Dog chasing EUC riders small advice how to handle situation like this 🐕

[mrelwood]

 

On 4/18/2023 at 9:43 PM, Vanturion said:

At that point I think it's just a question of power delivery to overcome the non-ideal directionality of speaker

This actually a very important point. Low frequencies have no directionality at all, which is why you mainly hear just the bass if you’re behind the speaker. But the higher you go in frequency, the more directional it gets. Audio speakers must have explicit systems in place to get a reasonable spread already at 5KHz. I would imagine that 30KHz would be comparable to a narrow beam flashlight.

 Which is why a handheld 30KHz cannon sounds like it would be a much better idea for dog control. Aim and shoot.

 

On 4/19/2023 at 12:56 AM, Vanturion said:

limits established by the International Non-Ionizing Radiation Committee for exposure to ultrasound are 110 dB for frequencies between 20 and 100 kHz (ultrasound) and just 75 dB for audible sound.

Worth noting though that the above limits are for 8hr daily exposure. 75dB for 8hrs translates to 78dB for 4hrs, 81dB for 2hrs, etc… 105dB for 28 seconds daily.

For ultrasound, 110dB is already a very high limit. 113dB for 4hrs, … and a freaking 140dB for 28 seconds daily. And considering that the dB level of a speaker is generally measured directly at the front of the speaker at 1m, you’d have to be shooting any real world product directly at your ear at close distance for a good while to expect any hearing loss.

 Don’t pretend that it’s a headphone though…

Edited April 20, 2023 by mrelwood

[Cassy0110]

12 hours ago, bpong said:

toronto has a leash by-law.  i like dogs.  i dont like dogs chasing me and taking a bite or two.  that dog owner will be involved with the criminal justice system.  control your animal or animal control will do it for you.  and depending on the severity of the animals attack on a civilian,  a lawyer may just get involved and get some money for the victim to buy more eucs...may be a V13, EX30, Sherman, etc,... and animal control WILL EUTHANIZE your uncontrollable animal.

i visibly-carry a baton (telescopic, S&W to 21") specifically for dogs.  more and more in toronto (as of 2023) idiot pet owners think their pet is so disciplined, that they can walk their animals unleashed.  and of course,  sometimes, we get the odd dog (no fault of the dog...cause it has amazing hearing) is attracted to the characteristic high pitched whine form an euc motor.  and there we go, the chase is on....i have always managed to out speed the dog but im lucky in that way cause the parks i sometimes ride thru have pretty good walkways and paved paths.  but the majority of the time i walk my euc thru parks, and of course,  i pet the odd happy dog while i make my way thru the park.  i also carry a small folding knife but that is utilitarian use only.

i have stopped a couple of times when a dog tries to chase me and it always ends up as a staring contest between me and the animal.  then the animals owner simply pulls on the leash to get their pet to move on.

so, to say that someone will use a concealed weapon to explicitly kill a dog is abit much.  that action itself is pretty much over the top response to a dog.  if i were the dog owner,  for sure, there would be legal consequences.  but there are other factors in this type of situation.  did the owner properly leash their dog;  did the owner have their dog under control;  did the victim tease or threaten the dog in any way ? (very important point);  having a concealed weapon in canada im pretty sure is a no-no;  and the laws about carrying knives are pretty much dependant on how the officer wants to handle that particular situation.  same goes for a baton - it is also considered a weapon but can be carried if carried in a non concealed manner.  i have never been stopped by the police for my baton;  but i have been stopped by police and they always ask me questions about my euc.  my baton is clearly in view,  on a tactical belt across the front of my body, between my chest and waist.

but as a side bar to this topic,  i used to be an avid shooter when i worked in LA.  me and a few studio co-workers shot at a local gun range and it was quite fun.  my fav handgun is the HK-USP 40S&W.  more heft than a glock 9mm, and not squirrelly while shooting.  i have respect for weapons and respect for weapons use.  i am canadian but i do believe canadian gun laws persecute only the law abiding gun owner and are useless for actually dealing with crimes that use stolen weapons.  these weapons usually come from stateside and make it up north unfortunately.  this is what our government should be investigating and controlling, not the law abiding gun owner.  i can go on and on about the useless state of gun control in canada,  but this forum is about eucs and euc related topics.

i think the statement about actually shooting a dog is a heightened response cause that man's child was hurt by a dog.  i think that response is based on being the parent of that child and i cant really fault that man for reacting that way.  just as long as he doesnt really draw a lethal weapon and dust the animal...(rolling eyes...)

