What the..?!?!

[windseywoo]

Absolute horrible person. She deserves all the negative publicity she's getting. Agree with everyone else re taking photos, mine are on a foot path and as said I'd be more bothered if people were feeding them than taking photos. Modern day Scrooge comes to mind. If she'd wanted the money she should have entered the competition herself with a the horse posing and guess what it probably wouldn't have won. It's the fact that the bloke and his son didn't realise what the horse doing that makes the photo so good. Hope they get to keep the holiday and if they have to share it volunteer to take the horse.

 

[Crugeran Celt]

What is wrong with this woman, lets hope the holiday company ignore her petty complaints. When I walk my minis I have had loads of people ask to take photos of them and many people take photos without asking. I really don't mind at all. Hope this family have their holiday and ignore the comments.

 

[crabbymare]

it says the thompson facebook page they are awarding him the holiday sense 1 - misery 0

 

[Crazy_cat_lady]

I think it's a lovely photo and I'm not usually a fan of kids! If it was a photo of H the only reason I'd be annoyed was if the dad had sat the kid on his back or something! Like people have said she's making the photo get even more shared but it doesn't seem to be the privacy she is bothered about more the fact he's won the holiday because of it. The horse is also in what looks a fairly public field so is probably photographed on a regular basis. It's not like they are saying it's their horse etc.
The woman's dad also sounds pretty nasty too.
Hope the boy and his dad get their holiday

 

[VikingSong]

I wouldn't want people feeding my horses, but I'd have no problem with them taking family photos. I think those who said they wouldn't feel comfortable are being overly precious. I wouldn't feel jealous or disappointed if they won a holiday out of it either. I would be pleased for them.

Nicola Mitchell is clearly a greedy, spiteful woman and the fact she's dragged her daughter in to it, who will now undoubtedly be bullied, is even worse. She strikes me as a typical rough as a badger's arse chav, tbh.

To be honest the horse does nothing for me anyway the guy and his son look lovely without her stupid big donkey shoving it's oar in 😂

The horse did nothing wrong, nor is it a "stupid donkey." It's owner, on the other hand, is a spiteful snake.

 

[rachk89]

I wouldn't want people feeding my horses, but I'd have no problem with them taking family photos. I think those who said they wouldn't feel comfortable are being overly precious. I wouldn't feel jealous or disappointed if they won a holiday out of it either. I would be pleased for them.

Nicola Mitchell is clearly a greedy, spiteful woman and the fact she's dragged her daughter in to it, who will now undoubtedly be bullied, is even worse. She strikes me as a typical rough as a badger's arse chav, tbh.



The horse did nothing wrong, nor is it a "stupid donkey." It's owner, on the other hand, is a spiteful snake.

Yeah I thought it was a bit mean to call the horse a stupid donkey. Its not its fault its got a moron for an owner.

Hope karma bites that woman in the ass at some point, she deserves it for upsetting a kid just because she wanted money for nothing.

I wouldnt mind if people wanted a photo with my horse. They'd struggle to keep him still though unless they show him a bucket of feed in the distance.

 

[Penny Less]

If the dad and son live locally lets hope they are not the recipients of any further bullying

 

[FfionWinnie]

I wouldn't want people feeding my horses, but I'd have no problem with them taking family photos. I think those who said they wouldn't feel comfortable are being overly precious. I wouldn't feel jealous or disappointed if they won a holiday out of it either. I would be pleased for them.

Nicola Mitchell is clearly a greedy, spiteful woman and the fact she's dragged her daughter in to it, who will now undoubtedly be bullied, is even worse. She strikes me as a typical rough as a badger's arse chav, tbh.



The horse did nothing wrong, nor is it a "stupid donkey." It's owner, on the other hand, is a spiteful snake.

Lighten up for goodness sake.

 

[fburton]

Trained to do it? Anyone else think it's far more likely that little boy has just fed the horse something it doesn't much like the taste of?

Yes, or the guy was a smoker and the horse caught a whiff of tar from his hand.

 

[Casey76]

Sure, a horse doesn't have to taste something to produce a flehmen response. It certainly isn't a "trained" action.

And seriously if the owner thinks that the horse is sticking it's tongue out in the photo, she needs to go to specsavers!

 

[fburton]

Sure, a horse doesn't have to taste something to produce a flehmen response. It certainly isn't a "trained" action.

You're right - the trigger is usually a smell (the archetypal example being a stallion sniffing at mare urine), not a taste. The receptors are in the vomeronasal organs near the vomer (bone separating the nasal cavity) and in horses these are reached via the nostrils not the mouth (unlike dogs, where there is a connection between mouth and nose near the front).

Flehmen can be trained - I'm sure I have seen at least one YouTube video in which a horse flehmed on cue without obvious smelly stimulus - but as a rule it is a reflex response.

 

[Elbie]

Glad they awarded the family the holiday. I honestly don't know how the owner could complain. They didn't trespass to take the photo. And besides, surely if anyone was entitled to anything it would be the horse who was the star, not the owner! Take the horse on holiday!

