Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

I agree that you should never reprimand someone else's horse unless you've been given explicit permission and you know the horse. That's kind of a given. I'm somewhat appalled that anyone thinks they're justified in smacking someone else's horse, for any reason.

Sure, it's very frustrating when you see that that horse is not getting punished for exhibiting dangerous behavior and that it could develop into an even bigger problem later. However, if you don't know the horse you just can't tell how they're going to react to returned aggressive behavior. You or someone else could end up dead right there, rather than give the owner a chance to work with their horse at home and fix the problem on their own time.

On Jan 28, 2008 6:23 PM, k s swigart <katswig@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Katrina said:

>But, yes, you are right about the reprimand. The
> owner should have smacked the holy c**p out
> of that mare...and if she didn't, then the OP should
> have.

Under no circumstances can I think of any time at an endurance ride
wehre it would be appropriate for anybody to "smack the hole c**P out
of" somebody else's horse.

Smacking the holy crap out of a horse is not always the most effective
way of teaching a horse not to bite.  Doing so to a horse that you don't
even know is taking your life in your hands...and possibly a lot of
other people's too.

You already have evidence that this is an agressive horse that is
willing to lunge and use its teeth at, apparently, the slightest
provocation and apprarently rather indescrimininatly.  Smacking it when
it bites you is likely to generate further aggression from the horse.

And trust me on this one, if the horse decides to actually attack you
rather than just take a chunk out of you.  It will probably be YOU that
ends up dead.  The person isn't born who it a match for a truely angry
horse.

Just last week I heard (from my vet) the story of a guy that was going
to "teach that horse" not to be aggressive...with a baseball bat.  It
wasn't the horse that ended up in the hospital.

Do NOT, under any circumstances, EVER, EVER, EVER attempt to correct the
behaviour of a strange horse that belongs to some else with aggression.
And especially not the aggressive behaviour of a strange horse.

It would be wrong to assume that all horses respond in the same way to
being attacked by strangers, or are willing to back off in the face of
such an attack.

kat
Orange County, Calif.



=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

 Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net.
 Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp
 Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp

 Ride Long and Ride Safe!!

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

-- 
Genevieve