Annoying Beagle encounter

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

So I was doing my usual 21 mile ride this morning, minding my own business, on familiar roads. I was on a back country paved road with a few fields nearby and farms, with pretty woods on either side of the road. Everything nice and pleasant...
Suddenly out of NOWHERE there is this shrieking beagle barking at the top of his lungs about two feet from my pedals. SCARED THE LIFE OUT OF ME!!!! Never heard a peep, never saw him before, didn't hear him coming, don't know where he came from. If there had been a curb in front of me my bike would have hopped right over it, I jumped so badly. Didn't have time to react or do anything but keep riding, and a dozen yards further I looked in my helmet mirror to see the little sh*t standing in the middle of the road back there looking all full of himself.

I got mad.

I turned around in the road and started riding back towards him (my mace in easy grabbing position just in case, though I didn't think I'd need it). He looked a bit worried then and backed up just one dainty pooch step in the middle of the road. That's when I knew I had him. I got within 15 feet of him and then got off my bike and started stomping towards him, hiking boots, bike and all, hollering in my most frightening deep bellow "BAD DOG!!! YOU BAD DOG!!! NO!!! BAD DOG!!! GO HOME YOU BAD DOG!!!"

Oh man you should have seen him! :D :D :D He got this look of total SHAME and HUMILIATION on his face, tucked in his little Girly Tail and ran off into the woods like the devil was after him. I loved it! :D :D

On the ride back I kept my eyes peeled for him at that spot but I think he was probably off at a therapy session or something.

[mimitabby]

Good Work Lisa, that dog will think twice the next time he sees a bicyclist!

[Chile Pepper]

Too funny! I hate dog encounters--there are so many dogs running loose here. I've been known to get off and walk past them, rather than risk an attack on the bike.

Last week on an ascent there was a German shepherd on the right and a pit bull on the left. Neither made a move as I slowly passed them, until a cocker spaniel came flying out of nowhere, yapping at my heels. Then the pit bull decided it had better watch the cocker's back. :eek: My scary bellowing didn't do a thing for the dogs, but it did get the owner out of the house. :rolleyes:

[pooks]

Hysterical, Lisa! (You ride in hiking boots?)

I've had close encounters with a pit bull, a mastiff and a chihuahua. The only one that decided to attack me was the chihuahua. (Which was scary because he was darting at me too close and I thought I was going to run over him.)

[SouthernBelle]

Lisa, you backing down that beagle is such a funny picture.

A couple of weeks ago I had an encounter with a couple of big dogs. It was the first time I have ever stopped the bike, gotten off and put it between myself and the dog. Since then I got a can of Halt, just for that one dog. Normally I use a milder citrus spray.

[divingbiker]

Good Work Lisa, that dog will think twice the next time he sees a bicyclist!

As the owner of two cocker spaniels who HATE bicycles, I doubt that this is true. I have tried for 10 years to sensitize my dogs to bikes, they see me riding mine every day, and still every time we encounter one while out for a walk they freak out. It's quite embarrassing, but I've resigned myself to their bad behavior and I just control them as best I can. Of course, they're never off leash so they're literally "all bark, no bite."

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Hysterical, Lisa! (You ride in hiking boots?)

Yep, when it's 36 degrees out and snowing i do! :eek: ;)

I would not have gone storming back after a german shepard or pitbull hollering like I did, that's for sure....but beagles, labs and goldens seem to respond well to reprimands, at least for me. ;)

[pooks]

Oh yeah, my lab would scare the britches off anybody who only heard him bark, but as soon as they saw he was just a big old goofball lab? They'd know him for the pushover he is.

I've often wondered if he'd defend me. He only seems to be territorial about other dogs and even when I asked a friend who was coming over to bang on the front door and make a lot of racket, and I cowered and acted afraid, Jake just kind of stared at me with his tongue hanging out, tail gently wagging, trying to figure out if there was a game afoot and where was the ball?

[teigyr]

Beagles are so cute but also so difficult to train! Hopefully your intervention worked. Poor dog, it really is bad for owners to not keep the dog fenced, especially if the dog is a runner.

