Can horses suffer from agraphobia!!!!

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scazza

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:confused:we have owned our belgium warm blood mare for nearly 12months and basically she is a nightmare to turn out,she did improve a lot but we are back to square 1 again,when we first got her you couldnt even get the headcollar off we had to slip a lead rope as it was just too dangerous as she takes off like a rocket,but with time/calm handling/non aggressive actions she became a lot better and she learnt to stand and wait till the headcollar came off but will still go like a rocket once headcollar is off then she gallops up the field and does a circle then stands by the adjoining hedge up the corner and doesnt move until we fetch her in,its like she doesnt want to be out and when u go to fetch her in she is very edgey and sometimes u nearly get to her and she will take off and gallop to the gate and wait for you as u cam imagine the weather we have been having just lately we have not dared to turn her out as she is going to break a leg or something:eek: now she was a lot better up until about 1month ago now i dont know if its the stress of losing my other mare who was put to sleep on the 5th jan,even though they werent close its still a change in her routine and a new paddock was put up in her field so more stressful change!! but somebody said at the yard today its like shes got agraphobia as its a huge field and they think shes frightened of the open space!! anybody got any similar experiences of this??
Thankyou if you have got this far as i feel i have waffled on!! but its hard to explain:o
 
Put yourself in her shoes...

Friend died, New paddock = new neighbours (i assume), this time of year is always a low! - I would be feeling a little fragile.

Sorry I dont know how to help - but I would be sympathetic to her nerves.

Edited to ask - Do you know if pervious owners turned out a lot? Has she had a nasty accident out in the field (Even if it was just being bullied)
Do you hack in open fields??
 
Does she have company in the field? I had a mare on loan once that was a nightmare to hack in open spaces and I was convinced she was agrophobic. Whenever we got to the open forest she turned into a bouncy sweaty mess and would not chill out. Could you section the field off and let her out in a smaller space?
 
Hi Happy Hunter,she was turned out with previous owners but limited she came from a big sj yard,and no new neighbours in field the paddock was put up to house 2 mares that were playing a bit too rough with the others,and maybe she has been hurt or bullied in the past as she has never mixed with the herd shes a bit of a loner,if any of the others come towards her its ears back and she sends them away,think i will wait till spring and if no improvement may seek advise from a behaviourist to see if they have any ideas!! its proving to be a big problem this week because of the weather as keeping her in or only having a little turn out due to her wanting to come back in has never been a problem as we could ride and have legs stretched but the menages are frozen solid at the moment due to the snow coming and freezing so she is like a coiled spring at the moment,just wish i could do something to re assure her and to see her being a natural horse happy in a field...
 
Yes my friends horse behaved very much the same as this. He was from Ireland and was bought as a rearer and my friend was going to re start him, give him another chance as he was only young. She was making good progress with him but had some set backs from time to time. Turnout was ok during the spring and summer after she bought him but started getting a problem in the winter.
He would bolt if let loose in an open area, but if you let him to the herd, he was a little better but would make his way to a wall and stand next to it most of the day and wouldn't come away from it unless you went to get him.
It came to a head when he bolted across a field and tried to jump the wall but only got halfway. He managed to scramble over into the mares field, galloped around that field and then jumped out onto the lane and into a caravan park where luckily one of the staff caught him. He seemed ok if he was being led, although quite stressed but better than being alone.
She eventually found he was better without a rug on, and did eventually settled in the herd naked, but because he didn't have time to grow a thick winter coat he lost a bit of weight the first winter.
Is your mare rugged?
 
hi Bentleybelly,YO very fussy over doing individual paddocks,i have thought about this and maybe a yard move maybe worth considering but really like it where we are!!
 
hi muff, yes she is clipped and rugged,my yard owner thought this was the problem at first but she still did it when unrugged last spring??
 
Yup, my mare developed it, she was put down in the end as apparently (I didn't own her at the time) she couldn't go outside the stable without stressing and panicking. I know it was NOT a decision which was made lightly!!
 
Does she eat at all?

A friend of mine has an old TB who came from Germany. He was never turned out until he came to the UK (a long time ago, I'm guessing about 15 years) and and would absolutely turn himself inside out in a field. He had a tiny paddock space for years - sometimes he'd last a couple of hours in there, sometimes ten minutes and he'd be dripping and snorting. A couple of years ago he got put on some sort of human medication to help with his ulcers and constant colicking, and he was a changed horse. It looked like he had been reacting very badly to grass and had been in lots of pain, hence his getting stressed over being turned out - he was in pain / anticipating being in pain due to eating grass. He now goes out overnight in summer, something his owner didn't think would happen, ever.