 

 

I totally disagree with your personal opinions regarding gun laws or the use of weapons against dogs. 

[Cerbera]

I'm a cat person primarily, but I am certainly never going to try and hurt any dog that is chasing me, and even if I receive injuries from one I will still do my best to insist it doesn't get put down as a result. Indeed I have actually been bitten by dogs before whilst riding, which I think does require some sort of discussion of the situation with the owner, but certainly not any kind of retaliation against the dog, which is just following its natural instincts. And I don't like the idea of having a permanently on ultrasonic device either, which would also be very uncomfortable for every non-aggressive, leashed dog you pass on shared paths, not to mention any lovely cats or other animals in the area sensitive to that range of sound. Perhaps if it could be made to emit extremely directional and focused sound, at the point just behind your ankles it would be feasible, but that's a very difficult thing to check and get right.

Sometimes I wonder if it might be better to use the 'carrot' rather than the 'stick' approach, and carry a couple of easily accessible dog treats with you that you can jettison in your wake, hopefully providing a distraction to the dog which it will find difficult to ignore ! But of course that probably isn't ideal either, as you don't want to be conditioning local dogs that food will be the reward for chasing people on wheels !

Nope, if you face an angry dog on a lead the best thing to do is clear the area as fast as you can to minimize the time the owner has to be restraining their angry animal. If you are actually being chased by an untethered dog and more worried about being destabilised by an ankle grab from a small one, then 'stop and turn to face it' is probably the best thing to do. If it's a larger dog that could actually cause you proper injury then I think outrunning it is the best bet, if you have a machine that can, and you are in an area where it won't further endanger everyone else around to do it...

It is a tricky situation at the best of times, made worse in this country(UK) and any other where the questionable legality of our own devices might give us pause for criticising the questionably legal actions of dog owners who won't put them on leads ! In those situations you even take a risk stopping to have what you intend to be a pleasant and constructive conversation with the owner !

 

Edited April 20, 2023 by Cerbera

[Punxatawneyjoe]

Gimmie a break, 99.9% of dogs aren't going to attack you if they initiate a chase.  Chasing things is what dogs do. I have never had a problem with a dog chasing me because if they initiate it, i just stop. People are acting like a dog chasing you is a life or death scenario. Maybe it's annoying and maybe the owner is a moron allowing this kind of behavior, unfortunately there are a lot of morons out there who shouldn't own pets.  IMO the best response to a dog chasing you would be to stop and confront the dog. If you decide you can outrun him and speed away, it will trigger his natural pray/predator instinct and compound the problem if you do not get away. Here in the US, there aren't a ton a feral dogs wandering around so worrying about being attacked by a dog really isn't a problem. I'm not sure how it is elsewhere so i am only speaking to my personal experience and geographic location. Here if you see a dog, it usually has an owner and is ok with people. Just don't ride through someones personal property that a dog is guarding.

[0000]

12 hours ago, mrelwood said:

Which is why a handheld 30KHz cannon sounds like it would be a much better idea for dog control. Aim and shoot.

Funny we converged on the same idea, I started thinking about how I might package such a device yesterday. Great insight too - to reiterate your point here's the performance chart from the "cannon" tweeter:

It looks like just being 30-degrees off-axis results in nearly a 20 dB drop @ 30kHz . So for a tweeter projecting an ultrasonic tone say 90-degrees off from a pursuant being mounted inside of the wheel shell, the likely result would be a failure as a deterrent.

On the other hand, aiming within 10 or even a 5-degree cone to the target preserving the high dB effect should be easily achievable with a hand-held device. It may even be possible to design a open ended projection tube and take advantage of harmonic resonance to increase the amplitude/dB of a set ultrasonic tone if necessary.

