RE: [RC] How do you teach horse to defend itself against dogs? - Tracey Lomax
Karen
wrote:
How do you teach a horse
to attack a dog to defend itself, especially when you take your dogs riding
with you and have taught your horse to tolerate dogs?
At the risk of stating the obvious, I do
it by teaching my horse that when I put my leg on he is to go FORWARD in the direction
I am aiming, until such time as I say otherwise. That means that, irrespective of what is
in his way, he is to move FORWARDS.Sometimes this means running
over a dog, other times it means jumping over a cross country obstacle.Usually it just means keeping going
along a road.
It’s all about obedience.
I’ve been attacked by dogs on
horseback.My horses will kick if a
dog runs in aggressively behind them (and they do know the difference between
aggressive dogs and non-aggressive as they have no difficulty on trail when my
dogs go nose-to-hock with them.It’s
not something you teach them, it’s something they just know).My horses will also chop out at an
aggressive dog – again, they don’t chop at non-aggressive ones (my
own and other peoples’).
But I don’t think you need to teach
your horse to chop at dogs or kick them.You just have to teach him to KEEP GOING
regardless of whether or not there is a dog in the way – most dogs WILL
move, or get run over.
Now, if anyone can show
me how to teach my dumbass dogs that getting in the
way of a jump is just STUPID and may result in being run over, do let me know.
Tracey
(purposely
staying out of the discussion on pit bulls, dog fighting, whammo
sticks, etc)