Maybe that's something to look at? Ulcers / something digestion related?
 
thanks for the replies everybody,she doesnt eat much when out and occasionally rolls,maybe a chat to my vet maybe worth a try!!
 
Silmarillion said:
Does she eat at all?


Maybe that's something to look at? Ulcers / something digestion related?
Click to expand...



I had a TBxWelshD mare who had a severe, but undiagnosed for a long time, sensitivity to cereals and sugar. As she got worse, she wasn't ridden but went out with her herd every day. If she was going along the usual route, or with a friend she was fine but if I tried to take her along a different path to the field, she panicked. I vividly remember being worried that she would get too close to YO's greenhouse when she was bucking and carrying on as I led her.
After we removed cereals and sugar from her diet she was ok. We even moved yards twice with no problems.
 
I used to work for someone who had an agraphobic warmblood. She assumed he'd lived in all the time before he came to the UK.

He used to be led out to the field with a quiet companion pony where he'd last for a couple of hours. As soon as he came back to the gate someone had to fetch him in otherwise he got so neurotic he'd have a fit and either come over the gate himself (not very prettily, he was dressage not jumping!) or become too dangerous to approach.

He was also VERY scared competing in dressage arenas that were set in a field.... and had to be led out to them with another horse in front and the spare horse had to stay in the vicinity otherwise he would exit!

But - he got over it, as when retired he lived out permanently!!
 
Hi my friends horse did this and she was on individual turn out and she tried the same kind you do with children that won't stay in their own bed she sat in the field with it for a few hours then brought it in and would repeat I think it worked but I moved off not long after but have seen it out on its own recently probably not an option as need a lot of time. Sorry not much help
 
I have a pony who used to have this problem. He was given to me because his owners were going to have him put to sleep. He stressed in the stable, but became so frantic out of it that they only led him in a chiffney. When turned out he would stand by the gate shaking until brought in again, where he would box walk and weave continually. Not surprisingly, they warned me that he had difficulty putting on weight.
I never got to the bottom of why, although a livery where he came from said that he had come in one day traumatised and with his fly rug so shredded that it was just bits left hanging off his body. So maybe there had been an incident out in the field with the other geldings.
Rightly or wrongly, my decision was to give him some space to rediscover what it meant to be a horse. So I put him in a small paddock next to another small paddock that was occupied by my two mares. There were bushes overhanging the paddock and he shot straight under one and made it his safe place. I soon realised that even going to the water trough was a bit much for him, so for maybe 10 - 14 days I took him hay and water by hand. I left him out 24/7, and just visited him in the field to groom etc. He had a strange habit of trying to herd me away from the gate when I wanted to go, which was dangerous, but if I sent him away with body language too strongly he would go into panic galloping.
He did have a "rug thing", but I didn't realise that until later. It still resurfaces every year the first time his rug goes on. He gets panicky and runs about, but after that he settles and soon can have rugs changed at liberty in the field.
I got help from Tim Couzens the holistic vet and it was quite amazing how the remedies he sent worked. Can't explain it, but I don't care really because it helped.
He came out from under the hedge, but only by hugging the fence, and then would go to the water. Sometimes he would weave his way along the fence to get there. One day I found him scuttling up and down the fenceline between him and the mares, with them making overtures towards him, so I took the fence down and prayed. He ran straight back under his hedge. They tried to flirt him out, and eventually over the next couple of weeks he became able to come out and graze near them. The day I saw him grooming with one of the girls was magic.
That's the brief (!) version of the story. When left to work out his life he came out with all sorts of things. Running through the electric fence when one mare was taken out. Panic weaving at a canter when they went too far from him. Exhibiting a terror of going through gates. He's got through it though and can now be taken away from the others, be ridden, even go out on hacks. Although I have to say that he's recently started to get a bit het up if he meets another horse, so as he's 18 I may decide his hacking days are over because although I'm sure I could sort that one out, maybe just let him have a relaxed life now?
In his case it came down to really leaving him alone to sort himself out, supported by close company and me. Then seeing what I had and reconstructing his education and confidence. I could not have done this on a conventional yard where we would have had to fit into a routine, maybe bring him in, and I would have had everyone giving their well-meaning advice and trying to help. Another approach may have worked, but this is what worked for Fin.
Happy photo follows...
DSC02137.jpg
 
Sticking be hedges and railings (corners especially) is basic thigmotaxis: this is what nervous prey animals like mice do to avoid riskier open spaces (risk of detection by predators). Horses can definitely suffer fear and anxieties about open and closed spaces. A livery's mare had similar problems, and was spooky to ride. The vet gave her horsey valium which own put in her feed and it really helped to manage it: finding and managing the cause is preferable to just treating symptoms though.
 
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