Distressed horse = annoying?

Meowy Catkin

Meowy Catkin

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This is a follow on from the keeping horses alone thread.

In one of the posts, it was stated that there's nothing more annoying than a horse with separation anxiety (sorry, I can't remember who posted it and the thread is pretty long now, so I haven't trawled through it to find the exact post and wording).

Now this is obviously wrong because the most annoying thing with horses is when they wont let you catch them because they are cheeky toe-rags (the horse is not distressed and hasn't had bad experiences once caught).

However - on a more serious note - I wouldn't find a distressed horse (as one with SE certainly is) annoying. I would want to help the horse overcome it's problem. Now I don't believe that keeping it on it's own is the answer as the horse is obviously visibly upset when alone.

I have a horse with SE and it is a bind but he has improved with careful handling. The key seems to be getting him to believe that if he's taken away from the others, that he will be put back again. Also that if his buddy is taken away, again it's only temporary. The time away from his mates has been slowly increased and he is improving. Yes it has been hard and taken a lot of time, but he now does settle after an initial bout of calling and cantering about. He does call as he/friend returns home and I have had to harden my heart to his calling (as long as he wasn't going to hurt himself, i would ignore his shouting).

It should be noted, that an eye was kept on him while his mate was taken away and there was still one other horse with him who he does like.

I have done the same slowly, slowly process when my horse (different horse) was kept with one other. In the end the left behind horse accepted the other horse going out for a hack without them and totally stopped calling when his mate was taken away.

Any thoughts?
 
Nothing to add but that I totally agree.

I am in both situations. I have one who is kept 'alone' at home, though he has sight of others in adjacent field and his sheep as immediete companions, who he spends 99.9% of his time with, and my old lad at a diy yard with my youngster who has terrible SE issues, which I am addressing quietly as my youngster is starting work.

Both situations are manageable without detriment to the horses with a bit of thought and planning.
 
urrggg i hate it when people get annoyed with Taz for his separation anxiety. Even with all the other horses in if his best field buddy (missy) is taken away he cant deal with it. if hes out in the field even if she is just being caught (before shes even out of the gate) he is already charging around and screeming his head off... all the other horses ignore him and if she is taken away out of sight he jumps fences or if hes in the stable he will either slam himself into the door until the door or doorframe breaks and lets him out or he climbs over the door :( we have tried the take her away and bring her back etc and no matter how many times you do it he doesnt settle down at all even if she is about 50 yards away in sight he will keep going :( we have started to turn him out on his own leave him for 20 mins or so and then bring her out. for some reason he can deal with being put out on his own but cant deal with her being taken away. we have also started putting them in different fields getting them further and further apart until they are out of sight so far we are only 50 yards out but he is settled like that although you cant take her out of her field still :( its going to be long but he will get there eventually. good luck with your horse Faracat
 
I have a chap who is the same, with regular practise he improves and it isn't an overly long progress. We have had winter and with no facilities practise has been hard as I generally only got to see the horses in the dark. Now the light is lingering again we can practise and get back to where we were.

I don't agree it is annoying - its worrying as I don't like to see any horse upset, what does get a little ear deafening is the fact that he does a very loud call - louder than the average call and my brain feels like it has shattered after each one - I almost feel ear plugs are the way forward because he is just that loud!
 
we have started to turn him out on his own leave him for 20 mins or so and then bring her out. for some reason he can deal with being put out on his own but cant deal with her being taken away.

I have found the same thing, it's the taking away that upsets him. I can turn him out first and he calmly waits while I go back to fetch the others.


good luck with your horse Faracat
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Thank you, I hope that you get there with your too. :)

manageable without detriment to the horses with a bit of thought and planning
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I agree, thought and planning are important.

BYH - Earplugs sound like a good idea.
 
I can sympathise with the poster who said it’s annoying, I have an ongoing issue with two I look after.

The IDxTB late 20s gelding is completely obsessed with my 2yo Shetland colt, when the Shetland arrived last year he wasn’t particularly interested in him but now he won’t leave him alone. It’s completely one sided and the colt can be quite mean to him, steals his food, jumps on him, bites his legs, he never tells him off.

