This thread has had a surprisingly long run.
Anyone who’s been running the many years I’ve had must have a wealth of dog incident stories to relate.
I’ve killed a dog, or at least, I assumed he was dead.
On a run over parkland, I saw a couple of Dobermans, with a women in charge of them, making a nuisance of themselves with walkers a short distance away and I cut off into the woods before they espied me, a runner, and presumably, better prey.
About half an hour later, I was coming back along a narrow path in the woods, when I found the two of them in my path and geared up ready to attack me.
Lucky for me, there was a large variety of old branches and the like lying on the ground and, again, as luck would have it, I found a piece that was suitable as a club.
It was almost choreographed as I swung the club and actually hit the skull of the first Doberman as he leapt at me - I could hear the bones shatter and he went down poleaxed.
I turned my attention to the other one, but I needn’t have worried, I swear I saw terror in his eyes and he turned and ran off, presumably back to his owner.
I ran off the other way and as dogs can’t talk, the owner never did find out what happened.
She should have had them properly trained in the first place.
My latest two incidents were, running along a country lane, an Alsatian (German Sheppard) came charging out from an adjacent smallholding and was clearly about to attack me.
I did what I normally do in these circumstances, start roaring at the top of my voice and go into a ‘angry gorilla’ mode, jumping up and down, waving my arms and pounding my chest.
That, I’ve found, always stops in their tracks the vast majority of domestically owned dogs, as they simply don’t know how to respond to something outside their experience.
We had a stand-off until a women came running out, full of apologies, saying she didn’t know how he got out.
It was all territorial I suppose, as with her chatting to me, the dog instantly calmed down and I ended up stroking the animal, with him wagging his tail.
It was a beautiful dog, were I to own a dog, I’d pick an Alsatian.
Of all the dogs that annoy me though, as a runner, the one dog I could never get annoyed or cantankerous by their activities, is a golden retriever.
I have a real soft spot for that breed of dog and couldn’t conceivably ever harm one of them in any way.
Then, last summer, I ran a new Sunday morning course, including through a new Industrial Estate, when I passed a huge unit with two guard dogs protecting it - Rottwielers.
The first and probably the only person they were likely to see of a Sunday, they went wild, vainly trying to get though the bars of the gateway, to tear me to shreds.
On impulse, I turned and ran back to the town and bought a pack of ‘doggy treats’ - long strips of a meat-like substance.
I ran back and it was amusing to see the savage aggression turn to something like bafflement as I confidentially approached them, something that presumably was quite rare in their lonely lives.
They sniffed the treats, then eagerly snapped up the lot, almost taking my fingers with them!
That became a regular Sunday routine for me and they were always there waiting for me, tails wagging and I was even able to pat them through the bars after a while.
Then one Sunday, they simply weren’t there.
And the never appeared again, despite the sign still being up.
When I enquired, they told me all the high-priced paraphernalia had been moved from the site and they were no longer necessary.
I still wonder how they would have reacted had I entered the place weeks after I’d been treating them?
Would they have reacted as trained guard dogs - hard to believe as they so enjoyed the petting I was giving them each Sunday.