Hi,

I was just wondering... what do you do with regards to dogs in South America. Granted, I have only travelled in Chile and a little bit of Argentina so far, but they seem to be everywhere and often really really keen on chasing motorcyclists. I have been bitten once (luckily only once, and not very serious) and am not keen on it happening again.

So I was pondering on different methods to keep (or scare) them away, without taking too drastic measures. I googled a bit around, and found the following web page:

Smells That Repel Dogs - Pets

Suggestion 1:
Keeping a small water pistol at hand loaded with citrus water. Give any chasing dogs a squint and see what happens?

Suggestion 2:
Somehow put some chilli on your pants' legs, hoping that dogs will sense the chilli and come to other thoughts. Of course, you should be careful yourself not to touch your pants and then touch your eyes ;-)


Have any of you tried this? Thoughts?

And a follow-up q:
When you get bitten... do you (always) run to the doctor to get a rabies shot? I did not... the bit only *scarcely* drew blood - like 1/10th of a drop - and there were no holes in my jeans, so I figured the contact might just be Teeth-Jeans and Jeans-Flesh. And it was in Coyhaique, Chile - Chile (according to my search on the internet) having close to zero rabies-level in dogs."Close" being only one reported incident the last 5-10 years.

~Jørn