This is not accusatory or anything just an observation. I wonder why some people seem to have a lot of trouble with dogs when riding and others don't. In all the years I have been riding there has only been a couple of times I had a problem for the most part just talking to them and trying to stay away from them seems to help. The only time that I can think of where I had to get off my bike because of a dog was last fall the dog was chasing me the gal I was riding with freaked out and so did the dog. Had to stop but all I did was tell it to go home in a firm voice and it did. I know that some dogs won't respond to something like that Merckxrider ran into those kind. Beating a dog doesn't teach them to stop doing stuff like that it just makes them more aggressive in the long run the same thing happens to humans.