My problem with dogs locally hasn't been with dogs that want to eat me for lunch. Rather, I've had a problem with a couple of too-friendly dogs who want to follow me for long distances. I had one follow me for 3 miles uphill recently. There was no way I could go faster to get away from it on the 8-9% grade (until I turned around at the summit and literally left it in the dust), so it just kept following me, wagging its tail the whole time. The scary part, was that despite my constant yelling for it to go home, it frequently stepped in front of me and I was afraid I was going to hit it and crash. A couple of cars coming down the hill as I was going up had to swerve to miss the silly dog too. I haven't seen any of the noisemakers to keep dogs away. I would be interested in hearing more about them.