Pooks, you never know. I always would go walk my parents dogs (my favorite activity in the world but unfortunately, I am never in the position to have one of my own!). One of them was a big goofy samoyed. He was impossible to train and acted completely scattered.

One day on a walk, we hiked up a canyon. A man in a truck (wide canyon with off-road potential) drove near me to ask me something. The german shepherd who was well trained sat when I stopped walking. The samoyed actually started walking circles around me. When the guy got closer, the samoyed started doing the circles faster and he started growling. Goofy dog but he was obviously trying to protect me :) Dogs are pretty intuitive so maybe your dog knew it was a test.

[Mr. Bloom]

'cause she can talk to animals, it's incredible, to chatter with a chimp or chimpanzee!

[pooks]

Lisa -- how long does it take you to do your "usual" 21 mile ride? (Sounds lovely.)

[Wahine]

This is yet another reason why I still ride with a full sized frame pump. Makes for a good defence tool.

I had a bullmastiff. 130 lbs. Was the worst guard dog on the planet. I couldn't teach him to protect anything. I swear that anyone could walk into my house and take whatever they wanted and he wouldn't care. One day we were out for a walk and we came across two men acting kinda strange. I think they might have been in the middle of a drug deal or something. All of a sudden I hear this noise like rumbling thunder, but there was not a cloud in the sky. I realized it was my dog growling. I'd never heard him growl before. He never lunged or did anything aggressive, he just kept rumbling in his very wide chest and stood between me and the men. I nearly passed out from shock. He would actually protect something, me!! I miss him soooooo much.

[Bikingmomof3]

An excellent job Lisa. :) Thank you for sharing this with us. It brought a smile to my face. :D

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Lisa -- how long does it take you to do your "usual" 21 mile ride? (Sounds lovely.)

Pooks... I am not a fast rider. I laugh when the other gals here complain about their "slow" averages of 15mph on rides! (you are probably thinking YOU are a slow rider right now, but you'll feel way better after you read about MY average speed)...

To be fair, we have a LOT of steep hills everywhere here. My bike weighs 30 pounds loaded (luckily I am not overweight myself), I'm almost 53, and I've only been biking since last year. All this adds up to a really slow average speed of 9 to 10mph. :o I've never ridden in flat areas so I'm not sure what my average speed would be in that situation.
I've come a long way since I started last summer, panting and gasping along back then. I am much stronger now, and I'm trying to further strengthen my leg muscles with some harder longer rides now that winter is over, and I've started some stair climbing sessions at home as well.
Once I get more muscle I should be able to cut a bit more time off my hill climbing- that's what pulls my speed mph down dramatically... sometimes I'm actually climbing the steeper hills at 2.5mph! It usually takes me about 2 hours and 10-15 minutes to do my regular 21 mile ride. :eek: But I'm working on it, and meanwhile I do have a great time and am getting fitter! :)

And yes it IS lovely riding around here- rolling hills and fields and farmland and little villages. I feel VERY lucky that way. We ride a lot of wooded gravel back roads and we purposely got bikes that could take heavier tires so we could do a lot of that kind of riding. :) There is a 30 mile ride DH and I invented that we like to bike sometimes- we call it "The Five Chathams"- because it takes us through all our local hamlets of Chatham, North Chatham, East Chatham, Chatham Center, and Old Chatham!

[li10up]

It's quite embarrassing, but I've resigned myself to their bad behavior and I just control them as best I can. Of course, they're never off leash so they're literally "all bark, no bite."
As dog owners we should never resign ourselves to their bad behavior. ALL dogs can be trained...but usually it is the owner that needs the training first in how to train the dog. If I may offer a bit of advice...you must correct the dog's behavior BEFORE the outburst happens. You can see when a dog becomes fixated on something. That's when the correction is needed. A pull of the leash and a verbal correction at that point, done on a CONSISTANT basis, will correct the dog's behavior. Please don't give up. The people they are "attacking" don't know the dogs are "all bark, no bite." I think all dog owners should watch the TV show "Dog Whisper." Cesar Millan is amazing! He really KNOWS dogs! You'll learn a lot from that show. I'm in the process of rehabilitating my dog's fear of thunder. It was a lot easier to just lock him in his crate...but instead this last time I worked with him and he actually eventually went to his crate and laid down on his own...nice and calm. It was amazing. I lost some sleep that night but it will be better for him and me in the long run.

