Up the Creek: He’s friendly, he won’t bite — A rural cyclist’s field notes on man’s best friend

Not long ago, as I was riding my bike uphill on a dirt road here in Gilmanton, a small dog peeled off a lawn and went straight for my ankle, trying to bite me. I felt his teeth sliding over my sock but he was somehow unable to get a purchase on flesh.

A week or so later, contemplating another ride up that road, the word “freedom” kept tumbling through my mind. People move to the countryside to be free — and it doesn’t matter whether their idea of freedom involves shooting at cans or reading Proust naked in their backyard. We’re here because we want space to move about as we like. In these parts, the state motto, “Live Free or Die,” is invoked daily.

But the recurring problem is that one person’s pursuit of freedom interferes with his neighbor’s. How can one resident fully absorb the nuanced excellence of Proust’s prose when his neighbor is shooting all day? Or, alternatively, how can the neighbor, being a God-fearing Christian, bring his children outside to enjoy their Second Amendment rights when Proustie is lying about buck naked next door?

For me, freedom lies in riding my bicycle wherever I want. For the owner of the dog that almost bit me, freedom lies in allowing his pet to run around, off the leash, all day long. There are laws curtailing dog liberties, of course, but in the American countryside these laws are enforced as frequently as the 55 mile-per-hour speed limit. Dog freedom is a cultural value. Bicycle freedom is a curious marginal concept.

Still, I have almost a half-century of experience with unleashed dogs. In 1975, when I was 10 and out on a bike ride with my mom, a Dalmatian came charging out at her front wheel, then toppled her to the ground, breaking her arm and dislocating her shoulder so that I was obliged to ride home all alone to get my dad. Later, as a reporter for magazines, I visited 20 countries, many of them places where cyclists, pedestrians and dogs coexist in, essentially, a Hobbesian state of nature.

In 2012, I traveled to the Gobi desert in southern Mongolia. The dogs there are typically not spayed, meaning there are lots of them. Meanwhile, leashes are not really a thing in southern Mongolia, so when I went out, each morning, for a walk of 4 or 5 miles, I’d frequently find myself stopped by a half-dozen dogs who blocked my path and growled as I contemplated whether or not they had rabies shots.

Just before I left Mongolia, an old man told me his method for keeping threatening dogs at bay. “Just carry a handful of rocks,” he said in matter-of-fact tones. “If the dogs get near, throw the rocks.” For a while, this was my go-to-strategy. I liked small rocks, roughly the size of ping pong balls, and if a dog got near, I’d aim for the ground between him and me, trying to telegraph that, if the dog moved forward an inch, the air would light up with projectiles.

But you can’t ride a bike with rocks in your hands, and when you’re moving about your hometown, you want to believe that order and civility prevails. I decided to game it and return to Socknip Road. Maybe the dog would be inside this time? No, he chased me again — and this time his teeth plunged right into the fibrous tissue above my achilles. There was blood. I screamed, more out of outrage than pain, and then a whole bunch of people gathered: kids, the middle-aged dog owner, old people. Apparently, I’d interrupted a pancake breakfast.

“Rex bit him?” the patriarch of the family said, lovingly petting my assailant. “That’s so unlike him.”

Of course, I’d never encountered Rex when he wasn’t trying to bite me. But I was not seriously hurt. I was simply annoyed, and I pedaled away after spending only a few seconds with the dog owner, writing this one off as just another skirmish in a long-running war.

When I got home, though, I found I’d received an unusual email. From the dog owner, who had somehow figured out who I was. I’ll call him George. He wasn’t defensive, as I expected. No, he was genuinely sorry — indeed, verbosely sorry. “I have,” George said, “been in your cleated shoes. I have used my bike as a shield. I have emptied my water bottle at ferocious foes, only to go thirsty. I have just about peed myself while pursued by a pit bull bent on carnage. I have now become,” George continued, alluding to his family’s recent acquisition of Rex, “that which I had despised.”

I liked the letter, actually. It was literary. Its confessional tones had echoes of Dostoyevsky, but then slowly George backed into a recitation of mainstream dog ideology. There were, he said, people on his road, in his family’s compound, with strong views concerning “a dog’s freedom. ... Dogs do what dogs do,” George wrote, explaining the views of his loved ones. “Dogs should be able to run free and be happy. Dogs will roll in shit and dead animals, and come home smelling bad and that’s okay because that’s what dogs do. ... Truth be told, I’m more of a cat person. ... I don’t dare broach the subject with my neighbors about restraining their dogs. Deaf ears, for naught.”

George did eventually say, “For the time being, Rex will not be allowed outside of this house unless leashed and under control. Whatever familial hell I have to pay.” But that promise came in his letter’s 22nd paragraph, and it was qualified. When would the “time being” expire?

I didn’t know, and there was a sad undertow of defeat in George’s letter. It was at bottom a recognition that he and I both live in a dog’s world and that, to survive here as cyclists, we better just keep our heads down.

I haven’t ridden Socknip Road once since I got bit. Yeah, the dog won.

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Bill Donahue has written for Outside, Harper's, The Atlantic and The Washington Post Magazine. He lives in Gilmanton, and his book, "Unbound: Unforgettable True Stories From The World of Endurance Sports," will be published by Rowman & Littlefield in June. This column is adapted from his online newsletter Up The Creek.