 

[VikingSong]

Lighten up for goodness sake.

I wasn't having a go, I was following on from your post. Although, I don't agree at directing anger at the horse rather than it's owner. Perhaps you should take some of your own advice and lighten up yourself?

 

[risky business]

Whilst I agree the woman is a complete twonk. .

Flehmen certainly can be taught! Taught a previous mare of mine to do it, albeit not on purpose! Got lots of photos of her doing it and a video somewhere of me asking her to do it and she does.

Completely useless trick I may add...

 

[HashRouge]

Whilst I agree the woman is a complete twonk. .

Flehmen certainly can be taught! Taught a previous mare of mine to do it, albeit not on purpose! Got lots of photos of her doing it and a video somewhere of me asking her to do it and she does.

Completely useless trick I may add...

I would imagine though that it can only be trained in horses that do it a lot anyway. I can't imagine it would be trainable in my mare, for example, who as far as I am aware has never done it once in 14 years. She's certainly never been seen to do it. If a horse does it a lot you *may* be able to train them to do it on command, but you certainly can't take credit for every time they do it! Although I'd be interested about how you asked your mare to do it, because I wonder if it might simply have been that whatever you did to ask her simply stimulated the response. Obviously if you said "laugh" and that was her response, then fair enough, but if it was something like tickling her lip I wouldn't be convinced that wasn't simply a horse responding to stimuli.

Although from what I understood the owners weren't claiming to have trained her to do it anyway - they said they had taught her another trick where she stuck her tongue out, which they thought would definitely have won the competition (or some rubbish along those lines).

 

[risky business]

It was a few years ago now (I don't have her now) so can't remember how often she did it prior to it being a trick.

She responded to words not stimuli, although I'm pretty sure the trick originated via stimuli she just learned the words paired with the action so stimuli was no longer required.

I wasn't really referring to the woman in question anyway just added my story that flehmen can become a trick. As with all tricks depends on the horse.

A friend of mine taught her horse to say yes by nodding (no idea how or why). It was fun until he started breaking his stable door by leaning his chest on it to nod and then had to ask everyone to stop...

 

[fburton]

I would be surprised if you couldn't provoke flehmen in any horse (or at least 99.9% of horses) if you presented them with a sufficiently strong smell.

 

[MotherOfChickens]

Flehmen can be trained - I'm sure I have seen at least one YouTube video in which a horse flehmed on cue without obvious smelly stimulus - but as a rule it is a reflex response.

my oldest Exmoor does it on command i.e. 'g'is a smile then'.

Both the Exmoors do it a lot more than any other horses I've been around-several times a day even when not asked to do it. Both the lusitanos do/did it very rarely and one only in response to a mare (he was a gelding).

 

[HashRouge]

I would be surprised if you couldn't provoke flehmen in any horse (or at least 99.9% of horses) if you presented them with a sufficiently strong smell.

I wasn't talking about causing a horse to do it, but teaching them to do it on command, as risky business did with her horse. The reason I mentioned my horse never having been seen to do it was not to prove that she never would, but that it would probably be difficult to teach her.

 

[Honey08]

Im late to this thread, but I'm glad that they won the holiday. I was amused by one account of the story where the mother had posted a picture of her daughter and the horse both sticking out their tongues on a photo, as if to say "this could have won". But the little boy and his dad were just so cute and laughing away it was in another league today the staged photo of the daughter.

And I've accidentally photo bombed a couple of pictures of pro eventers this year and ended up on their sponsor's adverts. I'm now off to demand half their sponsorship!!

 

[fburton]

I wasn't talking about causing a horse to do it, but teaching them to do it on command, as risky business did with her horse. The reason I mentioned my horse never having been seen to do it was not to prove that she never would, but that it would probably be difficult to teach her.

Provoking a behaviour is the first step to teaching it via classical conditioning. Consider Pavlov's dog, for example, where food provoked salivation which then became associated with the sound of a bell which was then able to make the dog salivate. Substitute "odour" for "food", "flehmen" for "salivation", and " voice command" for "bell" and you have a way to teach a horse to flehm on cue. You don't have to wait for a behaviour to happen by itself in order to teach it.

 

[conniegirl]

I taught my horse to "smile" (Read flehmen response) on command.
Its very easy to do and only took a few days. Something very strong smelling (I used udder balm), and a voice command as well as positive reinforcement every time he did it when I said "smile"

 

[Dave's Mam]

my oldest Exmoor does it on command i.e. 'g'is a smile then'.

Both the Exmoors do it a lot more than any other horses I've been around-several times a day even when not asked to do it. Both the lusitanos do/did it very rarely and one only in response to a mare (he was a gelding).

My Exmoor does it when you scratch his chest.

 

[Blurr]

I've taught one of mine to 'smile'. We had already done some clicker work and I managed to 'capture' the behavior when he did it spontaneously. I reinforced it heavily and introduced a cue (the word "smile"), but because everyone loves to see him smile and it gets him lots of attention, he smiles a lot. Makes it difficult for my poor vet to have a serious conversation with me when the pony's grinning away behind me!