A really irritating, but exciting, true life adventure story

[summer_jackel]

This morning, while riding peacefully past a vineyard, Dancer, Coba and I were rushed, or possibly attacked, by three off leash German Shepherd dogs. Their handler responded terribly. We are all fine, and although Dancer did throw me, I was able to control the fall and landed well enough. My hip will be sore for a few days, but I am otherwise unharmed.

I am supremely angry about this and will now proceed to vent.



It was a gorgeous day, and I haven't had the opportunity to ride (a horse) for almost a month. Dancer was a little hot, but in a good mood. We had ridden about 1/4 mile though mostly flat vineyard, and were about to go onto the wider dirt road that borders the river. (This is a supremely wonderful place to have a horse, and I am very happy there...most of the time!) I noticed a woman with a dog a little way ahead of me, and called out to warn her of my presence. At this point, the three dogs rushed at full speed.

These were young, well bred, assertive, well moving young shepherds, not casual pets, but really nice dogs that looked to be from imported or police/military lines. Generally when dogs rush a horse, they slow down and start circling and barking about 7-10 feet away. This gives the rider time to collect the horse, yell the dogs off, and hopefully buy the handler enough time to grab them. This pack meant business; they were in a wedge formation and sped up at the usual circle distance. Dancer saw this, correctly interpreted the situation to understand that wolves were attacking us, wheeled and bolted out right from under me.

If it had been a different horse, I would have dismounted sooner. I regret not doing so and won't make the same mistake again, but Dancer is such a level headed horse, and I thought I could ride him out. When it became clear that he wouldn't tolerate a rider, I came off as well as I could, rolled and came up looking first after the horse. He was galloping homewards and seemed unharmed, so I turned to face the pack.

One of the dogs had Coba pinned by the throat; the other two were deciding whether to pursue Dancer or me. You can usually back an aggressive dog off with eyes and voice if you really mean it, and I have the benefit of having lived close to 20 years with wolf hybrids. I made hard eye contact with all three and snarl-roared at them, holding arms stiffly out to either side, brandishing my crop and letting each of them see in my eyes that I was a wolf and was really going to enjoy killing and eating them. Once I had the whole pack's attention, continuing to snarl 'get, off, bad dog' etc, I advanced on the one who had Coba (and had let him go). Coba recalled.

All three shepherds turned tail and ran full speed back to their handler. I will not pretend that I took no satisfaction.

I yelled at her to leash her dogs, and looked back to Dancer. He'd slowed down about 100 yards away and was looking back after me. I made relaxed-body overtures to him and, assuming that the shepherds' handler was leashing her fucking pack, whistled for him. He had turned to face me and had taken a few steps toward me when the three dogs attacked AGAIN. I roared them off again, but of course Dancer saw this and galloped all the way back to the barn.

I never had words with this woman, nor did I hear her say a thing or see her do a thing to control what looked like about 3k and 200 lbs worth of highly protective-reactive, military quality dog in full pursuit. Granted, I was trying to control a horse in full flight panic without breaking any bones, so I may have missed something.

I am also quite willing to give her the benefit of the doubt for the first incident. We were in a fairly remote area, and she didn't see me first. I lost control of my wolf pack a couple of times, so I sympathize with a potentially inexperienced handler taken by surprise with lots and lots of dog. I have been there. That makes me even more furious about her subsequent failure to contain her pack and come to my aid.

Her dogs spooked an equestrian's horse right out from under her in the middle of nowhere, and she never yelled to ask if I was ok or needed help. She did not apologize, and she failed in her most basic duty---to contain her animals. I can only conclude that I frightened her badly enough when I was stopping her pack that she took her opportunity to run. Dancer was my highest priority, so I went limping off after him.

He continues to be the most wonderful of ponies. He was standing with Eqx outside their pasture; he was upset, but unharmed, and he hadn't even broken the reins or scuffed the saddle. (Which is great, because that was my nice tack, rawr). I calmed him down, got back on, rode back and gentled him past the place where the scary thing happened, and went looking for bitch with shepherds, but she was long gone. I tracked her for awhile, decided it wasn't worth it, went back, rubbed down the horse and double checked Coba.

We came out of it unharmed, but that was some of the worst dog handling I've seen in a long time, and I am really mad.

Comments

[summer-jackel.livejournal.com]

Oh, I've terrified people by being mad at them, and certainly had plans for being assertive with her, if I could find her. My first priority was to catch Dancer, though, and by the time I'd accomplished that, she was long gone. It was a nasty incident, and I hope she's learned something about her dogs.