Why don't you just use the commonly used term 'injured'?
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » General Edinburgh
"Calls to restrict cycling on Portobello promenade"
(117 posts)-
Posted 4 years ago #
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Mneh. Didn't want to. I've used it before, if that's any help.
Update was from a friend of the owner, not the owner:
"Thank you to the sympathysers on the Prom this afternoon when yet another incident of crass carelessness led to my good friend's dog being hit unawares from behindand ridden over by a cyclist.
I am one of many who warned several times that a no rules shared promenade would never work, so it is paradoxical that the outcome of that hands-off laissez-faire régime should happen right next to me, to a dog to whom I am very attached. I post this not as an anti cyclist rant but to put pressure on the authorities to get a grip before something really bad happens.
Here is my text to the cyclist, who was full of apology and 'didn't mean to's' - the fact is he did.
"You will be pleased to know that the dog you hit, my good friends dog , is ok so far after a thorough check at the vet and a further check tomorrow. She has damage to her cheek bone, gum and a nose bleed, and a tyre mark on her tail and may need x rays. I am sure you did not intend to hit the dog, but it was on short lead and you were travelling fast. I was extremely angry and you are fortunate not to have been hit by me in return, and I am grateful for a gentleman intervening. I and many others have warned ,frequently, that without distinct rules to apply, this will happen time and again...https://m.facebook.com/groups/108170479257024?view=permalink&id=4044171155656917
Posted 4 years ago # -
But the real paradox is that anyone who'd run over a dog on a short lead doesn't seem likely to act differently because someone made up some local "distinct rules". After all, there are already actual laws about all this kind of stuff (careless, dangerous or 'furious' cycling for example)
Posted 4 years ago # -
Rule No1 is never hit the dog./Child
Rule No2 is don’t be a dickTHis forum although. Mostly virtual has survived for 10 years and three helmet wars on only two rules
Posted 4 years ago # -
I have hit a few dogs in my time. Most recently we ran over one towing the double child trailer uphill (!!) when it jumped out of the overgrown verge right alongside us. Green ink stares from the owners...
Never on a short lead though. Careless.
I did once break my elbow hitting a guy who ran into the road. Or should I say, his shoes were in collision with my bike.
Posted 4 years ago # -
I once hit a dog, no twice.
1) Dreadful topped drive on the fourteenth at Braids One, straight into the ribs of a mutt that appeared out of the gorse. Sickening muffled thump.
2) A persistently over-exuberant farm dog got the D-lock straight in the nose in 1988 as I rode my Falcon Westminster up the B851.
Posted 4 years ago # -
his shoes were in collision with my bike
But most importantly, what was the make, model and colour of the bike?
Posted 4 years ago # -
The local facebook is a sight to behold after that happened.
There seems to be an overlap between people who want bikes banned from the prom while foaming at the mouth at the loss of parking/driving space on the High Street.
Posted 4 years ago # -
“There seems to be an overlap between”
Surely not...
Are they all anonymous or ‘pillars of the community’?
Posted 4 years ago # -
Are they all anonymous or ‘pillars of the community’?
I would say they were all pillars...
Posted 4 years ago # -
Anti-cycling-on-prom type froth often maps almost exactly onto anti-dogs-almost-anywhere type froth- where the conduct of one dog (really one dog's owner) sets that off. I find this interesting - clearly not the same groups but there is similarity of rhetoric plus presumably some overlap of members (i.e. the non-dog-liking anti-prom-cycling subset).
My local park friends group is run by people who are anti-cycling in the park due to the perceived dangers of ZOOMING* bikes. They are also anti-cycle-infra on the roads (as it may reduce parking near the park / shops / their homes) but claim to be in favour of less driving and more cycling - but support a sort of vague encouragement of the concept with no actual outcomes. They are pro-dog, however - which has tempted me to send them stats comparing annual injuries and death caused by pedal cycles vs by domestic dogs with the suggestion that if they wish to ban potentially dangerous things from the park they would probably have to start with dogs**. (And demand the pond be drained lest someone send their toddler to the park alone...)
