Tia
Well-Known Member
This is long, but please bear with me.
For those who may remember the saga of the 2 year old filly who lives on my farm with her mother and became highly aggressive towards any people entering her field or walking the boundaries of it, I may have made a significant breakthrough with her!
Tell me what you think please - I may be wrong, but at this moment in time, I firmly believe I am right.
Quick rundown; filly became highly dangerous and was attacking any people who tried to approach or enter the field she shared with her mother and a number of my horses and livery horses. This was no small threatening; she was seriously and out of control plain dangerous.
When I questioned her owner, I found out that the mare and filly had never been weaned from each other. I decided to seperate the two - it was an absolute disaster, so I ended up putting the pair of them in a field on their own, well away from other horses and people. They have been in this field for a fair while, about 6 weeks probably. They have had little human contact in this time; simply me feeding them every day and that's about it.
Just a bit of extra info here; both horses are a breed which have VERY long manes and forelocks. The manes were getting in a terrible condition and I was desperate to comb them out, since their owner doesn't come to see them and when she came last (about a month ago) she didn't groom them. All other horses here are groomed by me but not these 2 any more.
Anyway, today, armed with my chifney, I coerced a friend to come down to their field to hold the filly whilst I combed her mane out. I kept my friend on the other side of the fence just incase she attacked her and I got on with the job in hand. The filly absolutely LOVED the chifney....honestly she did! She played with it constantly; she had her ears pricked the whole time we were with her, she was friendly and she totally enjoyed the whole preening exprience and the best bit is.....I didn't have to put the chifney into action at all.
I initially started by wrapping her forelock around her halter so that we could see her pretty face. Then I moved onto her mane. It took me about 2 hours to fully comb out her mane and it looked great. I then plaited it up in a long mane plait. Then I moved onto her forelock. It wasn't too twirled up like the mane and when I combed it out fully, I found that her forelock came to way below her nostrils and it was VERY thick. So I decided to thin it out and pull it a little shorter. She now has it shorter over her eyes but I have "V"'d it down in the middle so that it doesn't look too short overall.
The whole time we were with her; she was soooo pleasant, just like a normal 2 year old and showed not one moment in the slightest of any signs of aggression.
Anyway, finished up with her and off we went for a ride. Then was busy doing other things around the farm for a few hours. Much later a number of boarders turned up and we all went out for another ride. Afterwards, just as I was packing up for the night and ready to come back inside the house, I said to my friend that I wanted to quickly pop back down to the filly's field to see if she was still nice or not. So we wandered down there.
The filly was way over the other side of the hay feeder and the moment I called her name, she quickly came around the feeder and walked with her ears pricked the whole way, down to where I was standing at the fence. She came straight over, ears pricked and eyes "smiling". There was absolutely no doubt that she was happy to see us again. We stood and stroked her, chattered away to her and I kissed her several times on the side of her muzzle. She truly loved it!
Soooooo .......... what do I think the problem was? Her forelock being too thick and too long! I really really do believe that she couldn't see clearly and because of this she was becoming so defensive-aggressive to anything/body that came too close to her, or her territory.
Does this make sense to anyone? Or just me?
For those who may remember the saga of the 2 year old filly who lives on my farm with her mother and became highly aggressive towards any people entering her field or walking the boundaries of it, I may have made a significant breakthrough with her!
Tell me what you think please - I may be wrong, but at this moment in time, I firmly believe I am right.
Quick rundown; filly became highly dangerous and was attacking any people who tried to approach or enter the field she shared with her mother and a number of my horses and livery horses. This was no small threatening; she was seriously and out of control plain dangerous.
When I questioned her owner, I found out that the mare and filly had never been weaned from each other. I decided to seperate the two - it was an absolute disaster, so I ended up putting the pair of them in a field on their own, well away from other horses and people. They have been in this field for a fair while, about 6 weeks probably. They have had little human contact in this time; simply me feeding them every day and that's about it.
Just a bit of extra info here; both horses are a breed which have VERY long manes and forelocks. The manes were getting in a terrible condition and I was desperate to comb them out, since their owner doesn't come to see them and when she came last (about a month ago) she didn't groom them. All other horses here are groomed by me but not these 2 any more.
Anyway, today, armed with my chifney, I coerced a friend to come down to their field to hold the filly whilst I combed her mane out. I kept my friend on the other side of the fence just incase she attacked her and I got on with the job in hand. The filly absolutely LOVED the chifney....honestly she did! She played with it constantly; she had her ears pricked the whole time we were with her, she was friendly and she totally enjoyed the whole preening exprience and the best bit is.....I didn't have to put the chifney into action at all.
I initially started by wrapping her forelock around her halter so that we could see her pretty face. Then I moved onto her mane. It took me about 2 hours to fully comb out her mane and it looked great. I then plaited it up in a long mane plait. Then I moved onto her forelock. It wasn't too twirled up like the mane and when I combed it out fully, I found that her forelock came to way below her nostrils and it was VERY thick. So I decided to thin it out and pull it a little shorter. She now has it shorter over her eyes but I have "V"'d it down in the middle so that it doesn't look too short overall.
The whole time we were with her; she was soooo pleasant, just like a normal 2 year old and showed not one moment in the slightest of any signs of aggression.
Anyway, finished up with her and off we went for a ride. Then was busy doing other things around the farm for a few hours. Much later a number of boarders turned up and we all went out for another ride. Afterwards, just as I was packing up for the night and ready to come back inside the house, I said to my friend that I wanted to quickly pop back down to the filly's field to see if she was still nice or not. So we wandered down there.
The filly was way over the other side of the hay feeder and the moment I called her name, she quickly came around the feeder and walked with her ears pricked the whole way, down to where I was standing at the fence. She came straight over, ears pricked and eyes "smiling". There was absolutely no doubt that she was happy to see us again. We stood and stroked her, chattered away to her and I kissed her several times on the side of her muzzle. She truly loved it!
Soooooo .......... what do I think the problem was? Her forelock being too thick and too long! I really really do believe that she couldn't see clearly and because of this she was becoming so defensive-aggressive to anything/body that came too close to her, or her territory.
Does this make sense to anyone? Or just me?
