Dogs following horses whilst out hacking

pennyturner said:
Dog followed the wrong horse, and any horse should be trained to accept a non-threatening dog nearby as a matter of rider safety, so the even itself isn't something I'd worry about. However, if the dog had no recall, as it seems, it shouldn't have been off lead.
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OK so just to confirm: re. the "non-threatening dog"......... um, I'm not sure I'd class a pursuing dog jumping up at the horse's rear legs/tail area - a "non-threatening dog"??? My reason for starting this thread was because I was concerned that the situation would rapidly get out of hand unless the owner could get her dog to go back to her, which she patently could not. There was a major road interchange less than a mile away (we were on a quiet country lane which fed into the interchange after our turning off). We were experienced riders on two steady cobs - there are other horses in the area who'd have tanked, plus its a huge challenge to kids on ponies who might have tanked.......

My concern was/is that this is a new kid on the block - if she's going to let this happen again then as a local YO and rider I needed to gauge the depth of feeling on here as to whether, if I do see the girl riding and I'm say passing in the car, walking, or whatever, or she comes past my place, whether I should have a quiet word with her - with the aim of hopefully preventing an accident. There was a very nasty accident a few years back, on some open ground not a million miles from me, where a dog chased someone's horse, the rider fell off, was badly injured and had to be airlifted out - but the stoopid numpty dog owner didn't even realise it was HIS blimmin dog that had caused the problem!!! He had no idea what it had done.

Thanking everyone for their opinions!!! Very helpful.
 
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I would love to take the dogs hacking but I don't. I am happy to have them off lead 99% of the time, round here that's possible, and they are both pretty obedient and stock proof. But unless I moved to the Australian outback or somewhere then there's no way they'd be coming out with a horse too. Roads/cars/livestock/kids/bikes/other dogs/farmers... the list goes on. Just too many possible scenarios to occur in a split second. It's one thing recalling or intervening from foot but add a horse into the equation, I just wouldn't feel safe or responsible enough.
 
I had my horse at a yard where we regularly hacked out with a pack of dogs. We usually had the 3 collies of the YO plus 2-4 dogs owned by other liveries with us. It generally worked very well, and is certainly a very effective way of making sure vehicles slow down (its amazing how many people will try to squeeze past two bouncing 16.2's having a panic attack about a rubbish bin, but not if an off-lead old collie is trotting along at the side of the road - too much faith in the riders control levels I think!). Of course we were on very quiet country lanes where drivers had to expect to meet animals and people in the middle of the road regularly. Many of the local farmers had latch-key dogs so the "must be on a lead" thing didn't really apply. Even so, I never took my dog as his recall wasn't 100% when faced with small furries (too much greyhound in him). The only downside was that they would occasionally scare up pheasants etc. in the hedges and test the riders seats. A big plus is that my horse is now totally dog proof, in fact the last time a strange (out of control) dog tried to chase him out hacking he turned on it and saw it off.

We did used to meet another lady who hacked out with her two dogs that didn't have much control and relied on radio-controlled collars. We met her once when she had dropped the controller and did end up with a loose horse (luckily no damage to horse or rider) and I think after that someone had words as she stopped taking them out with her. We already knew her by then though, a quiet word with a stranger can go very wrong!
 
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