I'm just back from a ride on the south downs an am pleased to say I had no problems with the many dogs (and owners) that were about enjoying the sun. In my experience the behaviour of any dog is in direct correlation with that of the owner. Is it any real surprise that the owners who allow their dogs to run up to people, bark at them and generally intimidate are the same sort of people who would be aggressive and abusive once they'd had a couple of pints in the pub.
I think we need to differentiate between an aggressive dog, which almost always has an aggressive owner, and a badly behaved dog which almost always has a weak, non-disciplinary pathetic owner who shouts ineffectually after their hound while it carries on doing what it wants. These dogs are never (usually) dangerous and are easily repelled by allowing them to play with you for a bit to allow their owner to appear spouting that all time classic "s/he never usually does that".
I recently stayed at a camp-site where a couple arrived with an exceptionally badly behaved dog. It went for everyone adult and child alike who walked past the owner's tent, after observing this for a couple of days, I was walking past when the dog bolted out from the tent and made a beeline for me. I stopped and waited till it got to me, it started barking, jumping up and growling. I grabbed it's collar and dragged it back to the tent, out of which came a woman who said "he never usually does that". I pointed out that what she had said was in fact the sort of lie even David Irving would baulk at and that she should have better control of her dog which appeared to be almost feral. When I returned in the evening, they had the dog, on it's lead tied to the tow hitch on their car, needless to say it didn't bother too many people once they'd done this.
I never blame a dog, always the owners.