Most of the ways I've seen in videos so far on ultrasonic frequency generation have been in a lab or bench-top setting where large format frequency generators and amplifiers are the standard. It seems to be a lot harder to find an appropriate driver rated for anything above 20kHz (especially in a small form factor). Plus there's a lot of other circuit-related stuff I don't know that looks like it could lead to issues with the signal generation trying to integrate a lot of these electrical components together. Still, an ultrasonic hand cannon seems do-able with more research and effort.

13 hours ago, mrelwood said:

and a freaking 140dB for 28 seconds daily

That's crazy. Well good news then, doesn't seem like permanent hearing damage is in the cards unless, like you said, someone is dumb enough to use their ultrasonic speaker(s) as headphones, LOL.

So with those T90A tweeters, assuming their 50W rating is max safe continuous power and modifying sensitivity for 30 kHz tone:

• 1W / 1m 100 dB

becomes something close to 118dB respecting the conventional +3dB per power-doubling rule. So well within reasonable exposure limits as you'd likely only be generating ultrasonic tones in only a few second bursts anyways (and pointed away).

I guess now the only question is: do I go with the Nerf-blaster form factor or a Tim the Enchanter wizard staff?

[0000]

9 hours ago, Punxatawneyjoe said:

Gimmie a break, 99.9% of dogs aren't going to attack you if they initiate a chase.

I think the statistics (in the US where we have data anyway) say otherwise. I couldn't say what the actual number is because there's no one's recording dogs that initiated a chase without biting, but given just the numbers of recorded injuries alone, I think you'd have to revise that statement to say 9/10, 8/10 or possibly even less (aren't going to bite you if they initiate a chase) to be accurate.

Not to rehash too much on points already made earlier in the thread, but probably the most relevant statistics to EUC riders coming from dogsbite.org relates to injuries and hospital costs rather than fatalities:

Quote

Each day, nearly 1,000 persons are treated in hospital emergency departments for nonfatal dog bite-related injuries.

The Changing Epidemiology of Dog Bite Injuries in the United States, 2005–2018, by Tuckel PS and Milczarski W, Injury Epidemiology, 01 November 2020.

Quote

In 2018, nearly 27,000 people underwent reconstructive surgery as a result of being bitten by dogs.

2018 Plastic Surgery Statistics Report - American Society of Plastic Surgeons, 2019

Quote

Approximately 4.5 million dog bites occur each year in the United States. Nearly 1 out of 5 bites becomes infected.

Preventing Dog Bites - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, May 2015

Quote

The average cost of a dog bite-related hospital stay was $18,200, about 50% higher than the average injury-related hospital stay.

Emergency Department Visits and Inpatient Stays Involving Dog Bites, 2008 - Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), November 2010

Also, a lot of the statistics just point to pit bulls being pretty bad news. So at the very least, it would be advised to exercise maximum awareness around those dogs in particular.

It's kind of ironic that our average demographics and the proclivity for wearing lots of protective gear tends to make EUC riders some of the most well-suited for dealing with potential dog attacks in a population of people, while simultaneously presenting to dogs in a way that makes them far more likely to give chase.

[bpong]

vanturion,

i think you will be getting alot of reactionary replies from dog owners, to your posted stats, ... great factual posting though, and yes how ironic that our 'hobby' also acts as a focus for a dogs attention... carry on and have a great 2023 !!!

bpong

[Punxatawneyjoe]

30 minutes ago, Vanturion said:

I think the statistics (in the US where we have data anyway) say otherwise.

total amount of dog bites have no bearing on if a dog is going to bite you if he is giving chase. Dog bites are cause by a myriad of situations, most of which do not happen after them giving chase. There is 0 data to show dog bites after giving chase so my point still stands. You would probably be surprised to know that the dog breed that bites people the most is a chihuahua. Statistics won't reflect this because the bite is usually superficial. So i feel we will have to agree to disagree. Fact is, here in the US we have a ton of people abusing dogs and breeding them to be aggressive, however most aggressive dogs are penned up or kept in home, not out wandering the streets.

 

37 minutes ago, Vanturion said:

It's kind of ironic that our average demographics and the proclivity for wearing lots of protective gear tends to make EUC riders some of the most well-suited for dealing with potential dog attacks

Agree, usually i'm suited up and could easily take a dog down and disable him if needed. That's why i find it comical that people are so worried about a dog attacking them riding an EUC, i'd be more worried about them tripping me up at speed.

