![]() ![]() By using some approach and retreat, you can get your horse to accept others in his/her personal zone. To help your horse gain confidence when you are amongst others, play the seven games in an active way to keep their focus on you. Of course, ensure that all areas that could trap a horse are fenced off and even round off corners as two horses may trap a less alpha animal. Then, watch which horse seems to enjoy being nearest to the new one and put them together for a while before introducing them both back into the herd. If you only have small areas, get the horses to respect electric fencing then divide the pasture in half or fence off a smaller section to place the new horse into until it’s accepted by the others over the fence. So, if you’re feeling guilty and want to do something about providing your horses with herd interaction, don’t just let them loose together unless its in a huge area (50+ acres) with no places a horse can corner another. This alone helped many horses on the road to becoming compliant creatures. When Pat Parelli ran the first ‘Difficult Horse’ course at “Braidwood” for Level 4 students last year, the first thing they did was turn all the horses (about 30) into a huge pasture together for a week. That way they have the best of both worlds – discipline and others to play with. Most mares are too easy on their offspring which is why some breeders have an old retired horse to be the ‘nanny’ for a group of youngsters. Sometimes it’s not enough to run a young horse with only its mother for company and discipline. This can be a real problem when you ride amongst others and is a danger to others that is your responsibility. Without that, they can be very fearful of the approach of another horse, which they show by threatening to bite or kick in order to clear their personal space. Young horses especially need herd interaction to develop a comfortable relationship with other horses. If people separate horses “in case they injure each other”, they are more or less sentencing that horse to solitary confinement for the rest of their lives until their show/performance career is over. This results in injury when they are put back in a herd situation as they push the boundaries and get put back in their place. They then get a distorted opinion of themselves, especially when they can push people around too. ![]() When a horse is isolated from his own species, he can become perverse in his behavior when reunited with them.įor instance, young colts are almost always separated from the herd as they come up to yearling age when their behaviour gets precocious. ![]() To start with, we tend to keep them in small areas, sometimes confined to stables and yards, rather than in the wide-open spaces and herd situation that nature provides for them. It’s one of the issues with keeping horses in a domestic situation but it can be overcome to a large extent. Unfortunately, many horses are kept in a far from an ideal environment, that is far from natural. That way, we can help the horse to become calm and more confident, particularly amongst other horses. Instead, we should be reassuring, acting as a leader for our horse, and trying to solve the problem at its roots. Many horses display this behaviour because they are fearful of the proximity of other horses, and our usual reaction is to punish them for it. Often people think the horse is being aggressive and anti-social, which it is, but that’s not always because it’s a dominant horse. Have you ever seen a horse flatten its ears at the approach of other horses, constantly threatening to kick or acting scared when it gets close to another horse? This can negatively affect their mental health and in turn their behavior. Sadly, many horses miss out on herd interaction when they’re kept in a space alone. ![]()
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