Bike Forums - Dog Catcher... on my commuter...

Hi All,

I am not a very active poster here, but had an experience on Friday that I can't say I have ever heard of. Thought I would share.

It's unusual to see very much traffic at all on the commute into the suburbs from the beach each day (~11 miles RT). On the way home at about a mile away, I saw the traffic ahead of me come to a stop. This is within the neighborhood, so I was confused. Slowing one by one, the cage drivers pass and a tiny unseen obstacle in the road. When I get close enough, it's a tiny white poodle scared to death and running for dear life. People were out of their cars trying to catch the scared pooch in the road. I follow and guard his "escape" about a whopping 3 mph and try to signal traffic around him, which worked to get the flow going again.

I called my wife, told her to grab her bike and head to me. When she got to me, we were able to get the "fugitive" turned onto a side street and out of the main backed-up traffic flow. A few cars follow us and the "fugitive". I sent my wife ahead and we push the pooch into a yard of a vacant house. After cornering this poodle, we eventually get it into a cat kennel and back to the house. My wife's facebook powers have the dog's owners found within a few hours, and they are reunited.

Upon meeting to dog's owners, we find his name is Buddy. Buddy normally lives almost 9 miles from our house. So people had been chasing this poor frightened animal at least that far before I happened upon it with a bicycle. The ridiculousness of chasing a 3-4 pounds poodle with a 4000 pound car was just unbelievable to watch. The well meaning people would not leave their cars and couldn't even see him while driving; shocking he was not run over. It took us less than two minutes to turn him on bicycles, and we got him into the carrier about 10-15 minutes later (I had to go get the carrier); apparently, he had been pursued for well over two hours.

Anyway, thought I would share for what's it's worth.
wsgts