Running and dogs

Change your route.  If you get attacked, you are clearly in the right, but you are also the one with the injuries that could prevent you from running again for a long time.  It's not worth it.  I've discovered that dogs can't be reasoned with, and the owners who have problem dogs can't be, either.  Far easier, and less stressful--physically and emotionally--to go somewhere else. 

If the dog is really a problem, you should probably bring it up with the authorities-that-be before, as Kenny said, a kid--or anyone--gets mauled.  (It'd probably be wise to still run a different route if the dog gets taken away.  See previous statement about unreasonable owners.)

Oh, and by the way, some folks around here take real offense to the terms "joggers" and "jogging."  I'm just saying.

i have this problem now.  changing routes just changes the type and placement of the dogs.  i start to walk and don't look at them and even the meanest ones stop near to their property line.  some have gotten used to me now and just watch me go on by.  the bassett that chases me up a hill gives me the giggles.  he runs.  stops and howls.  runs some more.  i keep telling him he'd be able to keep up if he stopped the howling!  LOL  

 So's this:

Not sure what joggers do, but when I'm out running   in the farm country we live in I frequently encounter the same Rottweiler that charges me every time I run by the house it lives in.  It always stops at the edge of its property and it has gotten to be a game between us.  I don't even break stride anymore.  I just yell "shut up" in a loud, commanding tone and it backs off.  I think most dogs will back off if you show that you are not afraid of it.  I will almost always yell "shut up" or "get out" very loudly whenever I encounter a threatening dog coming towards me while I'm on a run.