[DebW]

While a dog chasing a lone cyclist will tend to stay behind or to the side of the bike, generally allowing you to keep pedaling and outrun the dog, I once had a different situation. I was pedaling with a group and the dog went for the bike ahead of me. I couldn't avoid it, hit the dog, and went down. My bike and I weren't hurt, but my wool Stil-long long underwear pants (worn under my shorts) were torn at the knee. Given that these were expensive wool long underwear and I was a poor student at the time, I actually went to the home that the dog came from and knocked on the door. My attempts to get the owner of the dog to pay for a new pair of Stil-longs were unsuccessful, and I later was able to patch them. Just a note that dog encounters don't always end as positively as Lisa's.

Then there are the country dogs that will wait for you 1/2 way up a hill...

[mimitabby]

Then there are the country dogs that will wait for you 1/2 way up a hill...

Yup, that's the kind I get off the bike for and start purposefully walking towards and tell them to GO HOME.

[Jo-n-NY]

Lisa, you dog encounter made me laugh. If I wasn't afraid I could see myself doing the same thing.

The rides you take sound so lovely to me also. It doesn't matter the pace, the main thing is you are enjoying yourself and becoming fitter at the same time. I think it is wonderful!!!

~ JoAnn

[liberty]

Once I was flying down a hill and saw two huge dogs at the bottom, lying in the middle of the road. They got up and began to act all aggressive towards me, and I knew I wouldn't be able to stop by the time I reached them. So I began to scream and shriek at the top of my lungs. Freaked the poor things out. They jumped out from in front of me. :) Makes for a nice story, but there's no way I'll go down that hill that fast again. Dogs are awfully unpredictable. Good thing they don't drive cars. :)

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Once I was flying down a hill and saw two huge dogs at the bottom, lying in the middle of the road. They got up and began to act all aggressive towards me, and I knew I wouldn't be able to stop by the time I reached them. So I began to scream and shriek at the top of my lungs. Freaked the poor things out. They jumped out from in front of me. :)

I would have loved to have seen that. :D :D :eek:

Speaking of startling a dog...
Many years ago my mother was visiting me in Puerto Rico. My mother was a real unique character- never a dull moment. Strange things always happened to her. (probably because she instigated them)
My neighbor Annie had a little pekinese that was rather nasty and would sometimes bite people, but she kept in inside her gated patio. I was walking with my mother and we stopped to say hello to the neighbor through her iron grated fence. The little pooch was there behind the iron fence with his eyes bugging out hoping to get lucky and chomp down on someone.
Well while Annie and I were talking, my mother unexpectedly suddenly reached down and put her hand inside the bars to pet the little dog's head, and Annie and I were jumping to stop her, but it was too late to stop what was happening! :(
HOWEVER...as my mother's hand reached down and the little dog simultaneously leaped up with mouth open to chomp down on her hand, somehow her finger went right down the dog's throat! :eek: I honestly don't know who was the most surprised- the dog, my mother, the neighbor or myself! But the wee bug-eyed doggie jumped back gagging and ran off all distressed into the house to escape the Strange Lady, and my mother couldn't figure out how her finger wound up going down the dog's throat and started apologizing. Annie and I had a good laugh over that one for months afterwards. Whenever we wanted a good laugh one of us would simply make the finger-down-the-throat gesture...

[divingbiker]

As dog owners we should never resign ourselves to their bad behavior. ALL dogs can be trained...but usually it is the owner that needs the training first in how to train the dog.

Thanks for the advice, but I've been through obedience training with both dogs, had a specialist come out to work with us, and one dog got Canine Good Citizen certification and was a therapy dog in a nursing home till his arthritis got too bad.

It might be easy to yank on the leash and train one dog when a bike comes by, but when two (or three, before one of them died) go berserk at once, I'm happy to just be able to keep them under control. People who have walked multiple dogs understand this...it's a whole different ball game than walking one dog.

