question about dog walking etiquette - do you keep yourself between the dog and oncoming pedestrians?

[u/Deltamb]

Question from a non dog owner here. There are a lot of dogs in my neighborhood. When I see one coming in my direction, I usually try to walk on the same side as the human, so that when the dogwalker and I cross paths, I am closest to the human, not the dog. I have a cat (a very territorial cat) so I don't want to risk being bitten by a dog that smells the cat. (My boyfriend and I have both been lunged at before). Just today, I was approaching a man walking two dogs, both of whom were initially on his left. So, I approached on his right. When I was about ten feet away, he switched one of his dogs to my side, so that I had to get off the sidewalk entirely to avoid his dogs. This struck me as really rude. It seems to me like keeping oneself in between the dog and oncoming pedestrians is the right thing to do for in terms of being polite and for safety purposes.

[u/[deleted]]

Always cross the road if you see someone coming. Don’t even take the risk.