How is that dog behaving out of control or even not in control?
I don't know, as that's not what I wrote. I wrote that it was not in close control, which is what the CRT code says. In that clip, it's wandered off ahead, doing what it pleases, with glances back to see if it's being told to stop. It's being allowed to lead its pack, basically. That ain't close control and those in my family that own dogs would be putting theirs on the lead if they behaved like that on a towpath or open farmland.
It was better behaved than the man!!
True. The man seems to be out of control!
There is no rule that says a lead is the only way to control a dog and indeed putting a lead on a dog can result in a totally different behaviour from the dog that is possibly worse than the same dog without a lead.
Indeed. Some dogs can remain under close control without a lead, but a short fixed lead is the only way certain to be regarded as such, so if a dog won't behave as if on a short lead, then it probably needs to be put on one. In fact, even some leads aren't sufficient to be under close control: dog on a long unlocked bungee lead that won't return when called isn't under close control either.
So IMHO that dog is under control and it was not the issue here. IMHO the man was and to some extent the decisions made by the cyclist was too. That does not deserve dunking but similarly how do we know that the dunking was really due to a push and not a simple imbalance on the cyclist's part. It is easy to lose balance astride a bike when you are wheeling it along that way.
Agree that it wasn't about the dog. Also, I agree that we don't know for sure (and I didn't say that we did), but the most probable reason is a push, and I understand that her falling into the water to avoid a punch would also be assault.
[...] I do not think the woman has done anything wrong I just think she has not done it the best way.
Maybe not, but it was perfectly acceptable and who does everything the best way every time? I suspect that even if she had done everything the best way possible, an assault was still going to happen. It could even have been worse: if she stopped early and on the hedge side, maybe he would have charged her into the hedge and then kept on striking her, with her not being able to escape into the water.
[...] Conflict is not necessarily the result of a cyclist / pedestrian interaction on a canal towpath. It is possible this might not have happened if things were done differently by the man and the woman cyclist.
It's possible, but we've little evidence to suggest it was likely with that man, so now who's making unsupported assumptions?