We hide behind parked cars when I see a bike coming, and I manage the situation. As I said, they're always leashed so the situation Lisa encountered can't happen with my dogs.

(I am hesitant to post this because I don't intend to get into a war of words about dog training, but I don't care for the insinuation that I haven't trained my dogs.)

[li10up]

divingbiker, I'm not insuinuating that you haven't trained your dogs at all. YOU said you resigned yourself to their BAD behaviour, not me. Dogs can be trained but still have an area or two that they need work in. That doesn't make the owner a bad person. Sometimes we just don't know what to do to correct the problem. Maybe working with one at a time would help. For years I didn't know what to do about my dog's fear of thunder. But after watching the show I mentioned I've come up with another thing to try and it worked. I've seen him take dogs, sometimes 2 or 3, which were nearly impossible to take for a walk because they would lunge at every passing person\bike\skateboard\dog or whatever and get them to walk with each other - plus he'd throw in a couple of his dogs. So, I think there is always a way to help our dogs.

I meant my post to be in no way an attack on you or your dogs. Just to say we have an obligation to not give up when it comes to our pets and to offer a possible solution.

[SouthernBelle]

There's a real thread killer.

[Aint Doody]

Sorta on the same topic--I have a friend who says he had a friend who used a dog whistle when being chased by dogs. I've ordered one. Anybody have any experience with those? I thought that would be great to hang around my neck and just blow like mad when the dogs head after me. My experience with Halt is that the dogs around here seem to have figured out just how far to stay away from the stream. I also had one dog that I got right in the face with Halt, and it never even fazed him.

[xeney]

Heh. The Dog Whisperer cracks me up, because it is always really obvious when they are setting up the worst possible behavior for him to come in and magically fix. And I bet they just don't air the segments where he fails.

Dogs aren't computers. Training is important, control is crucial, but the idea that if a dog still has a behavioral problem, that automatically means that the owner just hasn't worked hard enough to find the magical solution ... to me, that sounds like a fantasy land, and I would never trust a trainer who made a claim like that. Particularly not in regard to a fear issue.

We took one of our dogs to one of the top behaviorists in the country because her fear problems were so bad when she was a puppy, and she told us straight up: you can make this dog safe, you make her a dog you can live with, but you can't make her perfect. Let go of that idea, because she is always going to be a fearful dog. Dog fears are almost as complex as human fears, and in some ways they are harder to treat because a dog can't take an intellectual approach to her fears.

(But none of my dogs are even slightly afraid of or even interested in bicycles. In our house that would be like fearing the coffee table. Bicycle pumps, on the other hand ... just because of that one time when my husband made a tire explode. That was a couple of years ago but they still try to hide behind me whenever he gets out the floor pump or takes a wheel off a bike.)

[pooks]

One of our dogs cowers whenever my husband carries a flashlight into the yard. We've had her since she was a wee pup so we wonder if someone came into our yard and hit her with something like a flashlight at some point when we weren't home. It's possible since the electric meter is on our house and the meter readers have been known to leap over the fence and come in to read it. (Now they just use binoculars to read it from outside the yard.)

When I was riding last week I was on a bike trail passing by a small pond when I saw a herd of geese all gathered on the trail ahead of me. Some were laying down; a few were standing and stretching their necks (not at me) and none were really looking at me. I've always heard geese can be agressive so I regretfully got off my bike and walked it around them, giving them a wide berth.

But boy did I want to just sail through the middle of them yelling and watch them all flapping and honking and lying away in a tizzy.

[PinkBike]

i was riding on the multi-use path thru the greenbelt and a guy was feeding the ducks from the lake right in the path!!! i rode right off the path thru the grass to the street til i got waaaaaaayyyyyyyy past them. you just caint trust ducks

[lph]

I ride through a flock of Canadian geese every day in summer. They can see me coming, they have a humongous grass field to wander around on, and they still manage to get all het up when I ride through on the path :D

I try to aim right at their backsides though, they're pretty good at speeding up and getting out of the way but not very good at stopping. In fact they would probably try to take my shin out if I passed in front of them. Silly birds.