[GothamMike]

On 12/2/2020 at 6:04 AM, DjPanJan said:

We returned slowly home and a dog started chasing/hunting us. Why hunt? Because he wait when we(me and dog) lost eye contact.

Unexpectedly, he ran out of the owner, who did not have him on a leash (fail). He started hunting us like his prey(ducks).

He jumped in our way.

How try to solve it?

Do not panic and try do not fall, slowly to slow down and try to keep moving away from the teeth of the hunting animal and do not run into it.(dodge teeth)

Use short loud strong scream on dog and be silent after.

He usually gives up soon after scream.

(warning)Acceleration therefore irritates him carefull and trigger chase instinct.

Best is to gradually reduce speed but not stop completly.(this rule working only when dog chase or hunt only)

If dog want kill/destroy you (It was not our/this/video case we "met" dog who love chasing/hunting)  is easy recognize he atack or sprint on you when rider and dog are in eye contact ,this is worst situation when definetly bite you this is fixable only by telescopic batton (or other weapon) idealy ownder intervention ,some dog are hyper dangerous when defending master or property never slow down or stop try go away from his "master" or "teritory" if is possible when you meet "battle dog".

"battle dog" make you crash and bite when you are on ground and nothing stop him tear you cloth and body only owner/violence/exhaustion stop him.

What dogs I call "battle dog" is not about size or breed, "battle dog" is the setting of the animal's mind certainly everyone in life has met with this type of dog is the type he likes when he hurts and others are afraid of it is the type of aggressive dominance.

We were lucky that the dog we met just wanted to chase and a little hunting for the black things that go on the road(EUC). When I saw what he was doing girl on KS16X it would be useless to pull out the telescopic baton just yell.

I like animals I am against harming animals, I would rather punish the owner, buy a dog and not train him, for obedience is the irresponsible behavior of the owner who threatens the surroundings of the bike path of children skaters skateboards and pedestrians and other smaller dogs.

Please share you advices/tips what to do and how avoid situations like this.

I realy want hear you personal  experiences and opinion.

I wish everyone many happy miles without incident/s.

 

 

Dog once bit my ankle and knocked me off. I wear heavy tactical boots so no harm. I spoke with animal control officer, he said you are certainly allowed to protect yourself from an attacking dog, including kicking. 
the owner clearly did not have control of the dog.

[0000]

34 minutes ago, Punxatawneyjoe said:

total amount of dog bites have no bearing on if a dog is going to bite you if he is giving chase

I mean, I thought it was reasonable to assume that most dogs don't have the ability to teleport to the person they bite so they would, as a first step, need to first at least lunge if not outright chase their prey down... Haha being facetious, but still, standing on numbers that you literally pulled out of the air while completely dismissing actual statistics you could make some reasonable inferences from, that's a little over the top no?

Anyway, agree that getting tripped up is a reasonable concern as well. That's just another reason I'm favoring the theoretical (at this point) technical approach above, Ultrasonic hand cannon! Besides being a fun project, you could keep all parties uninjured and happy (except for the personal injury lawyers, an added bonus).

Edited April 20, 2023 by Vanturion

[techyiam]

I have been quite fortunate so far, regarding dogs chasing riders on electric wheels.

So far, I have never been chased by dogs while riding bicycles nor electric wheels. 

The dog owners around here that I have encountered have been mostly caring owners. The dogs are almost always on a leash and the dogs looked well groomed. Also, I have ridden by a dog or two when they were off-leash. There was even one time when the dog didn't even look my way as I rode right next to it at a walking pace.

The latter part of the last sentence is the other thing. Even though some dogs would barked at me, many don't seem to noticed or be bothered by me, as I ride by on an electric wheel. Based on this experience, I am not convinced that every dog is irked by some high frequency pitch that is said to be eminated from electric wheels. 

Edited April 20, 2023 by techyiam

[Punxatawneyjoe]

41 minutes ago, Vanturion said:

that's a little over the top no?

Ok, maybe a little.. I'll admit it....i'm a dog lover. Dogs are the best. Maybe some bias in there.

