My first dog attack and spill.
 

Got attacked by a pit bull while biking home from work today. He came silently from behind, overtaking me and making lunging/nipping motions. I braked hard to let him eat my front tire rather than my leg, which worked but of course sent me ass over teakettle (mostly because I was now running over the dog).

After I was down the dog came at me again but I had my pepper spray ready this time -- not even sure if I hit him or just the stream scared him off. A nice motorist stopped to make sure I was OK and offered help, I said I could make it home as I only lived about 1/2 mile away. I'm OK other than a bunch of road rash and having to get a tetanus shot.

I'm not impressed with the cyclist pepper spray. He's a lucky dog, had I not been coming home from work where I can't carry he would have got lead his direction rather than pepper spray.

I also will now never buy anything besides MTB helmets. I was wearing one and hit my head right on the very bottom at the back -- where a MTB helmet covers but a regular one doesn't. Glad I was wearing full gloves today too (cold this morning) as a couple of knuckles got scraped pretty badly, would have been worse if I had the normal fingerless ones.

Bike seems OK other than road rash like myself, and covered in pepper spray (dog was partially under the bike when he was coming at me). I'm glad the new 36h front wheel proved to be strong.

Now I have some decisions to make -- different route now? get a bigger pepper spray? concealed carry to work? try to track down his owners (already filed with police)? forget about it and get on with life? rig up some pannier-mounted flame throwers?

You aren't impressed with the pepper spray even though a pit bull supposedly attacked you and your only injuries are from falling off the bike?

You aren't even sure you hit the dog or just the stream scared him off?

Either he wasn't really trying to attack you, or the spray worked beautifully.

Glad you're ok.

Good thing you're alright!

What's the tetanus shot for?

- Slim :)

Sorry to hear about that. I would go with the flame throwers. :thumb:

My crash was in western VA. Open carry is legal. Next time I may carry a small .38 loaded with shotshells and 125 gr. HP.

i'm always a little confused about these dog attack stories. maybe it's because i live in the big city and am just ignorant, but where do you guys live that there are just loose dogs running about on the street? in 4 years of bike commuting, i've never come across a stray dog.

I hardly get stray dog coming at me out at the main street but I get them all the time in the residential. The house owner like leaving their garage door open while doing stuff in the garage and letting Fido roam free. Most often the dogs are friendly and just their way of protecting their so call "expansion territory". However the bigger dogs and pit bull are more questionable and there's been time I pulled out my pepper spray or my lock cable at them. Then the owner gets personal about it and makes me feel like suggesting a leash for the dog and the owner. I might start trying that water bottle squirt trick.

BTW. I think it's ironic that I get a dog traing advetisement ad every time I open this thread.

Yes. Not often, but it happens. Mostly in the country and not-so-nice neighborhoods in the city.

I've had no dog attacks while riding, a few dog chases though, and all the dog chases ended once I stopped, and not further fueling their chase instinct.

OP, keep a vigilant eye out in that same area if you are not able to find a reasonable alternate route to travel, and not let the dog sneak up upon you. Did you report your incident to authorities? Personally, I'd stick with the pepper spray, since it did stop the confrontation, and use of a firearm could lead to even more personal grief.

Dealing with the dogs is always the easiest part, owners are usually the ones that need the training classes the most.

"Fido is such good dog, why are you being so defensive?" :rolleyes:

When I ride in rural southern Indiana or Kentucky I see many loose dogs. Chases are common. Attacks are not. I know of one local cyclists who was bitten badly in the last few years. I know of a couple of others who went down after running into dogs.

A couple of years ago I was on a ride when two pit-puppies came running after me. I could tell they were friendly, and I didn't want to crash, so I stopped and pet them for a few minutes. They were quite happy and made it difficult for me to get going again. Once I did get away, noticed one of them had bit a hole in my water bottle. Oops.

I had a dog chase me once. He came running down his driveway as I pedaled past and was running alongside me, lunging at my leg. I unclipped and kicked him in the head. He ran back up the street and started pacing in front of his driveway. I stopped a safe distance away and called 911 who transferred me to the animal control officer. The officer showed up about 30 minutes later and the dog was still out in front of his driveway. As I was just finishing describing what had happened to the officer, the dogs owner came driving down the street past us and turned into the driveway and the dog followed the owners car back up the driveway. The officer asked me if I would mind waiting for a few minutes and then he followed them both up the driveway. Score! :) Owner got a nice fat ticket and I have never had a problem with that dog since.

DarthMuffin glad you are OK and I hope you don't have any lingering injuries.

I happen to ride in an urban setting where there's an ordinance against dogs running loose, it's strictly enforced and is very costly to the owner if the dog is picked up by the city's animal control officers. Seeing a loose running dog is a rarity in my area.

You're a lucky dog, then. Here in Fort Worth, lots of loose dogs in the neighborhoods. I still prefer riding through the hood to on the main roads in most cases. The mayor (also a rider) did a public group ride on the east side of town last month. Prior to the ride, they sent three Animal Control trucks ahead on the planned route to round up the strays.

