A spoiled stroll

It has been my experience that steel toed boots and pepper spray work best in this situation.

As for the dog, just say SHOO.

As someone who grew up in Point Breeze, attended Allderdice and used Frick Park on a near-daily basis, I noticed years ago that it was becoming overrun with dogs.  

The field my schoolmates and I used to play Ultimate Frisbee on was turned into an off-leash area.  The OLEAs usually smell like feces in the summertime and are unusable for park visitors without dogs.  Moreover, the dog owners routinely allow their animals to run free (often with a leash attached to their collar) when they aren't in the designated OLEA.  

As someone who rides a bike, I'm concerned about other bike riders who treat the trails as if they are highways and speed along with no regard for children, pedestrians or dog owners.  Yet I see no reciprocation of respect for other trail users by the dog owners who treat entire parks as playgrounds and litter boxes for their pets.

Dog owners need to get their dogs on leashes (short ones -- not the thirty-foot long retractable ones) and other users should be mindful of not occupying the entire trail when runners or cyclists want to pass.  And cyclists should be mindful of not running over (or intimidating) slower trail users.

I was running those trails this spring and was repeatedly brought up short by loose dogs. None were unfriendly, but all were intrusive.

I love dogs but those trails are just too heavily used for dogs not to be leashed.

Dog owners all think their dogs are just so precious we all want to interact with them. We don't.

"A spoiled stroll" = a stroll through congress.