[mrelwood]

1 hour ago, Vanturion said:

completely dismissing actual statistics

You are being very liberal in how you assess the stats. There were no statistics related to EUC or even bicycle riding, or bites that result when an interaction starts with a chase. So they can easily be deemed irrelevant.

I’m certain that when an EUC passes a dog, it doesn’t think that “uuh, must bite!” and start chasing to fulfill it’s craving. I’m also certain that very few cases in the stats start by a passing person in any form of transport on public streets that ends up with a chase and a bite.

 And even if it did, let’s look at the stats a bit closer. 4.5 mil bites per 333 mil residents is 1.35%. Do you think that of the 20’000 or so forum members 270 are annually bitten by a dog while riding? And I mean bitten, not knocked down or grabbed from the pants. If they were, they are an eerily silent group. Usually members are pretty vocal in presenting their faceplants and other issues.

 Since it seems safe to assume that 270 forum members are not annually bitten by a dog, shouldn’t we then conclude that you’ll have a less than average chance of being bitten if you ride an EUC? In fact, it seems that riding an EUC is an extremely safe and trustworthy method for avoiding dog bites in itself!

 I’ve been chased by a dog while riding maybe 5 times in 6 years. The ones that catched me kept running next to me. They seemed to be having fun. (A non-professional assessment.) None of them attempted to bite, grab my pants, or otherwise knock me down. What do the stats say about that?

[0000]

1 hour ago, mrelwood said:

You are being very liberal in how you assess the stats. There were no statistics related to EUC or even bicycle riding, or bites that result when an interaction starts with a chase. So they can easily be deemed irrelevant.

I guess you're free to interpret the statistics that exist however you want. I've just noticed a kind of blasé attitude amongst a lot of people about dogs unleashed in public in general, so I simply see it as shining some light on an potential problem that many seem to tend to hand-waive away. Kind of the whole reason that website exists BTW.

1 hour ago, mrelwood said:

I’m certain that when an EUC passes a dog, it doesn’t think that “uuh, must bite!” and start chasing to fulfill it’s craving.

Well I'm not going to take a poll, but I can report one definitive instance of you being wrong from personal experience, and there's been a few people who posted their own experiences getting bitten on their wheel (thankfully not by a more dangerous breed it seems luckily) so I'm not sure why you'd be certain about that here as an all-encompassing statement.

1 hour ago, mrelwood said:

4.5 mil bites per 333 mil residents is 1.35%

That one did seem a bit suspect actually (really high), I wonder if there's some bias present in the way they are collecting some of the stats. Very well could be. In any case, one of my takeaways from those and other injury-related stats is it seems that people tend to get bitten and end up with hospital bills far more than I would've thought.

1 hour ago, mrelwood said:

The ones that catched me kept running next to me. They seemed to be having fun.

About them (breeds matter) being playful and chasing along, sure that's great when that's your personal experience, and to your point I've experienced the same a few times as well. On the other hand, the large golden retriever I thought was safe passing back on my SF bay ride lunged at me and had a look of pure murder in its eye, which I still remember that quite clearly. Thankfully the owner was there to tackle his unleashed dog barely preventing a fairly likely hospital trip for antibiotics and stitches.

I think the OP of this thread mentioned how you can tell the difference between a dog being playful and when they have something more serious in mind, and I think they're quite right about that. However, from that one anecdote above, the behavior change happened so fast outside of my view there was no time to react.

In any case, if riders don't see the dog bite statistics as applicable to EUC, that's fine - it's just information. Like I said earlier, the most problematic and dangerous breed of dog far and away tends to be pit bulls. Many people live in perhaps more civilized places where the public doesn't tend to own this breed. Fantastic for them

Edited April 21, 2023 by Vanturion

[mrelwood]

 

7 hours ago, Vanturion said:

and there's been a few people who posted their own experiences getting bitten on their wheel

I’ve read about a few events that people call dogs attacking and biting them, but when asked about it, they explain how the dog only grabbed their pants or otherwise tried to interact without actually biting the person. But I’ll give you that there may have been a small handful of incidents in the whole age of EUCs where a dog has actually bitten the rider themself. Definitely few enough not to really matter, and not worth arming against in my books. There are so many dangers much more common that should be tended for first.

