Dogs and backpacking

Decades ago I lived in a third world country 2 years while in the military and for months of that time had a house to live in at on my free time in the nearby city. People in such places rarely leash their dogs that live outside and at night neighborhood dogs would join together and run about in barking dangerous packs. I grew up in a large family that always had pet dogs and strange even to this day, dogs often seem to sense I'm a dog person. Thus can often change the demeanor of initially aggressive barking dogs by bending down low, talking calmly to them, and acting friendly that changes behavior to a tail wagging friendly one. The interesting thing is out at night in the third world country in a few occasions the night pack dogs found me in the dim back streets and I was able to get them to stop barking and go on their way. My suspicion is such packs have a leader and if that lead dog stops being aggressive so does the rest of a pack.

That said, most dogs one meets on trails in this era are probably urban pets, many of which have very limited isolated interactions for long periods with both other dogs and human strangers. Thus many such dogs in this era have not learned how to behave around strangers and or other strange dogs and cannot be trusted.  Sure they may be fine around other dogs and people they know but a dog's nature is rather complicated about strangers.  That is very different than the world I grew up in during the 50s and 60s when everyone in our California outer suburban neighborhoods let their dogs run about neighborhoods as they will that allows dogs to learn acceptable behaviors much like my experience in the third world country. Accordingly one cannot trust how urban dogs one meets on trails in this era may react. One way for urban pet owners to help their dog's behavior is by regularly bringing them to dog parks where they can interact with lots of other dogs and their pet owners.