Last weekend I completed the Braunton 150 route as an ITT (Yay), after about 3 hours I reached a farm via a section of hike a bike, the bridle path looked as though no horse had used it in a long while (the reason would soon become clear why!) as I neared the gate into the farm yard a pack of 7 or 8 farm dogs came barreling towards me clearly meaning buisness, I had to use my bike as a shield as they darted in from all sides! Every time I moved it seemed infuriate them more, if I stood still they just growled alot but movement sparked them into a frenzy. I started to look for some form of weapon when of all the luck the Post man`s van drove into the farm yard and they turned en mass and charged after the van, seeing my chance to escape I pedal up the lane away from the farm, I would have smoked Mark Cavendish over those 200m!
I am no stranger to dogs, we have 2 Labs and have been around dogs most of my life, but I had no clue how to deal with a situation like that.
Does anyone have a similar or worse experience and how did you deal with it?
At no time did anyone come out and try to control the dogs, I really don`t know what would have happened had the postman not turned up!

I've generally found that they'll almost always respond to very loud commands like SIT / STAY etc.

It can be f*ck*ng terrifying though.

Do you know roughly where that was BTW? I did it recently and that's not ringing a bell.

Shout STOP, if that doesn't work violence.

IME farm dogs aren't big dogs.

Richard G wrote:I've generally found that they'll almost always respond to very loud commands like SIT / STAY etc.

It can be f*ck*ng terrifying though.

Do you know roughly where that was BTW? I did it recently and that's not ringing a bell.

I don` know the name of the farm but I think it was a mile or so before Challacombe, from memory I had crossed a new looking foot bridge and then a reasonably long walk up a field of long tufty grass.
The incident in no way detracted from the route, the scenery from the valley of rocks along the north Devon coast was truly stunning!

Richpips wrote:Shout STOP, if that doesn't work violence.

IME farm dogs aren't big dogs.

Their 7 sets of teeth looked pretty big at the time!!

I wonder if we can get bear spray over here.

Could be a new line for the shop, Stu. I can see the design on the can now...

When my late father was a postman in the 90's he was issued with a pepper spray to use in defence of dogs, but it was a small can so you'd have to choose which looked most likely to bite you and spray that one I don't remember any packs of dogs being an issue, there was a single barking dog at some point but it was tied up. Can't remember where it was, it was light so somewhere before Minehead.

sean_iow wrote:When my late father was a postman in the 90's he was issued with a pepper spray to use in defence of dogs, but it was a small can so you'd have to choose which looked most likely to bite you and spray that one I don't remember any packs of dogs being an issue, there was a single barking dog at some point but it was tied up. Can't remember where it was, it was light so somewhere before Minehead.

Hi Sean I assume this postman must have had a post box he could reach from the van window or 5 gallon can of pepper spray!

Dogs do seem to have it in for postmen. They must also know that my dad was a postman as I always seem to get chased by them, especially if I'm out running There's a farm I ride through regularly where the dogs start barking before I even get there but I never worry as I know they're in their pen, of course one day they'll be out and a full on sprint will be required for several miles

Jurassic pusher wrote:I don` know the name of the farm but I think it was a mile or so before Challacombe, from memory I had crossed a new looking foot bridge and then a reasonably long walk up a field of long tufty grass.

Found it. Yeah, thankfully no dogs out when I got to that bit.

sean_iow wrote:Dogs do seem to have it in for postmen.

The best explanation I ve seen for this is that the dog sees the postman as a "thing" that comes onto their territory, they bark, then the "thing" goes away.

Essentially every day is a victory for the dog - Obviously they don't clock that post has been delivered

Squirt water in their face. They hate it.

Was this the farm at buscombe. Be handy to know for future rides. When I did it I had no problems with dogs on any of the route. Perhaps he's getting fed up of bikers now :0)

Although it goes against instinct, I often find getting off the bike and walking helps. Now, the dog sees you as a person, not a thing to be chased ... a stern 'lie down' doesn't hurt either

For a working dog a shout of 'wait' would usually be more effective. However it won't as alot of dogs are trained in Welsh, Gaelic or to the whistle.

I might have to try my whistle, it's always on my camelbak strap.

I usually just bring a bigger dog. Japanese Tosas are pretty handy in that situation.

Bringing a gun to a knife fight.

When I was an athlete in my previous life, I went on a warm weather training camp in Spain. As I was walking back to camp a hoard of rabied looking strays came out of nowhere and surrounded me. My coach had conveniently ran to a safe place a short distance away. It was from here he gave his advice:

"As one of them comes for you clench your fist and thrust it towards its mouth. As it opens its mouth, with your other hand grab it by the scruff of its neck and pull it on to your mouth facing hand - thus choking it. Then push it on to its back, thrust your knee down on to its chest, grab its two front legs and pull them apart. Dead in seconds. And don't let them see your scared - they can smell fear!!!"

An expert in athletics Wilf was, an expert in dogs he was not. Whether or not he had seen the other 6 dogs still remain a mystery!

Luckily a good squirt of Gatorade and running screaming at them did the trick, or was it backing off gently I cant remember. I did think I was a gonna though!!