CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years old!
Well done to ALL posters
It soon became useful and entertaining. There are regular posters, people who add useful info occasionally and plenty more who drop by to watch. That's fine. If you want to add news/comments it's easy to register and become a member.
RULES No personal insults. No swearing.
No need for this. Dog behaviour is totally a product of human dominant behaviour.
Missed this the first time around but Lezzles and Roibeard, I am keen to give a GSD pup the best socialised start in life when we eventually know we're ready to buy a pup (possibly Spring 2015 to fit in with life plans). Would been keen to pick your brains about training ahead of buying.
@wingpig. Really dreadful. These people have no imagination or empathy,
I'm no huge dog fan (although I have known and liked some individual dogs) , but try very hard to encourage my kids not to be scared of them. That is not helped by such behaviour.
My strategy seems tobe working though. We recently encountered chdot and smsm1 playing enthusiastically with a spaniel (maybe?). Turned out to be most friendly and my kids had their first really positive and joyful romp with a dog.
I'm definitely not going to stick up for every dog walker. That sounds rubbish. I'm not a fan of having dogs off the lead if you can't control them near little tots. I'd personally hate it if a dog the size of a Clydesdale horse would come right up to my face which is equivalent of what it must be like for a little one.
Of course there are edjits that own dogs. Just like there are edjits who cycle.
MeepMeep I'd recommend the book by Gwen Bailey called Perfect Puppy. Works on the premise that you have a 100 days to create a lovely dog through lots of socialisation and training.
@wingpig
Pretty sure even the most ardent dog 'sympathiser' (makes dogs sound like SS officers...) would think that was utterly ridiculous. And dog sympathiser in no way detracts from being 'eejit owner hater'.
Coming round Maidencraig Crescent today to join the cycle path and, as I round the right-angled corner, there are a couple of old gents nattering on the inside of the corner as one gent's Border Terrier ambles right across the road in front of me. Had I been driving (especially at the speeds I see that corner taken), one dead dog.
"You should have that on a lead" was simply greeted by a cheery laugh, and even that was, I think, just a part of the conversation they were having, as he said goodbye to his friend. Totally oblivious to the stupidity of paying no attention to a dog off the lead.
@Focus, in similar instances recently with inattentive peds or dog owners, my line is "its your life" or "its your dog" in a resigned manner, the implication being they should take more care.
@ 559
That's usually the approach I take but this being an old boy I just went for the straightforward "common" sense fact.
Couldn't decide whether this belonged in the rubbish pedestrian, or dog-handler thread, so plumped for this one.
Around 08:15 this morning, NEPN, heading east, fairly close to Ainslie Park. I'm on the left, dog walker coming towards me on his left, cyclist behind him also on his left. Cyclist hanging back so I could go through - all looking good. Dog in undergrowth to my left (i.e. some distance from owner, not on lead), but no apparent problems. Dog owner looks behind him, sees cyclist, then for some reason crosses to my side of the path, leaving me little option. At this point, labrador bounces out of undergrowth to see his owner, and I pull on the anchors as hard as possible, emergency stop, back wheel in the air, miss dog by about an inch. Owner mutters under his breath "f*ck sake". I turn around as say "pardon?". Dog then starts nuzzling my hand, dog owner just walks off, with no apology.
It confirms my newly replaced brakes work, though. And the dog was nice and friendly.
I honestly don't know what dog owners are thinking when they walk their dogs on that path at that time of the morning. Cyclists outnumber peds massively, it's a shared path, they are supposed to have their dogs on a lead AFAIK. Yet whenever their unleashed hounds cause us to nearly have an off, do they ever apologise? Rarely. If I walked our dogs (we have 2) on that path during rush hour, they'd be permanently on a lead, for their sake as much as everyone else's.
Possibly they feel it is a shared use path and need to walk their dogs at that time.?
Not condoning the dog walker just putting forward what might be their perspective.?
Absolutely! No problems there whatsoever.
https://www.gov.uk/rules-about-animals-47-to-58/other-animals-56-to-58
May just be the video, but you seemed to be going at a fair lick there just before the incident. Personally, I hit the brakes a long time before I get anywhere near a dog and/or owner, as you never know which way either will move, with the dog being the least predictable.
From first impressions, it looks like the owner saw you coming, and went over to the side to reach his dog to try and stop it running back out into the path.
Kids / dogs / peds / other cyclists on those paths - always expect the unexpected when approaching them and slow down enough so that you can stop safely if there's a sudden need to.
I've always found dogs are fairly easy to predict - you can predict with a degree of certainty that they'll go exactly where you don't want them to - chasing after any smell or interesting stick in the long grass that takes its fancy.
Owners on the other hand are harder to work around, as they may be trying to apply [flawed] logic to their movements and invariably seem to move at the wrong time into the wrong place and the opposite direction of their charge. Calling the dog usually has the effect of making it stop dead and look at the owner, rather than at oncoming danger.
I do agree that dogs shouldn't be unleashed on paths busy with cyclists and other walkers. There's plenty of parks and open, cycle-free land in Edinburgh where Fido can go leaping around to his hearts content. On the leash on a path he'll still be getting plenty exercise and will be a lot safer too. At night it's just daft to have them off the leash.