[li10up]

Heh. The Dog Whisperer cracks me up, because it is always really obvious when they are setting up the worst possible behavior for him to come in and magically fix. And I bet they just don't air the segments where he fails.

Dogs aren't computers. Training is important, control is crucial, but the idea that if a dog still has a behavioral problem, that automatically means that the owner just hasn't worked hard enough to find the magical solution ... to me, that sounds like a fantasy land, and I would never trust a trainer who made a claim like that. Particularly not in regard to a fear issue.

We took one of our dogs to one of the top behaviorists in the country because her fear problems were so bad when she was a puppy, and she told us straight up: you can make this dog safe, you make her a dog you can live with, but you can't make her perfect. Let go of that idea, because she is always going to be a fearful dog. Dog fears are almost as complex as human fears, and in some ways they are harder to treat because a dog can't take an intellectual approach to her fears.

(But none of my dogs are even slightly afraid of or even interested in bicycles. In our house that would be like fearing the coffee table. Bicycle pumps, on the other hand ... just because of that one time when my husband made a tire explode. That was a couple of years ago but they still try to hide behind me whenever he gets out the floor pump or takes a wheel off a bike.)I saw him work with a very aggressive dog that they had to put a muzzle on - that dog was nuts. If he was ever going to quit on a dog it would have been that one! That dog would have torn into him if he had a chance. I agree that sometimes they play up the dogs aggressiveness a bit but I really do think he knows dogs. Dogs that are fearful are really tough. My dog gets scared when I take the top off of a tube of Chapstick. :confused: If I make a strange sound with my mouth, like a click or pop, the dog comes unglued. Why would those things bother him. I can't seem to figure out how to get him over all his fears but I'm still trying. But if his fear caused him to lunge after other people or dogs I definately would keep on trying to resolve it.

We have a lot of ducks that hang out around the trail by the river. I'm always amazed when they just sit there and let you work your way through them. I always expect a bunch of wing flapping and feathers flying. But they are just as calm as can be. I guess because they are used to lots of people being around. It's still weird though.

[fikustree]

When I was a little girl I was riding my bike down the big hill ;) in our neighborhood and this stupid annoying Scottie dog named Pebbles burst in front of me mid hill. I screamed, tried to get out of the way, ran over him with the bike (I will never forget the sight of him belly up under my wheel), then I fell off and cut my face. I still have the scar! So I can totally feel your pain.

As for Cease-

A lot of people in the dog behaviorist community are really critical of Caesar's show because he teaches an older form of "training" that might encourage people who don't know a lot about dogs to unknowingly hurt them physically and emotionally.
This blog discusses both sides of the issue.

As for annoying Beagles- I certainly know about that, I have two! I would never let them outside unleashed because they are bred to be independent hunting dogs that for generations were taught, "If you see something run after it barking" it is pretty hard to undo! I grew up with a Cocker and they are the same way.

[Momof5]

I was running in a small town near my home on Easter Sunday when I was bitten by a doberman pincher on my calf. It was really frightening to say the least and the dog owner initially denied that it was his dog. I spent the entire afternoon in the emergency room, not to mention the anxiety of not knowing whether or not he had gotten his shots. (he did). I am not someone who's normally afraid of dogs but this experience and the fact that it was so quick and aggressive has raised my anxiety level about dogs. I'm now sticking to my neighborhood which might be faulty thinking bit I do feel safer.

[Aint Doody]

Wow, Momof5--that is scary. Did he sneak up on you?

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

I was running in a small town near my home on Easter Sunday when I was bitten by a doberman pincher on my calf. It was really frightening to say the least and the dog owner initially denied that it was his dog. I spent the entire afternoon in the emergency room, not to mention the anxiety of not knowing whether or not he had gotten his shots. (he did). I am not someone who's normally afraid of dogs but this experience and the fact that it was so quick and aggressive has raised my anxiety level about dogs. I'm now sticking to my neighborhood which might be faulty thinking bit I do feel safer.

