Monday, January 23, 2012

How Fuzzypony and I almost ate dirt (or, why I hate off-leash dogs)

Yesterday while the hubby was off at jousting practice with Red and Saga, Fuzzypony and I headed out on Taran and Cash for a relaxing trail ride. We ran into another horse owner who lives nearby, and the three of us spent the better part of an hour wandering the trails and chatting.

Isn't it funny how you can talk horses FOR HOURS with another horse person, even though you've just met?

At one point we got to a big field and decided to do a little trot and canter, just 'cause. Fuzzypony was cantering on the left lead, and Cash and I were on the right lead. We were passing left shoulder to left shoulder, about 20 feet apart, when out of the corner of my eye I saw Taran do this cutting-horse-esque pivot and spin to the left, throwing Fuzzypony over his right shoulder. He bolted directly into Cash and hit us broadside on the left. Fortunately, the impact threw Fuzzypony back into her saddle, but shoved Cash to the right and unbalanced me off Cash's left shoulder. I thought I was going to eat dirt, but had the presence of mind to throw my right arm over Cash's neck and pull myself back up. Cash, bless him, stopped almost immediately, blowing and wide-eyed. Taran had stopped next to us; Fuzzypony was unharmed but really shaken.

It had happened so fast I had no idea what caused it, so I spun Cash around... and then I saw the *&@%@$ off-leash dog that had spooked both horses. He'd apparently come careening around a fence so that he was directly behind Cash and directly in front of Taran, where neither horse could get a good look at him. Neither Fuzzypony nor I actually saw him until after he'd spooked the horses.

And the owners? They eventually got the dog to come back to them, put him on a leash, and walked away without a word. No apology, no checking to see if we were OK, NOTHING. We didn't go after them because frankly, we were too mad and too shaken to have a coherent, polite conversation with them. We probably should have, but I also didn't particularly want to ride my spooked horse over to where their very large dog was located.

I get that people want to let their dogs run - I let my dog run too, but only on my own fenced property. Of course, there are no leash laws in our small town, except during fawn season in the spring. But FOR REAL people, if your dog doesn't have good recall, KEEP YOUR DAMN DOG ON A LEASH. If we'd both hit the ground, we would have had two loose horses and possibly two injured people. That's not OK on any level.

Grumble.

9 comments:

  1. Off-leash dogs and punks with BB-guns: two main reasons I don't trail ride as much as I wish I could now lol.

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  2. Our two trail horses are pretty dog proof. But if you want to get mad...there's a guy who sics his dog on riders as they go down the trail that leads by (but not on) his property. The riders have a right to be there, but he doesn't like them. He sicced this large white dog on us one time and it ran around us, snapping at our horses' heels. None of our horses even flinched. My friend prevented his gray gelding (who hates dogs) from kicking the dog. We all gave the guy a dirty look and rode on. But I heard later that the same dog had caused an inexperienced girl's horse to bolt and almost got her badly hurt. So guess what guy and his dog have a role in my latest mystery? And you can bet he's not the hero.

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    1. Our horses are pretty dog-proof too, but I honestly cannot blame Taran for spooking when a 100+ lb dog came tearing around a blind corner straight for him. The dog was also coming out of the sun, so Taran didn't see him until the last moment.

      Your next mystery novel sounds right up my alley. :)

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  3. :( glad everyone's ok at least!

    Laura, if I'd been on the grey and known that the dog was sicced on me, I would've encouraged my horse to kick it. Yes, it's the human's fault and not the dog's, but that kind of habit is gonna get the dog hurt anyway one day...

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  4. People like that give dog owners a bad name. My dog is off leash a lot of the time, but she also has an excellent recall and knows not to chase horses/bikes/quads/whatever. I fell off my horse today in front of a ton of people (busy road) and not a single one so much as slowed down. People are VERY inconsiderate.

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    1. Dom, there are folks I see regularly with extremely well-behaved dogs off leash. MC, who rides Cash most weekends, has AMAZINGLY trained dogs. I have no complaints with them - it's just the folks who let their poorly-trained dogs off leash.

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  5. We used to live in the New Forest where out of control dogs chasing horses were sadly a regular ocurrence so we had to make sure our horses were totally bombproof with them, but we had one horse who dealt with them brilliantly. He would never kick but just turned round, put his head down and went to grab the dog with his teeth. Even the most aggressive dogs totally bottled out when he did this - but he was 17hh and had been known to pick up loose dogs and throw them out of his field...

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  6. So glad no one was injured. It is awful that they had their dog off leash and that they never even appologized. I have a horse who was viciously attacked by a dog at a young age so now he is afraid of dogs. At our state park horse trails it never fails that we run into trail riders who let their dog run along with them off leash. It has caused issues and scared me cause my daughter was riding once and the dog, not vicious, but still came up and was sniffing our horses and was freaking my daughters horse out. I am sorry even that ticks me off. Your dog should never come within 15 feet of my horse, ever, period! Oh I get mad all over again just thinking about it. Glad everyone is safe.

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