Spitting cyclist spoils pleasant outing
A woman is upset after she and her little poodle were spat at on New Plymouth’s Coastal Walkway – and it may not be the first time the cyclist has been at it.
Kirsten Geraghty was walking her black teacup poodle, Mitzi, between the Links and Te Rewa Rewa bridge last week, when she let the little dog off the lead on a clear stretch.
‘‘She’s crossed over the walkway to greet an oncoming walker and a man – I didn’t know he was coming up behind us because he didn’t have a bell – he just rode past and promptly spat at us as he went past, presumably at my dog being off her lead.’’
She said she knew the rules were to keep the dog on the lead, ‘‘but I didn’t think it warranted being spat on’’. ‘‘She’s quite little; she doesn’t take up a lot of space. She’s certainly not an aggressive dog.’’
In June, 2017, a woman had her labradoodle spat on while she was sitting on a bench with the dog, on a lead, standing beside her. She hadn’t had a good look at the cyclist, but said he was an ‘‘oldish guy’’ perhaps in his 50s, and was wearing a fluoro yellow jacket and had a black bike.
Geraghty said the cyclist who spat at Mitzi was wearing a yellow jacket.
She said she couldn’t tell for sure he was spitting at her, but it was an odd place to do it if he wasn’t.
‘‘I don’t really know; if he waited even five metres that would’ve been quite nice. It seemed fairly deliberate considering that it wasn’t a very busy walkway.’’
She put a post on the Bell Block Community Facebook page which attracted dozens of comments, with others saying they knew of people having their dogs spat on.
Geraghty said she had not reported it to the police because it was ‘‘hardly worth doing anything like that’’, but was more aware of what was happening around her.
However, using the walkway was usually a very positive experience, she said.
‘‘Most people are really friendly and nine times out of 10, when people see her, they want to pat her. ‘‘Everybody shares it usually.’’ A police spokesperson said due to the way jobs are recorded, there was not a way to easily count dogspitting incidents, but any response would be on a case-by-case basis.