During last Summer it got to the stage where he would put himself between the colt and the rest of the herd and not let anything near (reminded me of a foal proud mare!) final straw was when he got aggressive towards me when I caught the colt!

The old boy has been in at night over winter and I hoped a little bit of distance would calm the situation, he can still see the colt in the field and goes back in with the herd during the day. Five months later and we’re now at the stage where the old boy will come in with minimal of fuss but is still snatching at haynet and looking back over the door to check colt is still there between mouthfuls. I can’t put him in a separate field, if the colt moves away from the fence line the old boy will just go through whatever is in the way. When I do leading practice in the fields the old boy has to go back in his stable and he just calls and calls (we're still within sight) and if I take the colt for a walk around the block (15 – 20 mins) the top door has to be closed as he rears up at the door and gets his front legs over.

It’s not nice to see him so stressed but I’m fast running out of ideas - hence very annoying!
 
We never did solve it with my daughters 14hh pony, she had been neglected and left alone for a year when she was 6, we had her from 8 to 28 years old, and she would never be left alone. Would jump anything, charge stable door etc, break anythingshe was tied to. So we just lived with it, and when she retired if her companion was going for a hack then she went as well on a leading reign.

She was still able to jump out over a 5 bar gate at 25! When we finally lost her and she was pts, her companion an ID mare was not worried and lived on happily alone for a further year.
 
I think people find it annoying because they are frustrated they can't communicate with the horse that all is ok and nothing bad is going to happen when their friend goes away for a bit. It is hard for humans to visualise how a horse feels and to what extent they understand their friend is not gone for good. Lots of aspects of owning animals are like that though, that's the challenge of training and trying to communicate with them, or we'd just hang out with humans instead!

My horse is probably the most bothered in our gang when another horse goes out, she's in a paddock with a loan companion pony now, she gallops up and down the fence line until they're out of sight/ear shot. Today her friends were moved from the field on one side of her, through her field and put on the other side... Cue much galloping along with her little companion who I thought had helped this situation... Oh well, nice try humans! She settles down eventually so I'm not to worried. I'm sure if I ever move to a yard she'll cause much annoyance, so don't plan on it any time soon!
 
mine had annoying piercing 'girly' neigh and it does rather disrupt a peaceful afternoon in the garden just because the girlfriend has gone out on a hack :p.
 
One of work's old driving ponies used to annoy the hell out of me over how dramatic he was if the mare went out of sight. He'd literally canter round his stable plastered in sweat, including when he was supposed to be box resting from laminitis. You couldn't tie him up either, he'd have hung himself throwing himself about.

I'd never have lost my temper at him for it or hurt him, but it did peeve me right off. The main reason I bought my horse was that the seller said about the two horses together for sale "if we separate them, he (the other horse) frets a bit but that one (my horse) doesn't really care". I know horses can't help it if they're that way inclined, but I find it a PITA and can't really be doing with clingy horses.

ETA I don't care for hysterical people either, even though I know they can't help it.
 
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funnily enough at home he only does it if he knows someone is about.. if we're all in the house it's all quiet :rolleyes:
 
Well I sort of get what people mean when they say it is annoying - my mare used to shriek at full volume, constantly, while her companion was gone! It's also annoying in the sense that you can't do anything to make it better straight away, if that makes sense! That's not to say that I didn't feel a great deal of pity and sympathy for her - she's my baby and I don't want her to be stressed an upset! She is much better now, after some good old time and perseverance!
 
I had a mare with SE. She would go nuts when i took my gelding away from her but absolutely fine when I took her away from him as long as she wasnt put in her stable. Tied up she was absolutely fine, would stand and be primped for hours with a haynet, but the other way around was just a nightmare :rolleyes:

Im going to be honest and say I just left her to it. Has just always bee the way, I was hard pushed with two nevermind adding another to the mix just for the sake of not leaivng her on her own, then if i took the pair of them to shows who would be with the one left and so on, when does it stop being ridiculous really :rolleyes:I used to ut my iPod in up loud and ignored her (could hear her on the yard from the summer paddock), my gelding didnt neigh back either he just ignored her also (hes antisocial though the old git ;) ) Eventually after a few months of this she got over it. Would follow us to the gate, then just go back to grazing once she realised she wasnt coming with.