7 hours ago, Vanturion said:

lunged at me and had a look of pure murder in its eye

Did the dog look at you in the eyes, or did it look at the wheel? Again, so far the dogs that have lunged at me still haven’t actually attacked, despite having the chance to do so. So my guess of the likelihood of your hospital visit had the dog been free is surely very different from yours. We will never know.

7 hours ago, Vanturion said:

I think the OP of this thread mentioned how you can tell the difference between a dog being playful and when they have something more serious in mind, and I think they're quite right about that.

I definitely wouldn’t trust my own assessment of such situation. Our neighbors dog always seems very angry, defensive, and you could say murderous when it sees me. But when I stopped and let the owner bring the dog closer, it only wanted to smell me, and was fine with me petting it afterwards. So I dunno, in my experience what seems murderous has been just curious after all.

My experiences are of course only my own, and I can’t speak for all the dogs in the world. But based on what I’ve experienced, what I’ve heard other locals experience, and what I’ve read here, dogs really don’t seem to be any kind of danger for us.

7 hours ago, Vanturion said:

if riders don't see the dog bite statistics as applicable to EUC, that's fine - it's just information.

A lot of people suffocate in their food annually. I’m sure there’s stats data about it. Yet I don’t believe that to be a risk for riders either. Extreme example, but still relevant to the discussion of assessing statistics.

Edited April 21, 2023 by mrelwood

[Eucner]

15 hours ago, mrelwood said:

4.5 mil bites per 333 mil residents is 1.35%.

On the average all residents are bitten by a dog in every 74 years. Sounds plausible, but not something to be really scared.

[0000]

12 hours ago, mrelwood said:

Did the dog look at you in the eyes, or did it look at the wheel?

Murder Dog glare: this time it's personal. J/K. That I couldn't say without imagining one way or the other, I want to say it was more a body glare than anything else directed toward "the perceived threat". In the split second I turned my head around to see what was going on was when the owner called out sorry, after the action happened and the owner was restraining it with their body at my 5 o'clock. Basically at that point, I registered the size and position of the dog and owner, the expression and growling coming from the dog, and the sheepish apology from the owner.

I think one difference from this example that makes it much more remarkable than almost all of the other unremarkable encounters I've had for miles ridden is that the unleashed dog was a large enough in size to spark the "this could cause actual damage/be a real threat" mental flag. I'd say for most of the other dogs I've encountered of that size, owners typically are responsible enough to keep them leashed in public making for unremarkable encounters. I was in a very low-traffic decrepit part of SF bay (Candlestick Point) so it they must have felt safe about letting it roam free. Bit of a difference between an unleashed ankle biter and an unleashed 70+ lb Cujo in terms of threat (besides the trip hazard).

12 hours ago, mrelwood said:

But I’ll give you that there may have been a small handful of incidents in the whole age of EUCs where a dog has actually bitten the rider themself. Definitely few enough not to really matter, and not worth arming against in my books. There are so many dangers much more common that should be tended for first.

Agreed and your point earlier applying the stats to the forum members did not fall on deaf ears. Like I said, my goal in this thread has been mostly to raise awareness and point to a potential issue. If it gets a few more dog owners to think twice about unleashing in public not designated for play, that'd be great. I think the statistics, while maybe not as applicable to EUC riders besides the trip hazard, definitely point to an issue in the US that can lead to practical concerns in general in terms of medical care and liability insurance among other more severe issues for the unluckiest.

And the hand cannon thing I've been on about sounds more like a fun project to me than anything else. It'd be interesting to try, but the weight and form factor it would likely end up at would probably make it impractical for regular ride use.

Edited April 21, 2023 by Vanturion

[Poker]

Yesterday I met two big unleashed muscle dogs (30-40Kg) on a dirt road, they were barking and running at me at full sprint from a lake,  they were bathing with their owners, the owners had no control, the dogs were not listening to them at all. I chose to outrun them on my V11. At the time I deemed it to be the most sure way of ensuring my health and safety, I knew the road there and I knew the wheel had somewhere between 50 and 65% charge left.
I unironically need a weapon of some kind or something else for protection.
There's no way I could have fought off both at the same time had they gotten a hold of one limb each. I don't ever wanna be in that situation ever again.

