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I would probably do a combination of everybody's suggestions.

 

I would get off and walk past the house and if the owners are not there and they don't sic the dogs on you I would toss the dogs a treat for behaving and walk on by. If they are there and do sic the dogs on you get off and walk over to the side of the road by their fence and pull out my drinks and snacks and have a picnic right their beside their fence. And I'd stay there until the horses relax and the dogs give up, even if it takes 30 min or an hour. That will get your horse used to ignoring the dogs, will possibly get the dogs used to you and realize that you won't react, and probably the same for their owners and the owners will more than likely get tired of you sitting in front of their house for hours and will probably stop setting the dogs on you. Sure you may have to sacrifice getting to do your whole ride for a while but it will still be teaching your horse a lesson and may eventually get you to a position where you can do the whole ride without incident. Just a suggestion...Good Luck!

 

Katrina

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From: ridecamp-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ridecamp-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Val Nicoson
Sent: December 01, 2007 4:03 PM
To: ridecamp
Subject: [RC] Dog Woes -- What to Do?

I've read posts before about what to do about dogs but I think this one is a bit different so am curious as to the advice we'll get.  Thanks in advance!

We ride along a couple country roads with established 'country' subdivisions.  Lots of things for the horses to get used to from fake deer, nativity scenes, etc.  We often ride from the private road we live on...go along a short stretch of back road that cars go on fairly fast (we trot this section) to go to a dead end street that we often ride along and then back again.  In going along this short stretch of busy back road there is one house with a nice white picket fence and 2 very aggressive yappy little dogs...one is a cocker spaniel and don't know about the other...but the owners in that house tell the dogs to "sic" us when they know we're coming and then laugh at us when we have trouble with the horses.  Today they were busy chatting with friends in their driveway as we rode out but when we came back by, which they know we must, they were ready.  The dogs do not come out into the road but are at their fence doing their worse. 

We generally ride with a dog and of course she went over to them and we were able to control the horses fairly decently considering the ruckus.  Then my friend called our dog off and she came running up which caused my horse to bolt because he thought the bad dogs had gotten loose.  Fortunately I was able to bring him up fairly quickly and he remained calm enough. 

I fear this is a very dangerous situation and don't know what to do about it.  My friend doesn't think talking to them will do any good as they find it "sport" to frighten the horses.  There are other routes we could ride but not as nice of a ride overall.

Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas to help these people understand the dangers they're putting others in...or what we can do about it in general (if anything)?  Of course we hope the horses will eventually get over it and realize there's nothing to worry about.  I still have another horse who is greener and I'm quite concerned with how she'll handle the situation...she's afraid of deer as it is and any ideas there would be helpful too.

Thanks,
Val