Leads are for dogs!

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John-Ellis

Active Member
Location
Sheffield
Actually, your last sentence sums up every thing I need to know about you.
What, that I'm right.
 

wiggydiggy

Legendary Member
Livestock

Out for a ride Sat in sheep filled fields and an owner got a telling too from a warden-type in a landy for not having her (border collie type ironically!) on a lead, sometimes its not just our convenience that dogs need to be on leads.

Anyway, we can quote HC and shout/wave all we want but generally its safe to assume all dogs are idiots who want to chase things and owners are mostly ok with been asked (not shouted at) to grab their dogs if you are worried, a bit of courtesy does wonders.

Frankly I'd rather meet a dog on shared path than a Centrebus on the roads but thats just me!
 

Crankarm

Guru
Location
Nr Cambridge
If when cycling I encounter a dog that looks like being trouble I unclip what ever shoe is nearest ready just in case. I've only ever had to boot one dog, which looked a nasty piece of work as it attempted to chew me. It backed off pretty quick when it felt my cleats on it's head. I seem to remember the owner shouting foul abuse, but I didn't hang around. I have run over a few dogs that come toward me thinking I am something to chew but fortunately I have always been fully loaded with panniers so the dog has come off worse and I have just ridden on. I used to get chased a lot by dogs when running, jumping up and trying to chew me. Again a swift boot in it's chops or body works wonders. Again foul mouthed owners who have no idea how to control their mutts. They generally walk them as far as the first turd then turn for home or round the local park to crap on the grass so people playing footy get it all over themselves. Yuck.
 

John-Ellis

Active Member
Location
Sheffield
It's sad that i started my original post with no comments directed at anyone just a simple factual story of my weekend events and some general observations. Since my comments seem to be upsetting a certain person so much and since I have made my point I will make this post to this thread my last.

I will however leave this thread with a simple thaught for everyone, if dog owners obeyed the rules and kept there dogs on leads and respected everyones use of the canal paths and other area's would there be a need for this thread in the first place.
 

Crankarm

Guru
Location
Nr Cambridge
It's sad that i started my original post with no comments directed at anyone just a simple factual story of my weekend events and some general observations. Since my comments seem to be upsetting a certain person so much and since I have made my point I will make this post to this thread my last.

I will however leave this thread with a simple thaught for everyone, if dog owners obeyed the rules and kept there dogs on leads and respected everyones use of the canal paths and other area's would there be a need for this thread in the first place.

No.
 
On an MTB ride round Pateley Bridge, a few years ago, my friend was bitten in the leg by a dog that rushed out of someones garden. The owners attitude was really annoying, just pure denial, "my little doggy wouldn't do that"; in spite of the bloody teeth marks on my friends leg.
But that just pales into insignificance compared to the dog menace here; last winter 2 people were killed here in Ankara by wild dog packs.
From bitter experience I know that the dogs in Turkey are nothing like the ones here in the UK. Last winter we were attacked by a pack of 'wild dogs' whilst in the mountains of Afyon (not far from Dinar). It ended our world tour, leaving me needing more than 100 stitches to a leg wound that severed a major artery & major nerve, punctured a major vein and left me with some muscle damage. The same dog bit both my husband and I. From the sounds of things we were lucky!

There is the odd 'bad dog' in the UK but mostly it is bad owners that are the issue.
Despite our experience at the wrong end of a 'bad dog', the dog I walk (and dog sit for) does not have a lead and I would not walk him with one even if he did. He is not a small yappy terrier, but a fully grown adult male Irish Wolf Hound and anyone who tells me I can control him better on a lead is very mistaken (and a cyclist has tried to tell me this!) If he was to take it into his head to go somewhere, chase something etc a lead would not stop him, nor would my physical strength. What stops him is his obedience of his owner & whoever is walking him/looking after him (my OH or myself) - pure and simply. We walk him on a route that is a shared cycleway/bridlepath - converted disused railway. It is a route I regularly cycle, sometimes with him following as part of his walk and the only issue we have with cyclists is that he just wants to catch a smell of them as they go passed. positioning myself between him & the cyclist is all that is needed and anyone who has a dog and can read dogs can tell instantly that he is not a problem, even if they find his size off putting (he is larger than a minature shetland pony that is in fields on his owners land).

I have posted this before on CC - I will never cycle between a dog and its owner; nor will I cycle between adults & children; end of story. I hate it when adults split down the middle and some go one way and the rest go the otherway, leaving you as a cyclist (or car driver for that matter) to go down the middle. I let people know I am there with enough time for them to react safely & without startling them and I will always have my hands covering the brakes. Most dog walkers respond by calling their dogs back, catching them or something along those lines. Dogs are more often than not going to return to their 'pack' and going between them and their 'pack' is asking for trouble. Ensure the dog is between you and its 'pack' and most dogs loose interest quickly. If owners ignore their dog I have generally found the dog is not an issue, the owner knows the dog is not an issue and watching their response will tell you that. Also make sure the dog actually knows you are there - bikes can be surprisingly quiet and not all dogs have good hearing (just like humans), also they get very involved with following scents and bikes can startle them and that is when they are likely to dart back to their 'pack'.

