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! 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!

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. My scary bellowing didn't do a thing for the dogs, but it did get the owner out of the house.

[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!

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.

[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. 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. 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.