Honestly I like dogs but I said muscle dogs because I cant tell those kinds of dogs apart, generally they are stupid and not obedient. I consider that the two worst attributes you could have in a dog so I've never learned much about them.

I was looking at the laws here and yeah its illegal to drive any unregistered/unlicensed motor vehicle that has the capacity to exceed 20km/h with engine power. But its a lot easier to explain if I ever end up in court compared to if I also was carrying an illegal weapon.
So that sort of excludes:
Guns, electroshock weapons, mace or pepperspray and yes carrying a knife without having a explicit purpose to use it for is also illegal here.
What options am I even left with?

Someone mentioned a spray with ammonia, would that even work on one of these retarded dog breeds people train for fighting? I have my doubts...

I have no need to kill any dog, I just need a tool to reliably stop a potential attack as fast as possible, ideally before I am even bitten but also something I can access with one hand if I'm being shaken and torn like a ragdoll from the other arm.

I think most of the laws against those weapons were made for retarded and aggressive youth to limit the potential harm they do to one another but the law must be equal for everyone (except the king).

[OldFartRides]

Air horn ? 

[The Brahan Seer]

1 hour ago, Poker said:

I just need a tool to reliably stop a potential attack

Wear a belt...

 

[Cerbera]

1 hour ago, Poker said:

What options am I even left with?

Not much. Selfie stick ? Loud (siren style) sound ? Bright, dazzling lights at their eye level ?

Personally I think you did the right thing by running away. If that is a possibility and you are fairly confident you can win the race, it is surely the best option against dogs that you consider to mean you actual harm. As has been discussed earlier in this thread and elsewhere, MOST dogs that chase us are actually not trying to kill / attack us, and are surprised / effectively stopped in their tracks if we merely stop ourselves and turn to face them, and wait for their owners to arrive and get them under control.

But I do appreciate that 'muscle dogs' can be a different story, and remain grateful that the chances of meeting those over here in the UK is still incredibly small.

 

[Poker]

1 hour ago, OldFartRides said:

Air horn ? 

Might be useful for intimidation at the start but if the dog is latched on to you I sort of doubt its effectiveness until proven otherwise.

1 hour ago, Cerbera said:

Not much. Selfie stick ? Loud (siren style) sound ? Bright, dazzling lights at their eye level ?

Personally I think you did the right thing by running away. If that is a possibility and you are fairly confident you can win the race, it is surely the best option against dogs that you consider to mean you actual harm. As has been discussed earlier in this thread and elsewhere, MOST dogs that chase us are actually not trying to kill / attack us, and are surprised / effectively stopped in their tracks if we merely stop ourselves and turn to face them, and wait for their owners to arrive and get them under control.

But I do appreciate that 'muscle dogs' can be a different story, and remain grateful that the chances of meeting those over here in the UK is still incredibly small.

 

I don't think a stick or a blunt weapon is that effective against dogs like that, their skulls are real thick, they have huge pain tolerance and the eyes are sunken in and protected by their skull. They are essentially made for combat.

I'm sure there is a high chance they wouldn't have attacked me if I had stepped off, opened my visor and screamed at them, It's just the possibility of them not stopping that frightened me.

I had only a split second to make a choice and it worked out this time but in hindsight I just want to be prepared for the absolute worst possible outcome should it happen again.

It's my first negative interaction with dogs from over a year of riding.

Edited June 17, 2023 by Poker

[Cerbera]

2 minutes ago, Poker said:

I don't think a stick or a blunt weapon is that effective against dogs like that, their skulls are real thick, they have huge pain tolerance and the eyes are sunken in and protected by their skull. They are essentially made for combat.

Oh, I wasn't clear - I didn't mean try and hit them with a camera pole - I was merely positing its possible use to try and keep some distance between teeth and you, or to give them an alternative thing to bite that isn't your legs !

[Poker]

Ah that makes way more sense 

[on one]

Dogs are extremely sensitive to human emotion, mine and the owner (even though the dog actually thinks he is the owner). The biggest factor for me on if a dog reacts aggressively to me or not is if I smile at the dog and the owner and say hello pleasantly. Most dogs have a vocabulary of at least 300 words. Especially pit bulls are responsive to duration and type of eye contact.