Dogs are dogs. I ride by dogs that are aggresive but fenced in or chained by their owners. I've outrun a few "free-range" dogs, but mostly just stopped and stood my ground, tried first to talk nice, then if not effective, yelled at them. Most dogs come out barking, but occasionally they go into stealth attack mode, requiring you to be hyper-vigilant.

Standing down works, but with 3-dog packs they can use one dog in front, two others circling behind.

The main problem is, a lot of dogs don't recognize a public road as being outside their guard territory.

Options for riders include hiring a lawyer to threaten a lawsuit, and contactiong LEO, and warning them to make the property owners contain their dogs. After this,if no correction, carrying bear spray, or letting LEO be apprised you are going to carry an unconcealed firearm, and if LEO says "That's illegal," you inform them if you can't get dog containment or self-defend and are bitten, you are going to sue the City/County and report to the media how local gov't is letting dogs have open season on cyclists, and local authorities are recklessly negligent to public safety. And they are going to answer for waste of public dollars when it would have been taxpayer-dollar-free to make dog-owners pay for measures to contain their dangerous-to-the-public animals on public right-of-ways.

Dogs can be territorial guards. Absolutely. They and their owners "legal defensible territory" doesn't include public right of ways. Absolutely.

I like dogs. I've owned good watchdogs. But they didn't attack innocent people on the street. I was bitten by a little terrior, but it didn't penetrate my skin, ankle-biting into my winter riding boot. My son, a jogger, was calf-bitten by a pit-bull. Loose attacking dogs need to be contained. Or even put down by the people they try to attack.