DOG RULES

Any road cyclist can tell you that comity between man and dogs is pure fiction. Sure, the family hound might wag its tail and eagerly perform degrading tricks on command ("Roll over! Roll over! Play dead! Now let little Billy dress you up for your funeral!"), but such behavior is a counterfeit of affection. It's an act to ensure that people and their opposable thumbs keep opening cans of dog food.

But put a dog in a situation where it can alibi aggression toward humans, and you see how dogs really roll. When they see a cyclist peacefully making his way down some country road (lowering his carbon footprint, virtuously doing his part to keep health insurance rates down), they see a chance for vengeance and fly toward it with fangs bared. They shoot across a lawn like a heat-seeking missile with funny ears and a tail, hellbent on righting every wrong they have suffered at the hand of men. For every time they have chased a ball that was not really thrown, for each of those damned awful Benji movies, for the cancellation of Run, Joe, Run, dogs want pounds of human flesh in payment. And cyclists make such inviting targets because dogs can always explain their pursuit as a natural response. "Whoa, dude," the family hound can say. "I thought it was fleeing prey, y'know, like a deer or something. After all, that was what I was bred to do." In all my years of cycling, I have never seen a guy in a deer suit riding a bike, nor have I ever seen a real deer wearing a lurid lycra outfit. But we keep buying the argument that dogs chase cyclists because "they just can't help it."

Of course, there are ways to fight back. Braver cyclists will turn their bikes toward an onrushing dog, working on the theory that canines will back down if their aggression is returned. Of course, it's pretty rough (no pun intended) to have that theory blown up when the dog sails over the handle bars and clamps down on your throat. I preferred to use a canine pepper spray as a deterrent, and I got to be pretty handy with it. Three dogs got a blast in the snout from me, and I've thought about painting three silhouettes of dog heads on my top tube. Sort of like a fighter ace.

Naturally, big dogs pose the most serious threat, but in different ways. The German shepherds that have chased me have usually run alongside without crossing my path. I think they are playing a game of nerves with me, seeing whether I'll do their work for them by panicking and wrecking. It's an "I can get you anytime I want you" approach. It hasn't caused me to crash yet, but it has caused me to wonder just how far these brutes will go to unnerve me. Will I find crude drawings of a cyclist falling under a dog's fangs nailed to my door? Will a waiter who has shown a limited vocabulary and an exasperating tendency to chase cars remove his mask to show himself as my canine foe? Will I get into bed one night and find the headset of my bike cut off and thrown under the covers?

Herding dogs, such as border collies, are another matter. They zip about, obviously trying to get me to go somewhere of their choosing. I have often worried that if I encounter border collies of a certain number and persistence I might wind up in shearing pen getting my head shaved. Or in a line going into a slaughter house.

In the meantime, I'll just employ the best means I know to defend myself from dogs: Ride with slower cyclists.