Ridecamp: Re: [RC] Horse Behavior

Linda...

When she does this, respond by putting your hand under her chin and
rubbing her nose. Not real hard, but firmly...just enough to be
annoying. Love on it big time. Do it immediately and every time...hold
onto it as long as she will let you.  VERY quickly she will get tired of
this "stupid human" "loving my nose till it's sore". Guarantee she will
quit noodling on you...and it won't take long. No whacking, no
confrontations...works every time....and no, you shouldn't reward her
for doing something you don't want her to do.

Biting, on the other hand....any opening of the teeth...is unacceptable.
I subscribe to the John Lyons technique of "trying to kill them" for 3
seconds with whatever is in your hand, then go on as tho nothing
happened. It works. If you let it go too far, you may have to resort to
that.

Several weeks ago, Sunny, who is always a gentleman, nipped me on the
back...drew blood.  My stall guards are just a chain. I duck under the
chain to retrieve his feed bucket. When I bent over to go back under the
chain, he laid his ears back and just reached over and gave me a good
one. I immediately whirled around and hit him as hard as I could with
the feed bucket, then again on the butt as he exited the stall. Now when
I go into get the feed bucket, he backs off to the rear of the stall. I
had noticed he was laying his ears back on that operation and I should
have "fixed" it earlier by making him back off when I entered the stall.
That was my fault....I was "reading" him correctly, but just didn't act
on it.  When you have a normally gentle, well behaved horse, you tend to
give him a little "slack"....which is big time asking for trouble. You
should tolerate NO indiscretions at ANY time on behavior.

IMHO, you need to fix this mare before you get bitten....

Jim, Sun of Dimanche, and Mahada Magic


> "Linda B. Merims" wrote:
> 
> 
> From this I'm thinking that my (relatively) new mare
> is challenging my dominance.  She's taken to nudging
> me with her nose as I stand outside her stall screen.
> I was interpreting it as a kind of cute "give me some
> food," so, if she kept it up long enough I'd usually
> relent and toss her a flake of hay.
> 
> This past week, it's progressed to something more.
> She's now nuzzling my arm, and then making tiny
> little doesn't-really-hurt pinch nips.  I didn't
> really know how to react to this.  I'd turn to
> face her and raise my arms in her face as I stepped
> toward her and she'd back off the stall screen into
> her stall and turn sideways to me--but she'd always
> return to my side when I turned back around and
> recommence nuzzling.
> 
> It feels kind of funny to be getting drafted
> into "horse universe."  My old gelding never tries
> to engage in these head games with me.
> 
> I guess the flake-of-hay for nudging is going to
> have to stop.  But what do I do about the sneak
> nips?
> 
> Linda B. Merims
> lbm@xxxxxxxxx
> Massachusetts, USA


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