Dogs & horses

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thepennywhistle
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Re: Dogs & horses

Post by thepennywhistle »

Flyby wrote:We're getting there. Odin's still "Scarey thing! Scarey thing! Scarey thing!" but, there's the occassional curiousity in there too... I took an apple for the horse today, and I think that helped with Odin believe it or not. If I'm giving the scarey thing some food, I'm hoping Odin wonders why I'm doing that, and works out the horse must be on our side and maybe not that scarey after all.
I'd rather have the "scarey thing!" reaction than the "oooh, big TOY that RUN!" reaction. Scarey is easier to moderate, I think, and a lot less deadly than "playing" with horses that aren't playing at all.
PikiPiki
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Re: Dogs & horses

Post by PikiPiki »

Evee's only seen a horse once. I was walking her on my parents' property in the country. She was on her 20 ft training lead, working on her recall. As we cleared a hill we came upon a horse and his rider. She freaked out, the horse freaked out, and the rider was almost thrown from him. It was awful. Never in my dreams would I have imagined a horse on their property; I definitely wasn't prepared for it. Took a lot to get Evee to about face and go back the way we came.
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Horace's Mum
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Re: Dogs & horses

Post by Horace's Mum »

Flyby, nothing to do with dogs, but most owners would appreciate it if strangers didn't feed their horses over the fence. I know my two are never fed by hand because they are babies and have to learn not to bite, but people feeding them over the fence would easily set that back a long way. Also there are horses who cannot eat carrots for example, without making them very ill. Just a note for next time 8)
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Nettle
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Re: Dogs & horses

Post by Nettle »

To dogs, there are three stages of horse-steadying.

Horses in fields just being horses. Be careful if a horse rolls, as it then looks helpless to a dog, and some may become bold enough to attack.

Horses with people on their backs :shock: how odd! Are the people on their backs killing them? Should we join in?

Horses with carts rattling behind them. Are the carts attacking the horses? Should we join in?
A dog is never bad or naughty - it is simply being a dog

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Erica
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Re: Dogs & horses

Post by Erica »

Looks like I'll have to work on desensitizing Opal to horses...not that we're likely to meet them riding through the woods, but about 1/4 of her walk is along a horse pasture fence, and today one of the horses decided to sneak up on us and say hello. Opal freaked out a bit and then charged at the horse...I had a good grip on her leash, though, and the fence gave her second thoughts (it's barbed wire, which normally is bad for horses, but it's so overgrown with trees and stuff that it might as well not exist for the horses). So yes, we need to work on that too!

Marble just watched, then tried to get Opal to play. :roll: Opal knows walks aren't playtime, though, and is confused as to why Marble keeps trying to interrupt walking with playing.
Delta, standard poodle, born 6/30/14
Flyby
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Re: Dogs & horses

Post by Flyby »

Point taken with the apples.

I don't exactly worry about Odin and horses, but when he's jittery as he is when he sees a horse, Odin can jump about a little bit, and doing so, he did scare a horse with a rider one time. She didn't come off, but she could have. Odin didn't actually do anything to provoke it, I think the horse just reacted to a big dog giving off 'unpredictable' signals.

Thing is, this is the Scottish Borders with all the local Common Riding festivals, so the chances of meeting people on horses is very high.
emmabeth
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Re: Dogs & horses

Post by emmabeth »

I expect horses everywhere - then I am not surprised when I see them :) Bizarrely, living in a really really horsey place now, I have yet to see a ridden or otherwise, horse, at all!

But - getting down to the details, is this a public foot path (horses not allowed), a bridleway (horses obviously allowed, as are pedestrians), restricted byway (everyone but motorvehicles, including driven horses!) or a permissive path where say, pedestrians are permitted and horses are not, or horse riders pay an annual fee to use it.
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wvvdiup1
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Re: Dogs & horses

Post by wvvdiup1 »

I think this just in time for this thread...

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Flyby
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Re: Dogs & horses

Post by Flyby »

:lol: :lol: :lol:
JudyN
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Re: Dogs & horses

Post by JudyN »

Oh, I love that picture, wvvdiup1 :lol:
emmabeth wrote:But - getting down to the details, is this a public foot path (horses not allowed), a bridleway (horses obviously allowed, as are pedestrians), restricted byway (everyone but motorvehicles, including driven horses!) or a permissive path where say, pedestrians are permitted and horses are not, or horse riders pay an annual fee to use it.
I'm not sure of the official designation, though I'm pretty sure horseriding is allowed there. I was just thinking this morning that it's a similar issue (though with more potentially serious outcomes) to when people go for a stroll through the woods wearing white trousers and then complaining when a dog jumps up on them... Dog walkers have been known to complain that if people wear white clothes in a popular dog-walking area then they should expect muddy pawprints. Again, people have the right to wear white clothes, but some dogs do jump up, particularly pups who are still works in progress....