If I took her anywhere she was as good as gold, at shows she would stay in strange boxes and not bother her backside, stand in the trailer allday with a net and not fuss, shout or get worked up :)

So if I got another with the same then im afraid it will just have to get on with it as I prefer to rent my own land, at present on a friends yard just hers and mine and thats about as many people as Ill tolerate ;)
 
I alluded to something similar but those weren't my words.

When my husband was in Saudi I had to bring in 8 on my own. Including a just weaned foal. Everyone waited their turn and I had no problems. I also spend time with younger members of herds bringing them in just for a brush and turning them back out again. At times it's necessary to be away from the group. It's something they learn. Nothing bad will happen and it's all good. Again I have different expectations because I have many horses, not one. To keep things safe for me and the horses this is something they have to learn.

Now I currently share the barn with a woman with one horse who makes big issues out of her horse with separation anxiety. Her horse is completely different to handle depending on who is on his head. It's fine things can run around him because she has the one horse and takes care of the other one to suit her horses needs. No one of my horses runs the show. Will lead to difficulties.

Another 2 mares here are also the same. One was born here is now 5 and always has had the same company. One can't be walked out of the barn without the other or they go crazy.

Again I will say as much as I did in the other thread. People make more things difficult sometimes than horses. And of course I don't like leaving any horse alone for an extended time. But they can all learn to wait one by one to come in if its worked on early. All my horses can be the last. It's never the same order. But I think it's important to teach horse patience as well.

If you want to call someone out them do so. And yes I get annoyed with excuse makers and lablers that won't try to do anything about the situation. I work around horses but I feel strongly that for safety they can all learn to stand for a few minuets while waiting to come in without losing as gasket. Or if the field is quite a distance from the barn then I can lead the quiet 2 in last. However I also know they can and have waited patiently for my return.

Terri
 
I completely agree.
I have found that some horses are better if they are taken away from the friend, while others are better left with some hay while friend is taken away.
The 'horses with SE are really annoying' drives me mad, it's owners like that who create horses with SE.
 
In all the years I had my horse, you could bring her into the barn by herself, she could be in the barn and the neighbour could go out, and all was fine.

Then we moved to a yard where she and one other horse were the only horses in the block. You also had to walk through another building to get to where my horse and the other were stabled. My horse got a personality transplant and would go BANANAS if she were alone in the stable. All training (years and years of it) forgotten. She'd go into total flight mode and her brain was gone. I suppose, in a way, I am being harsh and you could get her to listen *enough* to not run over you, slam you into walls, stuff like that, but not much else. I tried doing all the things you're supposed to do, like bring her into the barn for brief periods by herself, take her to the place where she starts freaking out and then returning to a "safe" place, ignoring the behaviour entirely, correcting the behaviour by making her move her feet and rewarding her when still, the lot. The only trick in the book I didn't try was leading the other horse away in increasingly lengthier increments, as that required a level of cooperation from its owner that was unlikely to happen. I pretty much resigned myself to only riding after 4pm, when all the horses were brought in, and my horse going nuts if her neighbour were ridden. Then all the horses were moved to a shiny new barn with a totally different geographical relationship to the turnout fields and all the horses at the yard now under one roof, instead of in little sections here and there. As suddenly as they had appeared, all of the above issues vanished.

It was freakin' annoying, no doubt.
 
Ive seen separation anxiety to the extent that one horse couldnt even be schooled without the other standing in the corner of the arena, for no other reason than the horse would shout for the other who could act like a bit of a pratt dancing about, but the rider was afraid of him so always gave in. I couldnt live with that hassle im afraid, the horse could be ridden through it, and i did when asked to help including hacking out, with firm persistance he would eventually leave the yard and once away, apart crom the odd nap was fine but it was easier for the owner to take the other into the school and not hack out, sometimes its just as bad to reinforce the behaviour, but tbh i felt sorry for the horse.Not an ideal situation for anyone involved.
 
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