*much pedestrianing in the park has not brought me into contact with any bikes I'd describe as "zooming" but perceptions might differ.
**obviously I am not in favour of this. Vicarious dogs are one of the highlights of the park.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Banning dogs from parks seems pretty sensible to me. Not only dog bites, but dog eggs are a health hazard too. But bans only work only if enforced: Montgomery Street Park has had a dog ban for decades, signs clearly visible on all entrances, but scofflaw dog owners just ignore the ban en masse.
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Dr Westgarth, said: “The chance of being bitten by pet dogs is often underestimated because of the relationship that people have with their pets. Many people think that they’re more likely to be bitten by a stranger’s dog but actually most people are bitten by dogs they know. Sometimes the assumption is that dogs only bite when provoked and this idea can lead to victim blaming. "
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Sounds familiar!
https://www.rcseng.ac.uk/news-and-events/media-centre/press-releases/be-dog-safe/
Don't read the below if faint of heart, some of the details may put you off dogs for life...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_dog_attacks_in_the_United_Kingdom
Posted 4 years ago # -
That Dr Westgarth quote doesn't give much support for for dog bans in parks though - it actually suggests the threat to strangers is limited. (As does the Wikpedia list of dog attack deaths...) Plus, arguments against dogs in public (which banning dogs from green spaces steps towards - dogs need exercise; humans walking dogs need exercise; parks are a pretty important location for this, especially for people with no garden access) doesn't take into account the well-attested health benefits of dogs as human companions. (And probably vice-versa - dogs are obligate domesticates; they don't do well w/out humans - even strays are dependent on human presence.) It's not a straightforward calculation really.
Don't read the below if faint of heart, some of the details may put you off dogs for life...
Might be more likely to put me off people given the circumstances alluded to in a lot of those bald reports.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Anyway my actual point wasn't an opening sally in a debate about banning dogs but to note the similarities of those specific flavours of froth. You could probably take anti prom cycling paragraph A and substitute "cyclists" with "dog walkers" and get a new yet very familiar rant. But my local park powers would - understandably! - feel the dog version was excessive and unfair and took occasional and extreme incidents and applied them to all dog walkers regardless of guilt...
Posted 4 years ago # -
@unhurt, TBH I'm less fussed about vicious dogs (though I have had a few nasty encounters while cycling: dogs like to chase people on bicycles) than I am about local parks being used basically as dog toilets.
It's not nice and it's not clever.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Dog's need exercise but they also need to relieve bodily functions. Why does society find it acceptable for such bodily functions to be relieved on public grassy space where children are likely to be playing or people likely to be sun-bathing? Bagging and binning is fine in many areas but park spaces are used differently to many other areas.
We no longer accept horses relieving themselves on the street so why do we accept dogs fouling on public grassland.
Is there a comparison to be drawn between calling for people to have space to park a car before obtaining it and having space to toilet a pet before obtaining one?
Having said that I am not aware of any real risk from such behaviour so this may be a perceived risk rather than a real one.
At what point are there too many dogs/cats and owning them becomes a tragedy of the commons? I would anecdotally suggest that in some parks wildlife is suffering because of the number of domestic animals hunting in the undergrowth.
/greenink
Posted 4 years ago # -
“We no longer accept horses relieving themselves on the street”
Is it a legal requirement for horse owners to pick up?
Posted 4 years ago # -
Maybe the Portobello FB lot can focus their attention on this now
https://www.edinburghlive.co.uk/news/edinburgh-news/pet-owner-devastated-cops-edinburgh-18678084
Holding my breath for the outcry...
<tumbleweed>
Posted 4 years ago # -
I'm going to argue that strongly social domestic animals that people have lived closely with in many societies worldwide for at least 14,000 years (and perhaps as many as 40,000) aren't reasonably comparable to the ownership of private motor vehicles, widely available - to some people - for less than a century. (There are even credible theories that dogs have influenced aspects of human evolution and may therefore have helped make us as much as we made them them - though increasingly it looks like dogs may have initially self-domesticated because of the advantages to be gained by hanging around those very successful and intensely social food procurers, humans.) But then, I have some real discomfort with the idea of regarding animals - especially "smart" animals - as if they were just possessions to be considered in the same light as inanimate objects (though that is their legal status). A dog isn't a human person - but it's definitely not just a thing.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Horse owners are not required to pick up horse poo. They are allowed to just let it lie on the street.
