Preventative measures - thoughts?

Luci07

Luci07

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There is a post in the tack room which really made me think. So a woman out riding had dogs coming after her which the owner struggled to call back. Now I hack out with my own dog and both dog and horse are used to each other. Dog understands leave, heel etc etc. I meet a lot of dog walkers out hacking and have never had this problem so understand I may well have become overly complacent. Dog has been trained that when we see other dogs, she comes to heel and stays focused on me till we are past... but these are dogs that stay with their owners or are put on leads.

But, and possibly stupidly, I have never considered what I would do or the best course of action if I met a loose aggressive dog who wanted to chase my horse. My dog has not met a dog like that and while she is highly (and I do mean highly) socialised I have no idea how she would react. What would you do? get off to try to ward off the dog? kick on and hope it loses interest? My dog is a stafford bitch so just know who would get the blame if anything kicked off which is also a concern even though she has never shown any sign of dog aggression.
 
It always makes me cringe slightly when i read about dogs out hacking with their owners. Not because the dogs out hacking are poorly trained, but because you can not control your environment and the eejits in it- I guess i'd kick on and hope to out run the other dog- but that may not always be possible.

I was chased on my horse once by a Lab- luckily my horse was an Ex hunter so did not bother him- but I had to loop back to take the dog back to its owner- it was not aggressive just having a laugh........ could have been nasty if it had chased a horse not used to dogs.
 
I have been chased a few times by dogs when out hacking, not funny. Only one was properly aggressive and I had to literally gallop away.

Mine are all used to dogs because they usually get hunted, but it saddens me that they could look upon dogs as a threat because of incidents like this.
 
I've been chased by a few dogs, a GSD, a dobe and a collie and every time I bent over in the saddle and roared at them and made to go at them with a stick. Not sure if it was the right thing to do but in each case they fecked off back to where they came from.
 
I've inadvertently come upon a solution in the form of the new shetland, who I ride and lead off the big horse - she loathes dogs and despite not being much bigger than many of them will kick ten kinds of snot out of any approaching dog with both front and back feet. She barely tolerates my own dogs, though they don't come hacking with us anyway.

Big horse just stands her ground and will calmly advance on the dog while I shout and and make threatening gestures with a whip which has always worked, takes out the chase element which is usually what attracts the dog and disarms them somewhat.
 
Hmm I'm not sure either. I walk my dogs on the lead on horseback- each dog has a 6ft lead and they are trained to walk/trot/halt with the horse, and run by the horses shoulder. I'm sure some people will cringe but it works for me.

Occasionally we have loose dogs come and pester mine. In those instances, I halt the dogs and horse, make the dogs sit and wait till the embarrassed owner of te pests catches up, but I possible also naievely hadn't considered about loose dogs being aggressive....
 
My dog hacks with me. Think it depends on the situation. Don't think I would get off. Think it best left for her to deal with, obviously I don't want a dog fight on my hands but what else can you do if faced with a truely aggressive dog? The horse will likely just want to run, I would get my face bitten off, my collie would do her best to see any out of control dog on their way.
 
blackcob said:
Big horse just stands her ground and will calmly advance on the dog while I shout and and make threatening gestures with a whip which has always worked, takes out the chase element which is usually what attracts the dog and disarms them somewhat.
Click to expand...

Would probably try this, and clear commands in a deep roaring voice to get away.

I was riding a young, green horse once, schooling in an enclosed field. All of a sudden 2 bernese mountain dogs (HUGE) came thundering after me howling their heads off. My poor horse just galloped around in large circles until the eejit of an owner on the other side of the hedge noticed them causing havoc and called them back/dogs got bored.

Most terrifying experience and felt like I was clinging on for a lifetime. I was in too much shock and trying to calm my horse down to give the owner a piece of my mind.
 
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