Recent content by Burnttoast

I had 2 ponies on 4 acres with a perimeter track. To begin with both needed some restriction so they were on the track in summer with hay as required. In the winter they grazed the middle, which had rested all summer. When the older started needing more grass/less hay he would go in the middle...

🤣 loving the image! I'm fairly sure my first cat brought roadkill/concussed pigeons in (although she also brought in a very undamaged magpie once, so was clearly capable of catching big [frightening, flappy!] things). I suspect if a pigeon has recently had a good feed they don't take off as...

Is she radioactive?

Wow you can be really unpleasant ☺️ and clearly understand little of what other posters on this thread write. I think you'll find it's the other way around. Arguing that horses don't understand the concept of feeling pride in their work removes one of the major supports people use to justify...

That's entirely your perception of their expression and one that's entirely convenient for the human, as it supports their own desire to continue doing what they are doing with the horse. Other people may well interpret it differently - as heightened arousal owing to adrenaline, for example. The...

I think this has a lot to do with why most humans prefer pets to wildlife. Wild animals have their own existence, you can't tell them what to do and they aren't 'there' when it's convenient for the human. I love wildlife watching, where you can't be offended by the fact that practically every...

I have owned one but seen plenty of others and most people do not manage to 'cure' it, but find ways round it. As someone else posted, you can buy an entire extra horse if need be. Or you can throw welfare to the wind and make sure they never see another horse to feel separated from. Post 7 was...

Polly-filla-flower 😁 ☺️

Dont say with respect when you don’t intend to be respectful. I have only owned one with separation anxiety and it wasn't possible to resolve his anxiety (it had presumably been compounded over his extremely unsettled early life) but it was possible to manage it and he spend his final 8 years...

In my experience, horses that will settle in a stable will settle in a field. Or, like mine, they can do the wall of death for as long as it takes for their friend to return, ignoring food, knocking over water buckets, churning the bed into a shitty mess (because of the constant shitting) and...

Stressful, wall of death nonsense is also possible in the stable. 'Eventually settling' is neither ethical nor in fact a given.

The comments already posted give you all the information you need tbh. Your NF is frightened, what you have been doing is making him worse, doing more of that won't make him better. Take them out together if you feel the dartmoor requires time with a human as opposed to time with another horse...

Worth adding that the short managed period of separation may at first be as seemingly minor as approaching the dartmoor with a headcollar. If this elicits a reaction from your NF this is where his anxiety starts (because he's learned what that means). That's why it can be a very long slow...

Completely normal manifestation of separation anxiety. He is not suffering from FOMO but is worried that no members of his social group are with him. Mine was worse if anything as he was upset by any member of his social group leaving and that included horses in the adjacent field (even when his...

Interesting perhaps (well, I think it is) that the former side almost all started out enjoying horse sports, grew up thinking of them as normal, watched them at the top level and often engaged in them well into adult life in various ways. What do they see that changed their minds?