Looks like the Riding Dog is listed as CR 1/2 in the bestiary, while it's CR 1 in the pathfinder SRD Wiki.
With the trip attack the dog seems like a pretty formidable low level encounter. What's more accurate 1/2 or 1? Or does the riding fall somewhere between?
I was working on a first level encounter, and wanted to add riding dogs for interest. I was worried about balance, the riding dogs looked pretty tough on paper.