I love my county animal control people.
 

We all get chased by dogs. It is just one of the common hazards for cyclists. Where I ride, we have a few "usual suspects", one of which we call Scraps. A little mutt dog that loves to run along when we ride by on our tandem. It barks and runs for the fun of it. Completely harmless.
Now down the road from our house, we have a place where their dogs are usually tied up. Monday afternoon, I cut my commute from home short by 8 miles and came up the road on which we live. When I approached this house a pitbull looking dog that I've not seen there before made a beeline for me and came up behind on the right side of my bike. Another dog from the house, a medium sized boxer mix was late getting started but was coming from my front right.
The dog behind me had bared teeth and was making it clear that it had every intention of biting while the other one lunged at me a couple of times once it closed the distance. A dog chase isn't too big of a deal, but this was the closest that I've come to being bitten in several years.
I immediately called animal control but got a busy signal. And kept getting busy signals. When it finally rang it rolled over to voice mail that was full. I then sent them an e-mail with full details. The next day after calling and calling to no avail, I sent another e-mail from work. Yesterday, I rode over to the shelter which is only a few blocks from work and spoke with one of the animal control officers. I gave him the details and as I was leaving, he left to go pay the house a visit. I was happy to see them take action like they did.

Now, my wife is legally blind. She can see to a degree and well enough to ride on a familiar road if the traffic isn't too bad. But, she really loves riding with me on our tandems (road and mountain). It is easy for her as she doesn't need to worry about shifting, avoiding road hazards or braking. We ride on the road where we live quite regularly and I have no doubt that if these dogs had come out at us on the tandem, we would have either gone down or she'd have been bitten.

I was just very pleased to see our county employees take threats to our safety in a serious manner.

Well, as I read it, your animal control can't be bothered to answer the phone or clear their answering machine so you can leave a message. They don't respond to email. You had to actually go in person for your complaint. How is that good? Was it resolved?
Just another POV

Govt employees are very much hit and miss, most care more about losing their jobs than actually performing them competently (or at all). You can only get into trouble doing "something", so most play it safe and do "nothing", often to the point of absurdity.

Among federal employees, some of them are truly outstanding at what they do, but most take full advantage of the fact that it's so difficult to get rid of them.

Well, if it's like a lot of government agencies, they've been given too much to do, and not enough staff and resources to do it.

Well it goes around and around. You want tax cuts? Some of that comes from government departments. And in turn, they hire and pay their employees as low as they can because anything that appears to be reasonable will be a target of criticism for the lousy work they do. So the low pay gives you the people of that skill level.

Back to topic, sort of. The path I usually take has a sign saying dogs must be leashed. The other dayI saw a pit bull or a bull dog that seemed to be running freely. Then I looked and it was on a leash but the leash was dragged behind on the ground while the owner was doing something else.

The animal shelter and animal control share the same phone and building but have different offices. With the sheer volume of strays in our area, I can only imagine how many phone calls that they get each day. It is a PITA to have to drop by to get some action taken but at least they took it seriously which is better than some local jurisdictions. for that, I am satisfied enough.

I used to work as a police/fire/EMS dispatcher, so I'm well aware of how agencies need to keep their "public face." Not answering calls, clearing out voice mail, or answering email gives the impression that they just don't care. Most people will get very annoyed if they have to visit the shelter in person in order to get something done.

I have never had any contact with animal control, but carry a good Pepper Spray to deal with unfriendly dogs.

I've seriously considered getting some pepper spray. I've been chased a couple times, one of them nipped my heel. Had I been just a little bit slower, he'd probably have gotten my whole foot.

Animal control hasn't been helpful, in the places where my family has lived. In one city, by the time animal control showed up, they said they couldn't find the loose dog(s).

In another, an animal control employee decided to be a rude jerk and cop an attitude with me because he couldn't locate a stranger's dog that had bitten me--even though I'd already given the street and a nearby address of where I'd suspected the dog had come from(which had been sent to his department, by the hospital)--acting as though it was all my fault for not exactly knowing who owned the dog (because I was new to the area, and the dog had come up, silently, behind me), rather than being angry and frustrated with the owner for having a loose dog bite me in the first place.

How nice of a stranger to blame a dog bite victim who was in pain and who didn't know if they were now going to be permanently disabled.

No matter how good you are, if you're given too many jobs to do, something is going to suffer. It's political leadership that won't tell voters you only get what you pay for that's to blame. I'm not doing another bad dog thread, they never end well.

This summer my ex-GF was taken out by a dog. Thing rushed out from a property and hit her from behind as she was descending. She never even saw the thing. Suffered a brain bleed and was in a rehab hospital for weeks. This happened in a tony area. Both the police and animal control showed up. The dog owner is being prosecuted on three charges. She claims she has an electric fence. It clearly was ineffective. When my ex's lawyer's investigator went to take photos of the scene the dog was again unleashed and roaming free on the property.

When I returned to saddle after decades away, I expected I'd have to deal with a lot of dogs as I ride mostly in rural areas. Back in the 70s, rural areas always had a lot of loose dogs. However, I've had very few problems and I expect that has to do with good animal control folks. I've never called them, but there are enough club riders in the area that my guess is any dogs that cause problems are reported by the groups.

We don't need animal control, we need animal owner control. Every negative instance of dog interaction I've ever had can be traced back to the "Dumb Owner Group" which generally manifests by not keeping Mr. Fluffy on a leash, because Mr. Fluffy would never do anything like that!

I ran over Mr. Fluffy two weeks ago because Mr. Fluffy was yapping and snarling at everyone on the local MUP I ride. Being unleashed, Mr. Fluffy decided to lunge at my front tire, went under it instead, and managed to get run over with the rear tire, too. Poor Mr. Fluffy. Mr. Fluffy also managed to warp my front disk rotor.

I managed to keep the bike upright, which is good, because had I wrecked my wife would have had to come and post bail.

:lol: over the years we have became to local dog catchers. I’m stuck between fairly large ranches and when their dogs escape they find me. They hear my KISS/AC/DC music jamming and they come on over :D I keep them bound in the yard with fresh water. Call the owners and say take your time they are safe. I get the know the renegade dogs by name and I tell the apologetic neighbors to quit apologizing it ain’t no big deal. Good fences make good neighbors we say here in Texas.

*become. That thing called grammar.

* become the. Dang gettin sleepy

I've been bitten on my ankle once, that dog was picked up eventually (I've already told that story) and I gave a smaller dog a short kick to the head once and sent him off confused...I used my bike as a shield and backed up one belligerent dog who was also threatening to some kids. The owner couldn't understand why I had their animal taken away but it was not on a chain and just rn out of the yard. I told them that I do love dogs, but I can't fathom owners who can't figure out keeping their dogs at bay.

Was it all the dog's fault? They are territorial and chasing comes from not being trained to know boundaries. So yes, while I didn't care for the dog's behavior I really didn't think a lot of the owner's attitude.

Owning a pet is a responsibility, not a right.

I carry Pepper Spray and had to use it only once when the dog owner was standing nearby as the dog was circling me.
Rather than being chased, I prefer to get off my bike and give the dog my full attention.