Going After Smaller Animals

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CanadianGirl

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Today I put my mare into the outdoor ring while I mucked her stall out. The weather was pretty volatile, with big thunderheads and dark skies threatening rain. After about 15 minutes it started to hail really hard. I went out to check on Tika and she was flipping out, there was nowhere for her to go to get away from the hail. There was a barn cat in the ring with her and he tried to make a run for it. My mare saw him and ran straight at him, like she was going to run him down. Luckily the cat realized he was in danger and took off as quickly as he could and everything was OK.

Four years ago I was free lunging Tika in the outdoor ring after a long break from being ridden and the Barn Manager's elderly dog was hanging around with us, in the ring. Tika stared at the dog, ran her down and stomped her with one of her front feet. It was horrible. The Barn Manager was screaming at me, the dog was yelping and I was crying. Nothing was broken and the dog survived the initial injury, but it was the beginning of the end for the old barn dog and I felt terrible.

Even though I've been out on trail rides and Tika has ignored dogs nipping at her heels, I worry that she's got it in for smaller animals. I don't want to see her stomp anything ever again! I wonder if she thinks that she's playing with them or if she really means to harm them.
 
She saw the dog as a predator & did what any prey animal will do in the wild, she needs habituating to dogs in various environments to damp down the natural reaction. Even then I wouldn't trust her if she was in an anxious state of mind anyway, she must be in touch with natural instincts in a big way.
 
I have a dog hating pony. He will basically charge and stamp. Kicks out if they come near also. He also hates chickens. The only other animal he will tolerate is the yard cat.
 
It happens sometimes. In the herd there would be a dominant animal that would scare off smaller animals by attacking them as well as leading the herd away from something they couldn't attack.

Horses are such creatures of habit you may well not be able to habituate her away from this. She clearly trusts you which is why she doesn't do the same thing when you're riding her. If you are with her she'll trust you to protect her and is less likely to react. This is more likely to happen only when you are not immediately with her - for example when you are free schooling or she is alone.

In my view you'd be better off just learning to live with it. Cats are pretty good at keeping out of the way and make sure that others know to keep unaccompanied dogs out of her way too.
 
I disagree with the others, I believe you may be able to carefully habituate her to be calm around smaller animals when her stress levels are low.

My boy is quite a stallionish gelding - the girls in the field are his girls. A couple of years ago 2 out of the three mares in the field where in the barn, which meant he and the remaining mare, a tiny welsh section A, were hanging round near the gate which is right beside our school.

One of the other mares was in the school being ridden, so this entire event was witnessed by that person.

An alsation was being walked up the road on the other side of our field, off the lead. It got into the field and went after my boy and the pony really viciously. It wasn't playing or threatening; it really wanted to attack them.

It jumped up at the little pony and got hold of her tail flap, and apparently my boy completely lost it and charged the dog. Ears pinned, hooves flying. It's a wonder the dog didn't get killed. He chased the dog away from the pony and wouldn't it near again, and was ready to do it damage. By this point the dog backed off and the shouts of the rider in the arena brought the rest of the people on the yard over so the situation was quickly calmed down (though the dog owner caught his dog and buggered off before they could get his details and we've not seen him since).

I own a large dog who I often bring to the yard, so the next day I brought him up and carefully tested out how my boy would be with him. And he was as unbothered as he always was.

There is a huge difference between how a horse acts when relaxed and how a horse acts when threatened. I think, if you can work with a well trained dog and your horse on the ground, in careful circumstances, you might be able to help the situation and avoid a repeat of the free schooling incident.

However, I suspect with the hail stones and thunderheads around, the cat was maybe just a bit too much for a horse who was already (naturally) tense and upset. By the sounds of it she was already feeling trapped by not being able to escape the hail, so when she saw the potential predator (already aware she could not rely on flight) she switched to fight immediatly. I don't think any amount of training could have prevented this - it was just bad timing from the cat.
 
My little mare was awful for chasing dogs and cats. Couldn't take my collie in the field with me or he'd get chased. If cats ventured into her field they would also get chased. I think she got one one day as I found a dead cat in the field whilst poo picking. Horrible little pony!

She was fine out riding though and was quite happy for my dog to come with us then.
 
Stiggy is the same....he will kill a dog if he can get his teeth/knees/feet into it.
Don't know about sheep (they would be bigger than him anyways :D )

Its only dogs that are smaller than him though. He never had any bother with the great dane who was much bigger than him.
 
Daughters pony does it. She spent from 3mnths to 1 entirely alone, & given the state of her had obviously had a few run ins with dogs, & learnt the best form of defence is attack. She will run down anything from magpies, to geese, cats, dogs & unknown humans. But over time she has learnt to rely on the judgements of others. So unless they actually approach her aggressively, she only bothers if she's turned out without my mare when she's more on guard. Has only ever bothered on a hack when a dog is actually really bothering her.
 
Its pretty common I think, there's a horse around here who killed someones pet goat a few years ago and I saw one a few months back pick up a sheep and give it a damn good shaking. Sheep was ok as horse owner was there and grabbed the horse, luckily for the sheep they're now kept apart!
 
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