Coincidentally, someone on my own (non-doggy) forum commented yesterday on how she lets her lurcher runs after racehorses training on a local beach :shock: I told her what I thought of that, and she said the dog didn't want to kill the horses but just wants to compete with something that can give her a run for her money. I wonder if the horses just think she's having a race.... :roll: She said if a horse kicked the dog, she'd just keep her distance next time... :shock:
Jasper, lurcher, born December 2009
ladybug1802
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Re: Dogs & horses

Post by ladybug1802 »

Oh good god! Thats pretty irresponsible! I would go out of my way to stop Dylan getting kicked....but I do know of one person who keeps a couple of horses in a field, and lets her dog run round the field when she goes there. She got her dog as a rescue, and aside from the fact he has escape from that field before, her view when she got the dog was that if he got close enough and got kicked by one of the horses it would teach him to keep his distance! :roll: Maybe....or it would kill him!
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Nettle
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Re: Dogs & horses

Post by Nettle »

These idiots have no idea of the force behind a horse's kick. One kick can easily kill or cripple a dog.

Not to mention that they are putting stable lads' lives in danger.
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wvvdiup1
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Re: Dogs & horses

Post by wvvdiup1 »

I'm going to expand a little bit on what Nettle has said here.

I think the best thing to do is keep a dog away from any animal until each individual animal is comfortable with one another. Besides, I've seen cows kick dogs so hard the dogs have been sent to veterinary hospitals with broken bones and other serious injuries. And don't forget the other weapons other animals can use to fight off/warn dogs: horns, beak/bills, teeth, etc., just to name a few.

Not too long ago, my dog Karma encountered two horses in my front yard. At the time I put Karma out to toilet, they weren't there. However, when I heard her barking, I went outside, just managed to call her away from them just in time for her to move or otherwise she would probably have a cracked skull, and when she got away from them, she came right to me, so I got her into the house.

I know the horses, the female's name is Scout and the male is Tonto. It was Scout who kicked and fortunately missed Karma, because she didn't know Karma and Karma didn't know her. Tonto, on the hand, is known by both of us (Karma and I), because he has been over to my property so many times. He didn't do anything except to herd Karma back down and away from Scout in which Karma insisted she was going to get to know "the other big dog." :roll:
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Flyby
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Re: Dogs & horses

Post by Flyby »

Catch 22. It takes contact with horses to get a dog accustomed to them.

Having a dyke between Odin and calm big shire horse seemed a great opportunity to work on Odin's shyness, and either animal was free to back away. My mistake was adding an incentive for the horse when it didn't require any.

I'm cautious to comment on dogs running down a beach with horses. It does sound like insanity when you read it, but it depends on whether it's all under control with everybody completely happy about it, horses and dogs included.

Dogs have trotted and run beside horses for centuries, some are even bred to do it, like dalmations, fox hounds and even little Border Terriers. It would be commonplace once upon a time, but I dare say, but there are two sides to the coin, and no doubt a greater number of unlucky people and dogs were undoubtedly kicked too.

I suspect the probability of either animal getting hurt rises the less familiar these animals are with each other, and correpondingly drops when dogs and horses get used to each other. At the moment, Odin is somewhere inbetween. I don't think he's a direct threat to any horse, provided he can flee or avoid it, but in an ideal world I would like him much more relaxed around horses than that.
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Re: Dogs & horses

Post by JudyN »

Flyby wrote:I'm cautious to comment on dogs running down a beach with horses. It does sound like insanity when you read it, but it depends on whether it's all under control with everybody completely happy about it, horses and dogs included.
My concern would be that the next time the dog encounters a horse he'll assume it's OK and normal to chase that one too. And with the prey drive of a lurcher (which can often run faster than horses, as I think Rhodies can too) that's going to be difficult to control.

I have the opposite problem with Jasper to what you have with Odin - Jasper is very happy to go up to a horse to say hello. There's a field of horses near here but I'm not sure teaching 'see a horse - get a treat from Mum' would translate into horses with riders.
Jasper, lurcher, born December 2009
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