Nudibranch
Well-Known Member
My own horse, that is. Normal evening, bringing one horse into the starvation paddock and the youngster following behind, totally normal routine. Dog was with us - again as usual. The youngster has known dogs literally all his life, never a problem, and the dog has always just pottered around, neither paying much interest to the other. Out of the blue the youngster decides to trot after the dog, so the dog started trotting away and then suddenly youngster launches into a canter and then lunges at the dog, bringing both front hooves right down on him. I have never felt so sick in my life. Thankfully, and by pure chance, the dog is ok although bruised. And now probably with a permanent fear of horses. However in 25 years of owning, I have never seen or heard of anything like this. Fortunately he did it only the once and I was able to get to the dog, so I am putting it down to badly judged play. Am I being naive though? It was definitely deliberate and as I say, he has no reason at all to have a problem with the dog. The only related history is I know his breeder used to say he followed their cat around as a foal, but certainly never tried to attack it!
Clearly now they will be kept well apart but has anyone had any similar experiences and what did you do? He is most definitely a gelding; I saw both testicles completely removed with my own eyes! He was only 11 months when gelded and never showed any colty behaviour other than biting, although I have to say with the spring grass he is rather a loon at the moment. We have done a lot of work on personal space and boundaries, as I suspect he was allowed to get away with lots as a young foal, but it has been working well - perhaps we need to go back to basics again though.
So - unfortunate accident of play or am I harbouring a future horror story?
Clearly now they will be kept well apart but has anyone had any similar experiences and what did you do? He is most definitely a gelding; I saw both testicles completely removed with my own eyes! He was only 11 months when gelded and never showed any colty behaviour other than biting, although I have to say with the spring grass he is rather a loon at the moment. We have done a lot of work on personal space and boundaries, as I suspect he was allowed to get away with lots as a young foal, but it has been working well - perhaps we need to go back to basics again though.
So - unfortunate accident of play or am I harbouring a future horror story?
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