Safety in numbers

I was looking the time and then up to the sky. The night had fallen already and the last bit of lighting was fading away. Sadly I couldn't make it home before dark. My commute is long and has a particular part that stretches for 1 kilometer which is hilly and also pitch black after nightfall. (I will talk about my daily commute on a future post). Fortunately, my bicycle has proper lights, but what makes me uncomfortable the most when riding through this part is not the darkness, it is a dog. There is a sheep shelter nearby and after nightfall the shepherd's dog wakes up and starts sniffing around and barking to passing cyclists. So as I was reaching this place I was thinking that I had to pass through this spot and it was already dark, which meant the dog was awake. 

I looked up to the sky one more time, the sky's color from dark blue had turned to black in a matter of  minutes. I had to ride through, there was nothing I could do, right?

Well, as it turned out, there was something I could do and I did it!

I saw him way back before and actually overpassed him. And there he was at that time, right behind me, riding at my pace. There was my chance! I lowered my speed on purpose, so I could talk to him and asked him his direction and if he'd like to join me through the dark spot. For my good luck he agreed, so there we were, riding together and talking. As it turned out, that night the dog got a little bit lazy and barked while it was lying on the ground from far away. Could it be because we were riding next to each other, both with lights, and the dog took us for a car? Maybe, although I do not believe that. What is more important is that we didn't have any trouble with the dog, but even if we were, there was safety because we were two people. I know what you are thinking, two is a small number, but still a bigger number than one!

Do you have any stretches of road that are pitch black on your commute? How do you handle it?