Monday, March 15, 2010

another beautiful day!

what a gorgeous day! blue sunny skies, warm, lots of people out.



i'd like to share part of an email that r2r sent my way this morning:


I am concerned about the disrespect the off-leash dog owners have on the bike trails. A minimum of 3 dogs per day run in front of my bike nearly causing a wreck, and I have to come to screeching halt more often than not. There are many considerate dog owners who hold their dogs when a bike rides by, but lately there are too many dogs running free while the dog owner pays no attention. Sometimes the owners .... complain because they have to retrieve their dog from the path (after I have stopped). Not only are the dog owners inconsiderate, but I have seen too much dog poop and green bags left on the trails.

i, too, have seen more bags left by the side of the trail and others have noticed the same trend. do people really not know that there's no on who picks up after them?

this was left on the out.....


and this on the back...

condensation in the bags, they did appear to have been there for a while.

i've also heard of 2 other incidents in the past few weeks where dog owners got belligerent when asked to leash or control their dogs. which is a perfectly legitimate request especially when the dog a) is jumping up on someone & not coming when called (in one case) or b) the person making the request is on a bike and not confident (perhaps due to past experience) that a dog won't suddenly decide to run in front of their bike.

this seems to happen every spring when the weather gets nice & the trails get busier.

we had a really nice walk today, most other dog owners were really polite & a bike rider thanked me for getting the dogs out of the way. not saying it's all horrible, just that we can use a little help getting things in shape again.

happy trails!

3 comments:

marianne said...

matt- i don't know where your comment went- hopefully blogger didn't lose it. i very clearly said "as long as you pick it up". it is NOT ok to leave ANYTHING- snotty kleenex, beer bottles, unbagged poop, power bar or energy food wrappers- for other people. i know that lots of people see the green bags as "littering for a little while" but venture a guess that if everyone was responsible for picking them back up on the way out & throwing them away it would be less of an issue.

matt said...

Why should I or anyone else have to pick up a bag that someone else left on the side of the trail, even if you had the intention of picking it back up? How am I supposed to know? Don't leave it in the first place and then nobody has to clean up after other people. Pack it in, pack it out is the ethic I was tough. Another way of putting it - take only photos, leave only footprints. You take excellent photos, btw. I just can't fathom how an otherwise incredibly responsible trail user could advocate leaving a bag full of crap on the side of the trail. Doesn't make sense to me, it sets a bad example for others who clearly don't think that they need to pick up their bags, and does not help with the perception of dog owners in the eyes of non-dog owners...

marianne said...

thanks for the compliment on the photos! i understand your point, just don't happen to agree. i pick up plenty of trash & don't mind doing it. i wasn't aware until recently that this bothered people so much, because it seems logical to me.