yes, should have gone back and said, "I feel sorry for your dog that you are an asshole owner that let it run free in the road. But at least it was only a bike and not a truck that squashed it"

I woman is shouting out the window that I killed her dog and steps out into the road behind me. I shout back at her that the dog could have killed me and keep on going.


You didn't even stop?


And your complaining that your nice ride was spoiled...Wow

What if it was a 5 year old kid that ran out in front of his bike???

Same response???

The kid shouldn't be allowed to run in the street either.

Logic fail....One is a dog, the other is a human. Not even close to being the same thing.

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Chicago Cubs - 2016 WORLD SERIES Champions!!!!

"If ever the time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." - Samuel Adams

Shouting out the window of the vehicle with which she tried to run me off the road seconds before. Yes, I made the judgement call that further engagement was not in my best interests.

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Brian

Gonna buy a fast car, put on my lead boots, take a long, long drive
I may end up spending all my money, but I'll still be alive

if it's a kid running at me at 25mph barking and with fangs showing, then yeah, sure, same response.

So, let me get this straight: everyone is saying it is the dog owner's fault b/c she was not obeying the leash law. So, i guess every single one of you never goes over the speed limit, always stops completely before a right-on-red turn, never jaywalks, etc, etc. If it is not obvious, my point is that people break various laws all the time. Now I have no idea what the traffic situation is on that road where this incident happened, but maybe this incident would not have happened if "ergopower" had been going 25 mph instead of 35. Sure, i know it's a downhill but still; let's say he had hit and killed a small child, what would the response been then???

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

What are you, 15? Grow the fuck up. If you're the owner and your dog causes an accident, you're in the wrong. Deal with it. Flex your fingers all you want on the internet, you try this shit in real life and you'll be in your own cage downtown waiting for the judge on Monday. Learn the law and stop being an asshat.

Source - dog owner and trainer.

If I break the law by speeding, I accept the consequences of my actions should a cop pull me over. Seems fair for the dog owner to do the same....YMMV.

And stop with the child analogy. 1) A human life is not equal to a dog's life. Harsh, but true. 2) there aren't leash laws on children. But if it were a child that ran out in front of him, guess what....still the woman's fault.

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Chicago Cubs - 2016 WORLD SERIES Champions!!!!

"If ever the time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." - Samuel Adams

Regarding child vs dog, I was faced with this situation 5 or so years ago. I was riding with friends down a cycle & foot path through a park. I was slightly off the back, and a small child broke free from his mom and ran across the path right in front of me. I yanked on the bars and grabbed the brakes and missed him. I low-sided, but luckily already in the grass so I was back up quickly with no damage. It would always be my responsibility to avoid hurting another person if I am able.

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Brian

Gonna buy a fast car, put on my lead boots, take a long, long drive
I may end up spending all my money, but I'll still be alive

You'd have beaten him up for an incident in which you as the owner played have all (possibly) or most (certainly) responsibility? Dang.

Well said.

I'll add that the second dog running out after the OP shows that owner is a terrible owner in terms of truly looking after her dogs' welfare.

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It's psychos like you that make me inclined to not stop if I ever hit a dog. If dog owners are going to respond like this, I suppose it answers a question our group has had regarding if we should conceal carry while riding since there is an aggressive dog on our route.

We had a local dog slam into our back fence, break through, and maul one of our dogs to death. I have absolutely no inclination to wait for a very vocal dog chasing me, much less a screaming owner who probably isn't thinking straight either to see if either is going to be hostile. By the time she hops in the car and chances, the answer is very clear that she is being hostile.

I don't get what point you're trying to make here. The dog owner is breaking the law by letting her dogs off her property and onto a public road, but maybe at some point I and every other citizen also broke laws so she shouldn't have to take responsibility for what happened? The speed limit on this low-traffic road is 35 MPH, but had I walked down the hill the accident would have been avoided.

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Brian

Gonna buy a fast car, put on my lead boots, take a long, long drive
I may end up spending all my money, but I'll still be alive

The OP did what ANY of us would have done if there was a second dog trailing behind. And I would wager if the owner pulling up behind and in front of our bike while screaming, any of us would have been pretty defensive no matter how bad we might have felt about striking an animal (and I've owned 2 dogs).

Its not a great situation to be in but to try to spin it into "what if" scenarios is ridiculous.

Yeah... the woman's fault for sure. Best to just keep riding then also. What a non-compassionate asshole. WOW!!!

my point is that she broke a minor law similar to what most people break every day. certainly, she is responsible for her dog's running out in the street but your extremely callous manner of handling this incident is what gets my temper up. at the very least, if you ride this same road again, maybe ride the brakes on the downhills? i'll bet if you'd been going 20-25 mph, you could've avoided running over the very small dog.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

I'm actually calling BS on this......the OP hit a dog (I don't care the size) square, kills it at 20plus and kept a it up right? Yea right......BS.

Post a video, copy of the police report or pics of blood on your bike or this whole story is TOTAL BS.

Apparently my experience with dogs has been very different from most of you. I've been cycling and running for about 15 yrs on a boulevard which has a large park next to it. The blvd is a 5.2 mi loop and the safest place to ride in my area. The large park is about 3.0 miles on its perimeter. It is not a dog park per se but, acc to those who've lived there their whole lives, it has been standard practice to let dogs run free in this park, since at least 1980. Every 6 months or so, Animal Control will come off and on for a week or two but then they let us be. In running with my dogs through this park, I've only ever encountered 2 hostile dogs out of at least 5000 or so dogs in our 15 yrs, and both of those dogs were actually on leashes. I've always had Golden Retrievers and Golden mixes so all of my dogs have been very gentle.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

sorry eric, you are out of line on this one.
If your dog runs out into traffic or actually harms some human, it its always the dogs/owners fault.

sorry to break it to you:

even if the right thing would have been for the rider to stop and apologize (regardless of the perceived threat from the other dog), what you advocate doing after your dog broke human etiquette is criminal and wrong.

