Another good reason for a bell

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

The other day, my DH and I were riding along a country road. There was a man up ahead with his back to us, very slowly walking his big German Shepard on the edge of the road.
Well of course we wanted him to know we were coming so that in case his dog wanted to lunge or chase us, he would be forewarned (you know how dogs love to chase/attack bikes!). And we don't like to startle pedestrians from behind as we pass them.
My DH was ahead of me, and called out "hello" ahead of time. The man turned towards him and asked "Yes?" but made no attempt to shorten the leash or anything... by that time my DH had passed him. I was now approaching him on the road, he seemed to be looking in my direction, but that's when I saw that he was blind, and his dog was a guide dog. I rung my bell, and he said to his dog "It's a bicycle".
Naturally we were in no danger from his well trained dog.

[Lise]

Ah, that's a great one!

Yesterday morning, when LynneK and I were riding on the lakefront path, we passed a couple of folks with dogs. I commented that I wished they'd walk their dogs on the outside of the path, though that's seldom the case. Lynne said, "They have a lot more faith in their dogs than I do!" I love dogs, but even playfulness could be disasterous on a bike.

The yesterday afternoon I took the bike out to try out a saddle, rode through a park where dogs are sometimes off leash. Two little guys frisked up to me, one stood right in front of me in the path where I'd come to a complete stop. Friendly, but a solid little bundle, and I wouldn't have wanted to connect with a wheel!

As you say, a well-trained guide dog is a joy to be around.

[lph]

Sweet story

But in general.. what IS it with dogs and bicycles? Here we have one of the most intelligent animals around, (sometimes) well-trained, used to people and all their technical gizmos... and the first thing they can think of to do when they see a bike is "OOOH, let me run up and plant my nose right in those spokes!!"

Don't get me wrong, I love dogs, but they're singularly stupid around bikes.

[xeney]

I guess that is an advantage to having ten or eleven bikes crowding up my living room ... my dogs are all very respectful of bikes because bikes run over tails and make loud noises if you knock them over.

And after a couple of months where my husband was trying to make an old steel wheel set work and kept blowing up tubes, our dogs now run and hide if they see a bike pump. The 85-pound lab-pit mix climbs on my lap and shivers as soon as my husband takes a wheel off a bike.

We made sure to socialize them all around bikes when they were puppies. In the one spot where they are sometimes off leash and might encounter a mountain bike, they step off the path if a bike is coming. (Note that this is a spot where neither off-leash dogs nor mountain bikes are supposed to be; I am a tiny bit of a scofflaw in that regard but I would never let the dogs off leash on a designated bike path.)

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Dogs are dumb. Cats are smart.