Originally Posted by
Newspaper_Nick
I have written this before in another thread and it is my own experience with the dogs, so i am not pushing it as the defacto way of dealing with dog attacks but here goes. All the dogs that attacked me while i was riding "stopped" when i stopped. And they chased me when i tried to outrun them. And again, when i stopped, they also stopped. I am not saying that their aggressive behavior turned into compassion or anything, they still kept on barking at me and showing their teeth and all, but, they did not try to jump on me or eat me. Even when there were more than one of them, they just tried to shoo me off from their territory by taunting me. I figured out that if i try to run away from them, they see me as prey, or a weak coward. But when i stop, get off the bike and face them with a firm stance, they just start to see me as a strong opponent. Now, maybe i have yet to meet my dog nemesis who will jump on me and try to get a bite, but that happened so many times that it has become an automatic response for me. When i am attacked by dogs, i just stop. And they too stop. Just sayin.
Now in order to find where your logic fails ask yourself one question: am I more likely to get bitten if I stop or if I keep moving? Unless your goal as a cyclist is to stand your ground and confront the dog to determine who's alpha, you should be getting away as quickly as possible to avoid being bitten.
When you stop you move from the chase phase to the attack/fight phase and increase the likelihood of being injured. Dogs behave in an innate and predictable way. Therefore, you have to chose to be smarter than the dog.
Originally Posted by
Clem von Jones
This has been my experience too. As a kid I went exploring alone the back roads through the foothills of Marijuanaville near San Francisco and suddenly was surrounded by about seven angry dobermans. They were good dogs though and just doing their job. They forced me to turn back and I did. Running from or violently confronting chasing dogs might save you once, but it's going to be hell for the next cyclist who comes along.
In the old days kids played outside all the time. People also let their dogs roam unleashed. That was normal. My parents told me, "Never run from an aggressive dog. Never tease a dog. It's your evasiveness, fear, and aggression that provoke them." People back then knew this from experience.
It sounds like a limited understanding of dog behavior. The advice you should have gotten should have been, "never run from an aggressive dog" when your back is to the wall. If you can't get away (before he's on you) then you have no choice but to defend yourself. Otherwise, if you have time and distance to get to safety first, then do so.
A moving cyclist already has momentum, so assuming your have safe clearance, you should continue forward. As stated above, the dogs will break off the chase as soon as you leave their territory. Would you stand and try to fight a dog or group of dogs when you can simple step outside the fence? The first phase of safety is always -- avoidance.