I own a dog and I have my hands full with (shelter rescue), but it is fact that humans and human law come first, unless some day dogs should run this planet...

Should we all start riding our breaks on any downhill in which there are any properties on which dogs might reside?

Also, please explain why riding at 20-25mph would have saved the dogs life. Show math please. As you are blaming him, WAGs don't count.

anyone here who says you should have stopped, or be sorry is a complete moron.

i have a dog, he's sitting right next to me. i also had my first dog murdered when i was 5 (inner city). this doesn't mean that when my dog dies it's someone else's fault.

you didn't do anything wrong. i would have done the same. it's not your job to be sure if a dog is going to attack you or not. dogs can be rabid, it only takes transfer of saliva to your bloodstream. not worth it.

the only thing you did wrong was not threaten to beat the pulp out of the lady for harassment with her vehicle. riding with a gopro has it's pros...

so a little lap dog died. who gives a rear (last i checked people are being slaughtered in syria). if she cared about her dog that much, she would have had better voice control, or a leash on it. simple as that.

i walk my dog around the neighborhood without a leash. i carry the leash on me. i completely understand that there is the slightest of chances that he could not obey just once and be dead. 11 years of 2-3 walks a day (we used to run in the city leash less when i lived in boston for 6 years), without a single incident (ok, i lied, one time he stopped as we were crossing to drop a deuce in framingham)....

train your dogs, have control of your dogs, and they won't go chasing after cyclist and get killed.

if anything, that owner should be punished.

go on with your life guilt free. you did nothing wrong. in fact, be happy you didn't go over your handlebar and then get mauled by the other dog.

Craziest post on here in a long time. I bet you've gone down in the estimation of a lot of folk on here with that.

If there hadn't been a 2nd dog, I'm quite sure the OP or any other reasonable human would have stopped and expressed sadness. But that doesn't make it his fault that somebody doesn't know how to control their animal properly.

This whole thread is a prime example of the whole dog-owners vs non-dog-owners debate. A lot of dog owners seem to think that their dogs are never going to do anyone any harm and can't recognise the fact that it's unsociable and/or dangerous to have them running amok. I'm sure he/she is just a darling when they're with you, but I don't want some animal with unknown intentions running at me. Even if it's not being aggressive, there's still a chance it'll do something stupid and take me down as proven here.

It's exactly the same as the motorists vs cyclists debate; a lot of motorists just don't realise how dangerous and/or unsociable it is to pass a cyclist within a foot at 60+ mph and get all defensive when you point it out. If you take the time to see it from the other person's point-of-view you wouldn't do it in the first place.

Of course it's sad that the little dog got squashed, but letting it run out in the road is just negligent. Having said that, I probably would have stopped once I thought the immediate danger had passed and especially once she caught up in the car. Just carrying on your ride is pretty cold!

This whole thread is a prime example of the whole dog-owners vs non-dog-owners debate.
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Um, did you miss the part(s) where a bunch of dog owners are chiming in stating that the OP did the right thing and that the dog owner in this case is wrong and at fault? This "whole thread" is nothing more than an OP getting something off his chest, receiving support, having 1-2 dog owners be the guy you want them to be, and the rest of the thread (including the dog owners) bashing them for it.

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Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/

I'm a dog person, lots of dogs amongst my family and friends, including both pets and farm/working dogs, have always loved them. My experience is largely similar to yours, but I would caveat that my perception of a dog's behaviour is going to be very different to somebody who hasn't been around dogs all their life. Dogs off the leash in parks are also far less likely to be hostile than dogs on farms or out in the countryside.

My take on this is:
- personally I would have stopped when the 2nd dog stopped and tried to calm the situation down. A dog (particularly a farm/country dog) is quite likely to nip or worse in the excitement of chasing a moving target, but having stopped the chase it's extremely unlikely to then attack a full-grown man who is standing his ground, and if it tries then you should be able to repel it fairly easily with a kick or by putting the bike between you and it. However, I can understand that not everybody sees dogs the way I do, and that with adrenaline pumping through your veins that cycling off at top speed is an understandable response.
- I think what most people in this thread are missing is that the owner was quite possibly close to temporary insanity. This wasn't a considered response, it was the visceral response of somebody who may not have even seen the incident but just ran out and saw her dog dead on the ground and the cyclist taking off into the distance. I'm not in any way equating the life of a dog with the life of a child, but in terms of the immediate emotional response triggered in an owner/parent by seeing one killed, it's not far off. It's entirely possible that she's a basically decent person who was out of her mind
- if you're saying that your emotional response to seeing your dog killed would have been to chase down the cyclist and beat him up, I get that. If you're saying you'd have done the same thing as a considered response after reflecting on the fact that the dog was running loose on the road and that the rider was just trying to escape your second dog, then I have to say you're totally wrong. This was an unfortunate accident, nobody deserves to have their face rearranged for doing something they couldn't have avoided, or for their immediate fight or flight response to a charged and highly stressful situation.

I do think the OP's time would have been better spent on writing a letter to the owner explaining what happened from his perspective and expressing his sorrow for the loss of her dog, rather than posting a somewhat callous thread about it on here. Might have had a more positive outcome in terms of both helping her to get closure, and getting her to see her actions from somebody else's perspective and being a more responsible owner and driver in future.