Posted 4 years ago # -
@unhurt: +1
Posted 4 years ago # -
Interesting that a thread about a dog on a short lead being hit by a cyclist has turned into a number of ‘anti-dog’ posts. A bit like when a cyclist gets hit by a car and the result on car forums is a series of anti-cyclist rants. I believe we call that ‘victim blaming’ when that happens.
Posted 4 years ago # -
@stiltskin, My recollection was seeing horses or carts in Edinburgh with manure collection of course I didn't allow for availability bias. There are so few horses in the city that any comments on the way they are operated are probably invalid anyway.
Although my greenink comment does show that I'm aware that I was bordering on a rant I don't think there has been any victim blaming. There has been no suggestion that the cyclist wasn't at fault in the original collision or that the dog didn't belong or wasn't behaving. Nor has anyone suggested that because they don't like the way some dogs are looked after all dogs should be suffer.
Posted 4 years ago # -
@acsimpson, "I am not aware of any real risk from such behaviour".
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The spread of infections from dogs to humans can cause a variety of illnesses, ranging from minor skin infections to serious disease. Some of these are spread through ticks carried by dogs and others following dog bites. This briefing focuses on infections spread through dog faeces.
Diseases associated with dog faeces that that can cause illness in humans are spread via worms and germs present in the faeces and on ground contaminated by faeces. Children are more susceptible to many of these infections due their age and vulnerability, but also because of their exposure through playing at ground level in parks, play grounds and gardens.
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https://present.brighton-hove.gov.uk/mgConvert2PDF.aspx?ID=88177Also:
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/toxocariasis/
"At what point are there too many dogs/cats and owning them becomes a tragedy of the commons?"
At the point where large numbers of dog owners live in tenements and flats? Dogs in high density residential areas with no private gardens/yards and limited access to places for exercise just makes no sense.
Posted 4 years ago # -
@stiltskin, "Interesting that a thread about a dog on a short lead being hit by a cyclist has turned into a number of ‘anti-dog’ posts."
It's called thread drift. Stuff happens.....but I don't think there any "anti-dog" posts. Just "anti-irresponsible dog owner" ones as far as I can see (beyond any discussion. of the dangers caused by dogs to humans who may or may not know them).
P.S.:- If sensitive to rhetoric which is unfriendly to dogs, do not under any circumstances read early editions of Richard's Bicycle Book!
Posted 4 years ago # -
I am comparatively unconcerned with horse dung, except where it acts to conceal bits of football spectators' smashed drink bottles around Crawford Bridge. I can see how it would be a problem in large quantities in the past (or in Bruges, before they invented leather horse nappies) on cobbled streets, but it dries out quickly and scrapes off easily and doesn't smell anything like as bad. I've heard of people raising their dogs as vegetarians but don't know what effect this has on their excreta as they still have a carnivore's intestines.
Posted 4 years ago # -
@crowriver your own link above says "the dog population has stayed pretty stagnant with 24-26% of the UK population reportedly owning a dog. However, smaller breeds of dogs have become more popular."
This doesn't suggest increasing numbers of dogs.
Posted 4 years ago # -
@wingpig dogs on vegetarian diets lose their spirit/soul.?
Posted 4 years ago # -
Anyone with children will tell you that dog dirt in the back green, parks, grassy fields, on pavements, etc. is an absolute nightmare.
It is almost guaranteed the child will stand in it at some point, then traipse the whole lot through and all over the house. And you will have no clue where it got smeared.
And no, it isn't the responsiblity of the adult, nor child, to check shoes or take off shoes before entering your own house.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Actual conversation I've had in the park:
Partner: "shall we sit on the grass?"
Me: "on the dog toilet?"
Partner: ".... ok, good point"She also used to purchase "sneeze bread", until she heard me refer to it as that. I'm a nightmare to live with.
Posted 4 years ago #
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