I have to say I'm not feeling any sympathy for you there mkns. I'd have slowed right down as I always expect dogs to jolt out at the worst possible moment exactly as that one did. Also the owner had another bike edging up behind him, plus you approaching at that speed with what looked like to me no intention of slowing or stopping, I'm not sure I wouldn't have said the same as he did honestly.
So, if your brakes didn't work and you hit the dog and or the owner, presumably you'd automatically be at fault as you're in charge of a fast and heavy vehicle in the presence of vulnerable path users correct?
@threefromleith - I think you're probably right about the owner's intentions, it just seemed odd to walk straight in front of a bicycle, and then swear at me, but he probably was doing as you suggest.
And in fairness, he's not alone in not using a lead, I would hazard a guess that 9 out of 10 don't have their dogs on a lead and are most likely unaware that they are obliged to do so. I suggested to the wife that I should make some laminated ones and stick them on NEPN lampposts, but she suggested that it would be a futile and pointless exercise. I think she used different words, mind you.
@allebong - well, the bike behind him had slowed right down already, so I was carrying on as my side of the path was clear, so that the bicycle coming towards me was then able to carry on his way by overtaking the ped once I'd gone past. But it's always good to hear other opinions about situations such as this.
On the WoL path few leads, one very blind dog. Same on the continuation behind jail, one blind dog.
Owning a dog is for life
If you slow to a stop the owners usually happy, if you were to clip a mutt then swearing
No gratitude at speeds beyond slow, much swearing even if miles off clipping the mutts
Can I ask you honestly when you first saw the dog? If it was a lone ped on that side with the bike behind letting you by I'd see no problems with what you did as you wouldn't expect the ped to instantly cut across the path like that. To me it looks like you had fair warning that there was a loose dog about and again in that situation I would slow down and expect it to do the worst possible thing at the worst possible time. If you didn't see the dog until the very last moment because it was hidden by that bush then I can see how this happened and I wouldn't place any blame on you.
Thing is I was a dog owner until very recently and so I used to find myself on both sides of these sorts of encounters. I didn't let him run loose willy-nilly about shared paths but at the same time I hated when cyclists would cut right past me and the dog going fast. 20kg dog vs 80kg+ of bike and rider at 15mph - I don't want to think about that. So, naturally whenever I come across a dog now I know what the owner will be thinking and what the dog is likely to do.
I first saw the dog when the guy moved across the path, because before that it was deep in the bushes on my left hand side. It wasn't apparent initially (sorry, should have made that clearer in my initial post, reading it back it's not clear at all), so it looked at that point like I had clear path to cycle through. When he moved over, that's when I started getting confused, and then the dog appeared around the same time, hence I put on the brakes.
But look - leaving blame aside, I do see your point. And as I say, I have 2 dogs, and I had another before them, so I know what you're saying. I too find myself on both sides of the situation, but maybe it's unfair of me to assume that all dog owners will see things that way too.
Has the video been edited since posting? I only see 4 seconds of two bikes passing each other, no sign of dog, ped or emergency stop.
Tonight, heading north on NEPN, around 7pm ish, around the bridge to St Georges, male dog owner, mid forties, stocky, bald, with 7 loose dogs of varying sizes and shapes.
Whilst they were mostly well behaved, I had slowed down to filter through the pack, when one of them decided to cross in front of me, I made a very very mild (non sweary) observation that it was his dogs that would come of worse in any collision.
He totally lost it, which had a unfortunate effect on some of his dogs who then proceeded to chase me, couldn't "read" what the dogs intent was, so stopped rather than risk a attack whilst moving.
Eventually the dogs, calmed a little bit. So could semi safely proceed, thanks also to lady cyclist, who arrived.
Would warn all cyclists to be very very wary with this man and his dogs, he has a very low tolerance threshold.
Funnily enough I came across a guy matching that description at the red bridge ~6:10pm, dogs out of control wandering across me as I did a track stand. I said dogs in the middle, he started shouting about slowing down.
How can you be a single person handling 5 dogs in a public place, it is not possible to keep them under control as required by law.
Being a nutter seems to help.
I passed someone who had six dogs under perfect control in Newhailes Estate today. As I cycled past they were all sitting in front of her, off the path, staring intently at a biscuit in her hand. So it can be done.
@Cyclingmollie, totally agree see good control lots of times.
This guy is not on the ball, which he transmits to his dogs.
@559, yes, that incident you had sounded awful. Our dog was attacked by a loose bull terrier a couple of nights ago. Left us both very shaken.
This guy could be walking dogs for people. He half-heartedly called the dogs because I let him know I was coming up, but they ignored him. The path was busy with commuters so I'm sure he did the same to lots of others.
#559
I've had issues with this guy before. Numerous dogs all over the path, cycled past at walking pace using my bell beforehand.
He then proceeds to chew me out, threatens to set the dogs on me. Threatened to break my legs so I can't cycle any more. Nasty piece of work that guy.
@DeathbyPomp,
yup, sounds same guy, threats appeared very quickly, defo nasty.
The council has guidelines & registration for professional dog walkers using it parks.
3. Minimise the impact that exercising multiple dogs could have on other park users. Quiet parks, or quiet areas within parks, should be used over busy parks and spaces near children’s play areas.
4. Take extra care when arriving and leaving parks and
greenspace to minimise issues for other users. All dogs should be walked away from and returned to the vehicle on a lead.
7. Have a good knowledge of dog behaviour and reliable skills in training and handling dogs.
Apparently there are 200 registered dog businesses in Edinburgh!
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