# Horses and Puppies?



## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

It depends on the horses.

If the horses are used to dogs and friendly towards dogs, I would have no qualms about taking a hyper young dog up to meet them. The other thing is you yourself need to be watching the horse's body language. Any signal that the horse is getting ready to bite, kick, or stomp and you better be pulling your dog back.

And the most important thing - your dog needs to be on leash.


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## gold4me (Mar 12, 2006)

I ditto this and again say your dog should be on a leash while around the horses. I have seen too many dogs hurt or killed because people were not careful.


Megora said:


> It depends on the horses.
> 
> If the horses are used to dogs and friendly towards dogs, I would have no qualms about taking a hyper young dog up to meet them. The other thing is you yourself need to be watching the horse's body language. Any signal that the horse is getting ready to bite, kick, or stomp and you better be pulling your dog back.
> 
> And the most important thing - your dog needs to be on leash.


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## cgriffin (Nov 30, 2011)

I used to have horses when I lived in Michigan. Our previous golden was just a pup then. I took him with me to the farm where I was boarding my horses. There were a lot of farm dogs running around and pup ran with them. Well, 'Sam' got away from me and went right under the belly of a quarterhorse and I held my breath, was scared to death. But, the horse did not step on him or kick him and Sam came back to me when I called him. After that episode, he stayed leashed around the horses. 
Some horses are used to dogs, but every horse has the potential to get spooked and then they will run, jump, kick, not a place you or your dogs wants to be at that moment. Also, I did see a horse reach over his stall door before and pick up another boarder's dog by clamping it's teeth on the dog's back. Luckily the dog war not hurt, because there were a lot of people around to help. 
Horses are so unpredictable, I would not let dogs around them unsupervised or off the leash. I think only farm dogs that live around the horses are truly horse smart and stay away from them or get tolerated by them.


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

To follow up... the only horse I trust Jacks to be underfoot around is my horse. I generally have Jacks loose in the stall with us while I'm grooming. Jacks is convinced my horse is a very big dog and usually approaches him that way. And keep in mind he was introduced to my horse when he was 9 or 10 weeks old, so he has no fear of horses. 

That lack of fear is a cause of anxiety for me, because I know there are othere horses (especially the mares!) who he needs to be wary and fearful about. 

I mentioned in another thread how panicked I got when I had Jacks loose in the pasture while I retrieved my horse. Normally this isn't a problem because Jacks stays right by me. In this case, I was slow to catch my horse, turned around and saw a bunch of horses surrounding my dog. These are horses who if they sense any threat from another animal go from sniffing to stiffening up, snorting, stomping, and kicking in very quick succession. 

Fortunately Jacks just made himself very small and let the horses sniff him in the brief moments before I rushed in to grab him.  It scared the heck out of me though. I do not let him come out in the pasture with me anymore because of that experience.


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## luvbuzz (Oct 27, 2010)

I would never leave a dog unleashed around a horse. I take Buzz off lead riding with me but I am in control of the horse. When I see other riders, I immediately call Buzz, jump off and leash him. It depends upon the dog and horse's experiences.


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## Ranger (Nov 11, 2009)

And if your dog is unleashed and hyper, it may not only be HIM that gets hurt. If he decides horses are fun to chase or starts barking/lunging and the horses think he's a 'threat' or scary, then they might get hurt. Or, a horse could easily do a 180 and nail a dog with two flying back hooves.

Basically, if your dog is well-mannered and on a leash, things should be fine. Horses react to energy, so if your dog is calm then the horses probably will be and no one should get hurt. If your dog gets too overly excited, then probably best to remove him from the vicinity of the horses.

I'm kinda assuming the horses in question are at least used to dogs if the owner has a dog herself. I'd still keep him on a leash, though. I had two scary incidents last week involving my horse and the barn dog. I led my horse into the barn and turned around to close the door behind us but my horse decided to half turn as well. He was 'wedged' into the barn aisle and the barn dog decided to go past him...right behind his back legs. My horse's hocks were INCHES away from a solid wall and the dog was PRESSING himself between my horse's back legs and the wall. He even got stuck for a few seconds. I couldn't move my horse for fear he'd accidentally step on the dog's paws. Me and the other barn people were just staring wide eyed but my horse didn't seem spooked or to even care. Once the dog got free, I was able to move my horse around. Yeesh.

The other incident was in the paddock. The same dog got between my horse and the fence which wouldn't have been a big deal, except another horse was coming in to chase my horse away...the only option my horse had was to go over the dog or risk getting bit or kicked himself. Dog tried to get out of paddock but couldn't and my horse had his ears pinned and muzzle inches away from the dog's back...but didn't do anything, thank god.


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