I've had lots of dog encounters, only two were anything like an attack. One was climbing a hill; I saw the dog and tried to avoid him by going to the other side of the street (twice). When I realized that was impossible, I dismounted and kept the bike between him and me. He approached, barking and snarling. He looked like a shepherd mix. As he got closer, it looked like coyote was the other part of the mix :eek: . When he was about 15-20 feet away, I squirted my water bottle at him. It fell short, but startled him. He sat down, but continued to snarl and stuff. I started to slowly walk off and the dog just sat there and barked at me; when I got over the crest of the hill I got back on the bike and continued on.

The other was was earlier than that and he totally surprised me. I tried to dismount but in the process I just fell over and the bike landed on top of me. The dog was about 5 feet away at that point and the commotion of me going down startled him and he ran back to the safety of his yard where he continued to bark at me.

My primary defense is to see the dogs before they see me; I've developed pretty effective dog radar, and I'll jog over a block if I see a big dog loose in my intended path. I've had several other instances where dogs have chased me and they either didn't catch up to me or a quick squirt from the water bottle startles them enough to break them off the chase. It's not frequent but at this point I'm getting used to it.

FYI, we have a leash law here, but, meh... sometimes dogs get out.

Welcome to country living. I know for me the idea of people actually setting out to find bikes to steal is absurd. On the other hand dogs are a pretty regular thing to deal with.

ha, seriously? I didnt know about that. So, they know its a problem, but no will (or funds) to try to address it.

My one and only dog encounter to date happened a block from my house with a dog I knew and knew the owner. The yard was invisible fenced and the dog was never outside the fence riding by he would run out and I would say Hi Bacon. He is a monster Airedale.

On this day I couldn’t find my water bottle and saw a Empty mountain dew bottle on the counter rinsed it out and filled it with water and off I went. Bacon comes running out like normal and blows thru the invisible fence like it was turned off and dives at my bike flipping me over. He grabs my mountain dew bottle and blows back to the house. The owner sees the whole thing and comes out yelling at the dog and telling me how sorry he is and that the dog has never done that before. I had luckily slowed down enough that I was just shook up and didn’t see any damage to the bike. He said what caused him to do that and I said I don’t have a clue but he took my water bottle and when he saw it was a green dew bottle he said OMG he had trained him to retrieve Mountain Dew bottles as a cheap doggie toy. He offered to pay for repairs to me or the bike and even to do something with the dog if I wish that. He did say he can turn the fence up somehow or the collar and he would do that and I said trust me I won't come down the road again with a green bottle.

I just left it at that, but it did show me how fast a dog can flip you. I also believe it's better to stop and defuse the chasing thing than try and outrun them. They also say don’t make eye contact with a mean dog to turn and look away and the dog doesn’t feel challenged. The bottom line is I have dogs and they stay on leads and letting untrained dogs run free the owner has a lot of responsibility and not a leg to stand on if something happens to their dog.

Could be. I'm not really fluent in "dog", never having owned one or lived with one. Honestly I don't like dogs but I don't wish them any harm. All I know was he lunged at me earlier, just knocked me down, and was coming directly at me again so I had to assume the worst. Maybe I just need a better spray, like one that actually sprays. I got an anemic 4 foot stream out of this can. Silly string would have been more effective.

Doc recommended it due to the road rash and fact that I don't remember the last time I had one (need them every 10 years).

LOL, I'm getting a dog food ad. I am *not* dog food! :)

I'm in the suburbs, on the border of a rural area, as in one more mile and it's farmland. The area it happened in was upscale houses on 1 acre lots, a lot of them with horses, etc. There is a leash law, lot of good it did...

I'm thinking of modifying my route to work to bypass the residential area as much as possible. It's about a mile out of the way but I need the exercise anyhow, right? I'm going to look into other pepper spray and the feasibility of open carry. Are there any bike shorts with belt loops out there?

Happy to read that you're ok. I'm not a dog expert but I do know dogs well enough to suggest that if the little monster stopped going after you the pepper spay most likely did it's job. I get chased on occassion. Mostly it's just neighborhood labs or golden retrievers who want petted. When I venture on a more rural route the dogs are a little more dedicated to actually catching/mauling me versus just putting on a show. The neighborhood dogs, mine included, really crack me up. The charge toward you and bark like heck, until you tell them what a good do they are. Then they go away happy. Too bad they all aren't so good.

Ya srsly.

I rode to the start point at TWU and encountered three pretty big dogs along the way. Avoidance (changing my route) worked.


The worst time for dogs seems to be early morning, just after sunrise. I think people let their dogs do their thing, but because they haven't really woken up yet they just let the dog out the door.

Loose dogs are so rare around here that passing drivers often stop, pick them up and either phone the owner -- if there's an ID tag -- or take the pooch to the vet to check on whether it's chipped.
So naturally, bike-dog encounters are rare. The only worrisome meeting I had involved a big shepherd mix that was being walked off-leash. It ran at me, the owner said, "Don't worry, he's friendly," and the dog took a half-hearted chomp at me. It missed, but I could hear his jaw snapping shut. I didn't stop for a discussion, but I think the owner saw the bite attempt. Hope it taught him something.

Canada is so charming. Like Ugly Americans could aspire to be without the Ugly.

I can't even hardly stand the thought of being attacked by a mean dog. They can't be happy animals. One of us is going to be put out of our misery if I have to go on a mission to do it.