I suppose what I should really have done is started three separate threads on here expressing my displeasure but I guess I'm just not that inadequate.

So in one run you have met an out of control dog that could cause a cyclist a real problem, a dog that you have seen exhibit this behaviour more than once. A horse rider breaking the law and by being where they were they might well have been discouraging the intended users and then another out of control dog that again could well have caused a cyclist a very real problem. Your answer to all of these was to accept them all and wave and smile, you are good...

Mr Chamberlain would have been really proud of you.

Others , with more social responsibilty, would have realised that each of the incidents above could quite easily have gone the wrong way, and that someone else, not you ( you're alright Jack) could be hurt by appeasing those that don't want to follow the social code the rest of us do. Hey ho, don't worry yourself, you haven't been hurt, you continue smilling and waving , being nice to people, just go on letting other people sort out the nasty stuff.

Of course, one day, it might be a dog that's a bit bigger, a bit nastier, one day it might be you whose being troubled by unsocial use of a shared space.

All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to stand by.

 

[Boris Bajic]

Edit.... Mr Chamberlain would have been really proud of you.... Edit.

Yes!! That's exactly it!!

Why has nobody else spotted the obvious link between taking a sanguine view of behaviours observed on shared-use paths and appeasing a tyrant who wants to take over a Central Europen state.

This is a weakness in the laissez-faire approach that I spotted straight away.

As the poem says: "First they took their dogs off leads, but I said nothing because I didn't have a dog".

We must stand shoulder to shoulder against the fearsome barrage that is.... chihuahuas running amock in Neasden.

World peace is threatened. Act now!

 

[Crackle]

So in one run you have met an out of control dog that could cause a cyclist a real problem, a dog that you have seen exhibit this behaviour more than once. A horse rider breaking the law and by being where they were they might well have been discouraging the intended users and then another out of control dog that again could well have caused a cyclist a very real problem. Your answer to all of these was to accept them all and wave and smile, you are good...

Mr Chamberlain would have been really proud of you.

Others , with more social responsibilty, would have realised that each of the incidents above could quite easily have gone the wrong way, and that someone else, not you ( you're alright Jack) could be hurt by appeasing those that don't want to follow the social code the rest of us do. Hey ho, don't worry yourself, you haven't been hurt, you continue smilling and waving , being nice to people, just go on letting other people sort out the nasty stuff.

Of course, one day, it might be a dog that's a bit bigger, a bit nastier, one day it might be you whose being troubled by unsocial use of a shared space.

All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to stand by.

I have trouble taking you seriously these days. Let me think about that and get back to you when I've stopped chuckling.

 

[Andy_R]

Yes!! That's exactly it!!

Why has nobody else spotted the obvious link between taking a sanguine view of behaviours observed on shared-use paths and appeasing a tyrant who wants to take over a Central Europen state.

This is a weakness in the laissez-faire approach that I spotted straight away.

As the poem says: "First they took their dogs off leads, but I said nothing because I didn't have a dog".

We must stand shoulder to shoulder against the fearsome barrage that is.... chihuahuas running amock in Neasden.

World peace is threatened. Act now!

What do we want? We don't know. When do we want it? Whenever.......

 

[Crackle]

So in one run you have met an out of control dog that could cause a cyclist a real problem, a dog that you have seen exhibit this behaviour more than once. A horse rider breaking the law and by being where they were they might well have been discouraging the intended users and then another out of control dog that again could well have caused a cyclist a very real problem. Your answer to all of these was to accept them all and wave and smile, you are good...

Mr Chamberlain would have been really proud of you.

Others , with more social responsibilty, would have realised that each of the incidents above could quite easily have gone the wrong way, and that someone else, not you ( you're alright Jack) could be hurt by appeasing those that don't want to follow the social code the rest of us do. Hey ho, don't worry yourself, you haven't been hurt, you continue smilling and waving , being nice to people, just go on letting other people sort out the nasty stuff.

Of course, one day, it might be a dog that's a bit bigger, a bit nastier, one day it might be you whose being troubled by unsocial use of a shared space.

All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to stand by.

I think you're reading too much into one post and you forget, I'm a cyclist.

I'll deal with the specifics in a mo but stand aside, no, not me. I've fallen out with some of my fellow dog walkers on issues of shared use and picking up and I've made my views clear on controlling their dogs. Likewise I've shouted at cyclists behaving like idiots, rare but it happens, I've even stepped in front of one to get him to slow down and informed others that they shouldn't be cycling across the green. I've challenged people doing suspicious things on the path, luckily the soft dog I own showed another side and backed me up, as there were several of them, all bigger than me. So no, I'm not afraid to confront people when the time is right and it's important.

On the two dogs who chased me, well they were after my dog, the first never bothers with bikes and the 2nd I don't know. It's a double edged sword running with the dog, on the whole the positives outweigh the negatives, he generally keeps other dogs away from me and I've had far more trouble running than cycling. From the innocent, picking up an excited dog who wants to run with me to the feel of a pair of teeth clenching around my heel. It doesn't happen with the dog because they go for him, not me and he can outmanoeuvre them.

I know the first dog, I know (sort of) the person who owns him, there's a story if you're prepared to look. She has two dogs, one always on a lead, older and this younger one. It used to be him that walked them. Then I saw him less and less and her more and then I saw him no more. I asked and a few people told me he'd died. So she walks the dog and then she got another. She's not young and a bit unsteady herself but always well presented and I guess the dogs are her only companions now. The only time he leaves her side is when he sees me, so it is my problem and I sorted it.

The horse. Well it's a puzzle why it was on the walking path mixing it with dogs and cyclists but at a guess I'd say there was a reason. Possibly a tree blocking the bridleway, not uncommon and it has been windy. It's actually the first horse I've ever seen on the path and why would any rider want to do that voluntarily.

I guess you know all this, or you could guess it. It's easy to read between the lines and glean more. You should try it, I recommend it, you're far too much a straight line thinker.

 

[Little yellow Brompton]

Yes!! That's exactly it!!

Why has nobody else spotted the obvious link between taking a sanguine view of behaviours observed on shared-use paths and appeasing a tyrant who wants to take over a Central Europen state.

This is a weakness in the laissez-faire approach that I spotted straight away.

As the poem says: "First they took their dogs off leads, but I said nothing because I didn't have a dog".

We must stand shoulder to shoulder against the fearsome barrage that is.... chihuahuas running amock in Neasden.

World peace is threatened. Act now!

Feel free to scoff ( Oh right, yes, you did ! ) but anti social behaviour is a continuum , there is no further marked line between "Thats ok the little doggy is just having fun" to " Get that effing animal's teeth out of my leg" the line was crossed when the dog was out of control.