Whilst cycling I have hit rabbits, squirrels and a mountain lemming (don't ask) but never a dog. I have been chased a few times and in all but one incident, stopping terminated the chase.

We do had one overriding memory of a small dog chasing us in Lithuania - said yappy rat thing slipped under a hole in the fence of 'his' home; it then ran under the panniers on my OH's bike and attached itself to his foot. With each pedal stroke my OH lifted this yappy thing off the ground and then slammed it back into the ground. Said yappy thing was now too terrified to let go having tried to bite off more than it could chew and we had to stop to let the thing go...
 

thegravestoneman

three wheels on my wagon
There used to be one or two huge great bl**dy sets of teeth connected to four legs just off the Great North Road outside of Potters Bar, on the way to Cuffley (Kentish Road?). They didn't half get your legs working, they came out of a big house when they could sense a cyclist approaching and chase you for about 50 yards. It would be about thirty years ago but they are still ingrained in my memory. I think it was two dogs but could have been one I never stopped to check but they certainly sounded like they were going to rip you to shreds, always the boost you needed at that stage of your Sunday ride to get you up the incline. I used to take my cycling mates that way and give the heads up just before we got there, guess that might be why I spent so much time cycling on my own? oh happy days!

I cycle on old railway and canal tracks and have my dog on an extendable lead, I keep an eye out for other track users and either shorten the lead or lift him into the basket, if necessary I get off and walk. I cycle at not much more than a walking pace so I am in full control. I have not had any trouble with other cyclists or runners etc as they will all slow down if they perceive a potential hazard as I would do.
 

jdtate101

Ex-Fatman
Had an interesting one yesterday whilst out on the club ride. We were having a short hill sprint up a 1:7 rise (shortish hill) and it was a narrow lane. Halfway up is a house and a car has stopped outside it blocking most of the road. The driver is talking to a dog walker who is taking up the rest of the lane, effectively blocking our path. They can see we are labouring up the road quite fast and doing nothing to get out of the way. The dog is off the leash too. So as I'm in the lead I shout out a warning for them to watch out, followed quickly by another warning to get her dog out of the way. I had visions of either me rolling over the pooch or me going over the handle bars. She did move her dog....and I won the sprint!!^_^

Why do people just stand and do nothing when they can see that they are the problem??? And yes...we did get dirty looks from the dog walker as we went past.
 

Little yellow Brompton

A dark destroyer of biscuits!
Location
Bridgend
It's sad that i started my original post with no comments directed at anyone just a simple factual story of my weekend events and some general observations. Since my comments seem to be upsetting a certain person so much and since I have made my point I will make this post to this thread my last.

I will however leave this thread with a simple thaught for everyone, if dog owners obeyed the rules and kept there dogs on leads and respected everyones use of the canal paths and other area's would there be a need for this thread in the first place.
None at all.
 

John-Ellis

Active Member
Location
Sheffield
Well you did accuse me of being "ignorant, either that or just plain stupid". Just because I am a dog owner.

Well just for a laugh lets look at this in more detail, then I really am done with this,

A bloke or bird walking there dog, they walk past a sign that says "Keep your dog on lead at all times" the bloke or bird ignores it leaving the dog off the lead, hense making them ignorant.

A bloke or a bird ignoring the sign then see's there dog run in front of a cyclist, the cyclist has to brake hard to avoid runing down the dog, the bloke or bird see's there dog do this many times during the walk and does nothing about it and then blames the cyclist, hense making them stupid.

You just cannot argue with my point.

Now I really am done with this, like I said earlier if dog walkers respected the paths and stuck to the rules this thread would not exist.

I wish everyone the best dog walkers included and many a happy mile cycling :smile:
 

DRHysted

Guru
Location
New Forest
Well just for a laugh lets look at this in more detail, then I really am done with this,

A bloke or bird walking there dog, they walk past a sign that says "Keep your dog on lead at all times" the bloke or bird ignores it leaving the dog off the lead, hense making them ignorant.

A bloke or a bird ignoring the sign then see's there dog run in front of a cyclist, the cyclist has to brake hard to avoid runing down the dog, the bloke or bird see's there dog do this many times during the walk and does nothing about it and then blames the cyclist, hense making them stupid.

You just cannot argue with my point.

Now I really am done with this, like I said earlier if dog walkers respected the paths and stuck to the rules this thread would not exist.

I wish everyone the best dog walkers included and many a happy mile cycling :smile:

I'm not arguing I'm just questioning you calling me "ignorant, either that or just plain stupid". Purely because I own a dog, you don't even know how I walk my dog (it's actually dogs seven at the moment). You just got out the paint brush and slapped away.
 
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