Can you report a chasing dog to anyone??

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Letslip

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Am sitting here seething at the moment, took my girl out for a relaxing hack today round the roads where she was behaving herself impeccably coping well with windyish conditions, horses trotting up fence lines beside her etc. Anyway coming off a junction past a row of houses when suddenly a dog came flying out of a driveway barking and growling and chased us 100 yards up the road towards a blind bend, thanfully it gave up just before the bend and I managed to get my baby girl under control (she has just turned 6). No one was about to call the dog to heel and I didn't dare go back towards the house as dog had gone back to the house and was standing in the driveway growling so didn't want to risk anything else. Was initially thankful that I hadn't been going the other way as we would have been chased towards the junction with a busy country road and goodness knows what could have happened if I hadn't been able to get her under control.

When I got back the yard found out that this is not the first occassion that this has happened to someone there with the same dog. Is there anyone this can be reported to police, RSPCA or do they just not bother with this kind of complaint? Has anyone ever tried and if so with any success?
 
It's not funny when things like that happen, is it?

Report it to your local dog warden - contact details are on your council website. Some DW are more proactive than others, shall we say ;) so ask them to go round to the house and speak to the owners as they were committing an offence as the dog was out of control in a public place, emphasise that to the DW and likely to cause an accident - either to you or an RTA.
 
you could report it to the police or local dog warden. go back and get the address (if its safe) and tell the police/DW there is a potentially dangerous dog living there which shows threatening behaviour (growling, barking, chasing) and could do harm to someone.

glad you and your horse is ok though :)
 
Yup your local dog warden.
We had a similiar problem with a lady who walked her dogs just over the bridge from our yard - 6 ranging from terriers to a husky and all 6 were nasty little beasts, snapping at our heels and trying to jump at the horses' faces.
We were told to contact the dog warden and the council.
Its an offence to have a dog out of control in a public place....the only snag is if they say the dog was in its own driveway they might be unable to do anything. At this point, emphasize that the dog chased you on a public road!!

I do hate it when things like that happen though :( x
 
OP I sympathise with you. It is a very scary situation. I have a similar problem on my local ride! The path that leads to the woods goes between this house (which is on one side of the path) and their garage/garden the other side. Nearly every single time I ride that route, this dog who is loose and free to run wherever on the path barks at you coming up the lane and stands right infront of your horses feet constantly barking. It wont move. Its a potential dangerous situation. The owners rarely come out to get the dog in. They know it react to horses like that so why let it run free?! So is this the same issue too, dog warden or is it the access team in the local council?
 
Many thanks for all your replies - will be contacting the dog warden tomorrow and hopefully may do some good if not for me then at least other riders :)
 
I'd have gone and knocked on the door - actually I would have taken my horse back to confront the owner there and then and shown the horse there was nothing to worry about.
 
I would contact the dog warden and the police. This behaviour should be covered by the Dangerous Dog Act. Owners have a responsibility to ensure their dogs are under control in public places - ie the road - and they face prosecution if they fail to do this. You were lucky but it could have been so much worse and the next rider might not have luck on their side.
 
I have spoken to the owners of the dog in my situation many a times. They said that if my horse kicks or injures their dog then so be it as they said it might teach the dog a lesson...
 
I had a similar thing happen to me. I rang the police, who advised me to contact the local dog warden, which i did, and the dog warden paid the owner a visit. Since the dog attacked my horse, it has ran out of its property and attacked 3 more horses on separate occasions. The second time it chased a horse (which was from the same livery yard as I'm at), the dog warden told the owner to erect a fence around their property. After the third and fourth incident, which happened only a couple of days apart, the dog warden has now passed the matter to the Police. I fear that the dog is now going to be PTS, all because it's owner did not control their dog, nor put up the fencing that was ordered.
 
goldanas49 said:
I think suggestions to contact the police etc are bit steep seeing that the OP has not even done the most obvious thing, GO and knock on the door and explain the situation.
Click to expand...

I did go back and knock on door once I had got back to yard and put girl to bed, but no reply. I was not going to knock on the door whilst I had my horse as the door was up the side of the house down a narrow drive with a car parked in, giving about 3 feet either side of the car and dog still on the loose.

As I mentioned before other people from the same yard have had the same problem, the owner with a massive stallion turned and faced down the dog to no effect, the dog kept on coming at him and stallion kept trying to kick it and that hasn't put the dog off and several people from the yard have already spoken to owner about it but to no avail. And certainly if I had been on a different horse I would have turned and faced it down, but being on a relative youngster with not much experience behind her and heart going at a mile a minute on a blind bend thought perhaps not the best thing to do.

I agree I think the police is a bit strong, plus feel they have more important things to do but certainly dog warden, it's not like this is the dog's first time doing this or that the owner has not been alerted to its behaviour.

As I understand it, it is a family members dog so doesn't live there all the time, hence my first encounter of it having spent many times going past particular row of houses. But do feel that they should have taken heed of previous warnings!
 
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