I hope you are pursuing the matter legally. At the very least you should get all your medical bills paid (and then some) and it will also strongly encourage those owners to keep their aggressive dog securely restrained. If they go scot-free this time, the next person bitten might be a toddler in the face. :(

[Momof5]

Hi robyn, i was told a couple of days ago that the owners were putting the dog down. apparently he had been getting into trouble around the neighborhood. I will pursue this legally for at least the medical bills. the other day i was with my girls. one of them delivers newspapers. my youngest daughter bent down to kiss a small dog on the face. I felt terrible afterwards because i reacted with such alarm she couldn't believe it. It's amazing how an experience like this can change your thinking.

[limewave]

DH was running in our neighborhood yesterday and was attacked by a dog. He got bit badly in the behind. There was a big blood stain on his pants. I cleaned it and dressed it for him. He hasn't reported it yet but I am strongly urging him to. We live in a very Mr. Rogers Neighborhood area and the elementary school is only a block from where this dog lives. The family with the dog just moved into the house on Friday. Anyways, I jog and ride by that house all the time and I don't want to be afraid of a dog attack. Especially since I almost always have DD with me.

[pooks]

He runs a risk of getting a really nasty infection from a dog bite. He should see a doc and probably get some antibiotics. I had no idea how dangerous it could be until my niece was bitten.

And yes, it has to be reported. It's just not safe.

I'm a dog lover. I don't say these things easily or lightly.

Good luck.

[xeney]

Yeah, he needs to see a doctor even if the dog has had its shots. My husband got in the middle of a spat between our dog and our friend's dog, and the friend's dog bit him on the hand. It wasn't an awful bite, and she's not a bad dog and she'd had her shots, but he went to the doctor just because it was in a delicate spot on his hand and thumb and he was worried about ligament damage. He wound up on antibiotics and got a lecture about all the nasties you can get from a dog bite that results in a deep puncture wound. And even with the antibiotics it took a surprisingly long time to heal.

[pooks]

My niece ended up getting two rounds of IV antibiotics before it was over. She stopped to help a dog that had been hit by a car. Oddly, the dog didn't want to be helped.

[pooks]

Actually I was being snarky. The really odd thing was that the family the dog belonged to never said anything to my niece, didn't offer to help pay her medical bills, etc., even though their dog was out of their yard and running free. People are odd.

[Momof5]

I had the same experience. The owner's of the dog that bit me initially denied he did it. It wasn't until there were 3 state police troopers and the dog officer standing in his driveway that he admitted the dog was running around the neighborhood. I shutter to think if it was a child who came upon that dog.

[limewave]

So I called the police to report about DH getting bit in the butt by the dog. The officer laughed out loud--it is pretty funny. Anyways, he's going to stop by the house tonight to interview DH about it. DH isn't going to be happy with me. He doesn't like to cause problems . . . I was hoping I could just make the police aware of it. Oh well. This is probably a good thing.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

So I called the police to report about DH getting bit in the butt by the dog. The officer laughed out loud--it is pretty funny. Anyways, he's going to stop by the house tonight to interview DH about it. DH isn't going to be happy with me. He doesn't like to cause problems . . . I was hoping I could just make the police aware of it. Oh well. This is probably a good thing.

It IS a good thing. It's the right thing to do in order to prevent others from being bitten too. And also- it is not that uncommon for dogs to bite people on the behind while they are walking away- happened to a girlfriend of mine, and she found out later that the same dog had bitten others on the bottom too. It caused a big nasty bruise right through her jeans.

[li10up]

So I called the police to report about DH getting bit in the butt by the dog. The officer laughed out loud--it is pretty funny. Anyways, he's going to stop by the house tonight to interview DH about it. DH isn't going to be happy with me. He doesn't like to cause problems . . . I was hoping I could just make the police aware of it. Oh well. This is probably a good thing.
They should probably take photos for evidence. I think you should post them here too for educational purposes. I'm sure DH won't mind. ;)

[pooks]

My old chihuahua (God rest her soul) only bit two people in her long life. both of them, on the back of the achilles tendon as they were leaving our house. I guess they were lucky she was short!