BLOG POST – 10/5/2020
When I first started riding countryside roads, decades ago, I encountered a lot of wheel chasers. It’s unnerving to see a dog coming toward you barking and growling and acting like he wants a piece of you. In my early years, I had pretty good luck talking them down. I foolishly started thinking of myself as kind of an amateur dog-whisperer. Dogs generally like me and I have always had dogs. I figured I just had to talk to them like I do mine, in a soothing, friendly voice. Something like “hey big guy, what’s going on? You’re getting a little bit too close Big Guy, now back up and be a good boy. ”
It worked well for over a decade. Then one day, I was exploring some unknown area when I started getting chased by what appeared a teen-age dog. Like many teenagers, he seemed a little over rambunctious, protecting his road, feeling his oats, so to speak, but he didn’t necessarily look vicious. Just another “chaser,” I thought, like all the others; but when I got to the “now back up and be a good boy” part, he lunged out and sank all four incisors into my right ankle bone. It hurt, and there were four little trails of blood running down into my shoe.
Great, I thought, the little hooligan broke the skin and ruined my ride; and now I have to somehow find out if he’s had his rabies shots. The owners didn’t come out and I wasn’t about to knock with that little demon, now playing guard dog, sitting on the front porch, growling and showing his teeth, acting real tough. So I had to call the police and have them come out and get the owners attention to find out if he’d been vaccinated.
After that little episode, and since I ride a wide variety of country roads, I started looking for solutions to repel irresponsible owner’s dogs. I didn’t want to use pepper spray, I didn’t want to hurt the dog, I just wanted to insure they stayed away from my legs & wheels. I had read about HALT, it’s what the Post Office gives to their carriers. It supposedly doesn’t hurt the dog.
As a matter of fact, I know someone, he’s not exactly the brightest star in the sky, that once accidentally sprayed himself. To protect him from ridicule, I’ll call him John. John told me that he once accidentally turned the HALT backward, and shot himself. He said it was as if someone shook up a half-full Pepsi or Coke liter, and than sucked off all the bubbles and squirted them into his eyes. Instant bubble eyes, he said. It really startled me. I mean John said it really startled him.
Since it startles the dog and doesn’t hurt them, I started using HALT and never head out into the country without it. Over the last several years, I started getting lax and just stuck it in my phone pouch, underneath my phone, which means it takes a few seconds to dig it out.
Last year I had a too-close of an encounter. I was cruising down a country road that I had never ridden, not a crowded road, but a little more traffic than I’m used to. Out of nowhere charged 3 large dogs, chasing pals, and somehow they were right next to me before I even noticed. It appeared they were all competing for “first bite.” I struggled frantically to grab my HALT, lost control and swerved into the next lane trying to avoid the charging dogs. I was suddenly face to face with a semi that had just locked his brakes, and black, billowing smoke filled the air. I jerked myself back. Luckily, the squealing tires and billowing smoke stopped the dogs in their tracks. It was a narrow miss and the trucker gave me a much deserved finger-wag. I realized that in special instances I did not have 5 seconds to fumble for my HALT. I went home and rigged up something to hold my HALT an instant away. My HALT now lives under the front of my seat, attached to the frame’s top bar, only a second away from my hand, well positioned to quickly protect my ankles, legs and bike.
I bring this up because of a ride I had a few weeks back. When I left my driveway I noticed I was close to a milestone on the bike – 5000 miles. On a couple forums about e-bikes that I loosely follow, people are always photographing their milestones. Sometimes it’s 100 miles, sometimes 500. I was close to half of 10K miles and I remember thinking that I wanted a photo when I hit the 5K mark. I was probably watching birds, or chatting with some cows, most certainly daydreaming, and I missed 5000. I noticed my odometer at 5004 miles. Four miles further, even better, I thought, and I snapped a photo.
Amazing, 5K miles and the only problem I’d had was a flat tire on my maiden voyage. Not an incident in 5000 miles, pretty cool, I thought. I should have ended that thought with “knock on wood.”
