A new record for dogs eluded

On my training ride yesterday I outran nine dogs in five separate Dog Related Incidents (DRI). That's got to be some kind of record both for DRI's and for total number of dogs. The ride was 45 miles long, so maybe I get the award for miles per DRI.

Shortly after I moved here, before I knew any better, I called animal control on a group of chocolate labs who reside in a yard I pass on one of my favorites rides in this area. The dogs chase me every time I ride by. But they don't just chase me, they hunt me. They lie in wait in their yard, and as I approach, they run not toward me but rather toward the spot on the road where they are most likely to catch me. That's right: they take the angle.

After a particularly harrowing DRI at this location, I complained to the county animal control officer. He never called back, so I phoned him to follow up. Perturbed, he assured me that he had driven by the house and seen no dogs. Driven by! He didn't even pretend to have made the slightest effort to investigate. But his claim wasn't credible in the first place. Those dogs are always there, scheming chaos and destruction.

I got the message. The law is not on my side. I have search in vain in the Alabama constitution for a right to send one's unleashed dogs rushing hell-bent onto the highway ahead of (not after) cyclists, but have found no textual support for such a right. It must be one of thos penumbral emanations, like the right to have an abortion, or to share rap music out of one's car window.

Since then I have armed myself with pepper spray. Until a couple weeks ago I hadn't actually used the pepper spray because I always managed to outrun everything that chased me. But recently I decided to teach the chocolate labs a lesson. As I approached their house I deliberately slowed down to let the ring leader come alongside. Predictably taking the angle, he intercepted me about 70 yards down the road from the house. As he came even with my chain ring, I planted a solid shot of pepper spray right on his nose.

Who knew chocolate labs have disc brakes? That dog stopped so fast, it was enough to make one doubt the law of inertia.

And yet yesterday, just a couple of weeks later, he was right back at it. As I rode by, my nemesis was carefully calculating vectors as he sprinted for a spot ahead of me on the road. He hadn't learned.

I don't intend ever to stop and explain the correlation.