Actually, it's the exact opposite.

There are some tricks that generally work, but you always have to read the situation and figure out what will work for those particular circumstances. The only thing that works almost universally is that if you look for battle, you'll find it practically every time. May as well take the same attitude with hostile cars and blow those up when you can as it will be equally effective for purposes of keeping you out of trouble.

One thing I love about these threads is all these tough guys that wear road rash like a badge of honor regardless of how stupid the cause act like little girls if their skin gets broken (or even almost broken) due to anything involving a dog. It's the road equivalent of sharks. People worry about them all the time, but the danger and damage factors are amplified in peoples' minds compared to other threats they face.

Dogs are like any other hazard you face. If you live in an area where roads are steep and crappy, you need to learn to descend. If you ride in heavy traffic, you need to learn to deal with that. If you ride where there is ice/snow, you need to deal with that. If you ride where there are dogs, you need to figure out how to deal with them too. Getting excited and stiffening up increases the odds of a bad outcome in any emergency situation, and this is particularly true with dogs.

Dogs can be unpredictable, and I hate getting bitten. But you have a lot of influence over the outcome. Anyone who rides like they think they *should* be able to without doing what the situation calls for is going to get into trouble a lot more often with dogs (or cars, or anything else for that matter).