Fuzzydave

Yesterday, I riding to work on the MUP when I come across a guy "walking" his dog. He was walking away from me on the right side of the trail and his dog was on the other side, in the grass, smelling a phone pole or something. Guy was carrying his retractable leash, but it was not attached to the dog. The dog sees me and comes back onto the path so that when I was even with the dog, he was about a foot away from me. (I had just passed the owner at this point) The dog seemed very friendly and was probably just looking for something new to smell. Regardless, I still didn't know what he was going to do. As I rode away, unscathed, I yelled back to the guy that "leashes work better when they're attached to the dog"
This morning was pretty much the same scene, except the owner was walking towards me. He sees me, several hundred feet away and closing, calls his dog over and attaches the leash. As I got closer, the dog again tried to get near me but the owner kept the leash from untracting. We exchanged our pleasantries "Good morning" "hi" and I was on my way.
Moral: There is none, it's just a bunch of stuff that happened.

thdave

Well done!

I've had bad luck with dogs lately. Got scared on Monday when a pick up truck came up from behind me, passed fairly close and a Rotwieller (forgive the spelling, please) was in the bed of the truck and visciously barked at me. He was 3 feet away from me. Wow--I never saw him till he passed. Luckily, my underwear remained dry! I thought he was going to jump from the bed but he didn't. I was upset but there was nothing to do about it.

Yesterday, I was passing a guy walking his dog and said hello and rang my bell. The guy looked at me with panic in his eyes. A moment later the dog went nuts. The guy held the leash, though, and I was fine.

CliftonGK1

I walk my puppy along the MUP every day after work, and she's far too interested in sniffing every blade of grass or whining about me not letting her chase bunnies to be concerned with the fact that there's cyclists whipping past on the path. Sometimes we'll sit on the steps leading from the sidewalk to the MUP and she'll watch the cyclists go past, but she's never tried to bolt after them. I suppose that having my bike in the apartment makes seeing them on the path a lot less interesting to her.
(I also have her on a 3/8" flat webbing leash and a prong collar, so that also contributes to her being calm when we're out for our walks.)

thdave

My dog is like your pup, but there are a lot of crazed dogs out there that bark at everything. I don't know why the guy I met yesterday, with the panic on his face, doesn't train his frickin' dog!

CliftonGK1

Training, and proper exercize. Seriously, I think that both the owners and dogs would benefit from a bit of both in most cases. I don't have a really long or strenuous commute, so I jog a couple miles with my puppy when I get home and I let her run in the park at our turn-around point until she's worn all the crazy out of herself. She's calm after that, and won't even try to chase bunnies or birds.
The only time my puppy barks at a bike is when I don't turn off my Superflash before bringing my bike inside. She absolutely hates that thing!

Flimflam

Not quite the same, but when passing folks on the MUP or link-paths (like MUPs linking roads/city ride routes) I always bell and sometimes "on your left" if needed. Well, last night I was on a link-path and rang the bell, I slowly passed a lady and as always, said a "thank you" when I passed her (as she moved WELL over and moved her bags in front of her, out of my way) - she actually replied with a "You're welcome, thanks for the bell!" - quite shocking - I kinda laughed out loud I was so surprised. I often do get a "You're welcome", admittedly, I've found the past couple of weeks now that there are many more people on the MUPs.

It's nice to have that positive re-enforcement.

oboeguy

I'll have to use that line on the idiots whose dogs are constantly running to and fro across the Hudson Greenway in the morning. One time I yelled about leashing the dogs and one idiot tried to say "slow down". I was going 6-7mph to avoid the dogs -- that's jogging pace. Duma55!

Zero_Enigma

I've seen a lot of dogs on my rides. For the incoming people they normally see me and leash thier dogs right away. It's the people I come up fromthier six that some don't leash up. Sometimes ringing the bell well in advance does not help as the owner has his ears plugged with headphones. Tho normally I do ring the bell in advance so the owner at least has a chance to get thier dog and I slow down a lot in case the owner can't get tot he dog fast enough so I can pass slowly. Most dogs I've seen will go to thier owner if called which is good. I've had the occasional dog that just would not listen to thier owner but thankfully it's wagging it's tail all friendly coming up and smiffing the bike.

I wonder, if you attach a dog whistle to the front fork if you'll have a dog army following you so no one messes with you on your riding warpath.