crazy mare

[harrihjc]

My mare is in her 20s, and has always been rather 'quirky' to say the least! She was in a terrible way when we bought her about 9 years ago and had been badly treated, but despite the face pulling she's always been incredibly gentle and loving, we'd trust her 100%.

I moved my youngster to a different yard last week, and a new lady has taken my stable. She has 2 kids, and when she came on Saturday her little boy (about 8yrs old) was wearing a camouflage coat. Maddy went absolutely crazy, she was terrified and aggressive and really threatening. My mum made the boy take his coat off and then she was fine with him, but had real issues with the coat. She was rearing and lashing out at it, lunging at it with her teeth bared and kicking out at it. It was such a bizarre and excessive response and really shocked us! Has anyone else known a horse respond like this to something, and so completely out of character? The evil coat will not be making an appearance again that's for sure. We wonder whether it's over something in her past

cookies if you get this far!

 

[bexandspooky]

Sounds a bit like she associated camouflage with her bad experences - I used to have a rescue dog that used to take really badly to people wearing those jogging bottoms with the white stripes down the side! We got him out of it by letting him slowly see them.

I think you need to find out if it is all camouflage stuff or if it is something else, then you can start working on helping her deal with it a bit

 

[kerilli]

i had a friend who bought a hunter, had it for a few weeks, then walked into its stable with a flat cap on, and it promptly panicked and tried to climb the back wall of the stable. the moment he realised what was different, and took his hat off, it calmed down immediately.
i had a mare who hated blonde women, and when a friend of mine (who'd groomed for me at events, so the mare knew her well) had her hair bleached, the mare came at her with her teeth...
definitely flashbacks, imho.

 

[harrihjc]

I guess camouflage isn't something any of us wear, so she probably wouldn't have seen it with us. Poor thing was in such a state trembling!