About 4 miles away from that photo, just a few miles from home, my milestone ride took a turn for the worse. The last couple rides I’d taken in that direction I had encountered a new dog, a chaser. I entered the new dog zone cautiously, and then spotted her peeking from behind a car. I immediately grabbed my HALT, and sped up, hoping to outrun her. But in the next seconds, instead of chasing, she runs from behind the parked car and rams my front fork/tire, like an enraged ram wanting to bump horns with something, in this case my front fork. She knocked the front wheel out from under me, and the RAD and I came down quickly, right on top her. She clearly helped cushion my abrupt descent. Freaked her out, myself included. Her name is Sophie, I found out a few days later when confronting her owner. A few lumps, a few abrasions, popped ribs, nothing too serious. As crashes go, I consider it a lucky one. Everything would heal pretty quickly, except the chest, which I know from experience, just takes longer.
My wife got me a Bike-Garmin for Christmas (in photo at top of odometer). I never leave home without it. It gives me a lot of information, it’s super light and it does way more than I’ve thus far figured out. The night before the crash, I spotted the Garmin manual and thought to myself “I’ve had it 10 months, I ought see what else it does.” I randomly opened to the section entitled “emergency.” I probably ought to check this out, I thought, it’s good to be prudent, so I entered my son and my wife’s phone numbers.
I’m too old to be crashing, but clearly Sophie had other thoughts. When the mental fog lifted, and I pulled myself out of the middle of the road, and began to regain some composure, I inspected the RAD and was delighted; she miraculously looked great, just the Rad’s display holder had cracked. The RAD’s built like a tank. Hat’s off to RAD POWER BIKES, I thought. Then I noticed my Garmin was missing.
My Garmin evidently took a hit and was nowhere to be found. Then I heard a “buzzing sound” coming from a grassy area. And there it was, hidden in the grass, flashing and making noise. When I picked it up, it said “emergency alerts sent to your contacts” or something like that. A few minutes later my son called from Utah and a minute after that my wife called. It worked! Likewise, my hat off to Garmin!
Bottom line, if your dog is a “chaser” please be considerate and keep your dog under control. Some of us would greatly appreciate that.
FOLLOW UP TO THIS STORY…
Thankfully, I don’t encounter as many “chasers” as in the past. I had purchased my latest HALTs on Amazon and they quickly quit working properly, made me think that maybe they were counterfeit, maybe they were both just flawed. Rather than order more I thought maybe I’d been going at this wrong all these decades and decided to once again try being the “dog whisperer” and talk to them. As a little insurance, I loaded a little pouch with dog biscuits and thought a little positive reinforcement might be worth a try. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t tried it in my previous decades of riding. I knew my ride that day would take me by a notorious chaser. Sure enough, as I approached I could see him hiding behind a bush waiting to charge me when I got close enough. As he came sprinting at me I stopped and said “hey big guy, do you want a treat?” He slowed right down and came up to me and took the treat, and from then on we have become best buddies. Great, I thought, why hadn’t I tried this decades earlier?
So I don’t need HALT anymore, I thought, now I just have to make sure I have dog treats with me. I have another route where a new, big house was just built and regretfully the new occupants had a pair of chasers. On their first run at me, they both ran into the middle of the road trying to get to me as a pickup was barreling their way. He slammed on his brakes and just missed flattening one of them. The next time I rode by there place, as they were about to run into the middle of the road again, I pulled over to the side and said “hey big guys, do ya’ll want a treat?” It worked again, it kept them out of the middle of the road and they were wagging their tails. They quit barking at me as I handed them a treat. The older male dog got a little aggressive when I started to ride off, he made it clear he wanted another treat, so I gladly gave him a second one. I started riding off and he made it clear he wanted still another one. I thought 2 treats per dog was enough, and I told him so. As I tried to ride off he bit me. It was cold out and I had a few layers on and the bite was not hard enough to break the skin. I assume he wasn’t trying to bite me hard, he just wanted another treat.
When I got home I ordered another HALT and have been using it again ever since. I still carry dog treats for the dogs who have become my friends, but I feel better once again carrying my HALT.