What do you do when...

[mpicton]

a horse bites you? No good reason, out of grumpiness, maliciousness, nastiness etc. Just wondering, I've seen people react in pretty much opposite ways.

 

[minesadouble]

Good smack on the snout!! (Provided horse isn't of nervous hysterical disposition)

 

[samuelhorse]

bite him back, put my boy off for a while,
should have seen the face on him when i did it!
Got nice chunk of skin on his shoulder and bit hard!!!!

 

[xmoodyxmarex]

If there is no reason- purely out of grumpiness- then a big smack and shout at him/her! I think it's dangerous, if the horse did that again to a child it would be awful, the horse needs to learn it isn't acceptable.

 

[Oldred]

If it is someone else's horse I would ignore it but stay out of its way in future. If it was my horse, I would ignore it but work out why it happened and try to fix the problem, or make sure I was on guard in future and at the same time train the horse to respectfully keep back out of my personal space - usually just by flapping arms, shaking lead rope etc. If it was a really ruined horse (I rescued a horse travellers had been beating and that would bite to get in first) I would use a muzzle when handling it as it was so far gone humans had lost the phsycological (sp!) advantage we normally have over them.

 

[vieshot]

My older horse has bitten me once- he payed for it big time. He was belted VERY hard and has never even thought about doing it again- infact hes a gentleman even for children to handle.

My youngster has also bitten me once- slightly different as he was just a yearling who had not learn what was right and wrong where as the older horse knew full well. He got a bop on the nose and some angry choice language from me. He hasnt tried since and hes 2.5 now.

 

[jellyshake]

depends on the horse, the baby gets a tap and a growl as he's still learning whats acceptable and what isn't, anything else of mine would get an instant hard thump back and a gobfull of unprintable words

they know the rules and if they cross the line they bloody well know it!!
my big girl crushed my friends finger when she walked through the field with some hay last winter and shellee decided she would take a bite

had been telling my friend to stop letting them walk all over her for months but she learnt that day , up until then i think she thought i was too hard on them

 

[dwi]

Growl and smack, make them step back out of your space as well. Roughly the same response they'd get if they bit another member of their herd. That said, my horse doesn't bite, never has

 

[Cop-Pop]

Depends on the horse - if ponio ever did it I think a growl would suffice. If TBx did it she'd get a wallop!!