YO stalking FB!

[TotalMadgeness]

I had a terrible time many years ago when I had a horse at a large livery yard / riding school. I had apparently upset them by (politely) pointing out that the yard had breached their contract by leaving my horse alone in a field (the contract stated horses would never be left alone and my horse sadly did not react well to being on his own). At that point they couldn't really find a good reason to get rid of me so dredged up 'evidence' from my FB and Twitter feed. Bizarrely enough they cited several examples which had nothing to do with horses never mind the yard! In fact 99.9% of my posts/tweets about this yard were positive because I absolutely loved the place & had what I thought were good friends there so there really was a miniscule amount of less positive ones - in fact I can only think of two out of hundreds - but I do remember that I didn't mention names/the yard AND they were minor observations/grumbles rather than anything nasty. Anyway to cut a long story short I was given a month's notice, called 'disgusting' by the yard manager and abruptly 'sent to Coventry' by all my so called friends there. I was devastated but the worse thing was my horse suffered too (he was on full livery but they just decided to leave him without proper care for the month's notice so things like cuts weren't treated). The good thing was, however, the next 3 yards I had horses at were just wonderful and more than made up for the deeply unpleasant and unexpected exit from that particular yard - so there ARE a lot of lovely yards and yard owners about its just a matter of finding them. Both me and the horse I'm glad to say are in a much better place now and loving life.

Anyway the crux of this sorry tale is that unfortunately you can't say anything on social media about your yard or people on it. Even if you generally only say nice things and on the less nice ones don't specify names/places/dates any post / comment can and will be used against you if someone sees fit. And as I found to my cost even posts/tweets about completely unrelated subjects will be used against you.

 

[flying_high]

I had a terrible time many years ago when I had a horse at a large livery yard / riding school. I had apparently upset them by (politely) pointing out that the yard had breached their contract by leaving my horse alone in a field (the contract stated horses would never be left alone and my horse sadly did not react well to being on his own). At that point they couldn't really find a good reason to get rid of me so dredged up 'evidence' from my FB and Twitter feed. Bizarrely enough they cited several examples which had nothing to do with horses never mind the yard! .

IMO, some of that is how you handled the situation IMO. Telling a Yard manager they are in breach of contract by their behaviour, if you want to stay at a yard, is rarely wise.

It is absolutely the way to go in some situations e.g. landlord not fixing heating in rented flat in winter.

But with livery, with 99% of yard managers that would be the wrong approach, it is too threatening an approach.

Better to say e.g. “I was really upset that my horse was left out alone, she’s not happy with this and in the current winter is at risk of injury and pulling off shoes. I had understood horses aren’t typically left out alone in fields. I’d be grateful if we can look at what happened, and work together to prevent it happening again?”

 

[Sussexbythesea]

IMO, some of that is how you handled the situation IMO. Telling a Yard manager they are in breach of contract by their behaviour, if you want to stay at a yard, is rarely wise.

It is absolutely the way to go in some situations e.g. landlord not fixing heating in rented flat in winter.

But with livery, with 99% of yard managers that would be the wrong approach, it is too threatening an approach.

Better to say e.g. “I was really upset that my horse was left out alone, she’s not happy with this and in the current winter is at risk of injury and pulling off shoes. I had understood horses aren’t typically left out alone in fields. I’d be grateful if we can look at what happened, and work together to prevent it happening again?”

Whilst it’s good to be tactful why does the paying livery have to work with the YO to prevent it happening again when clearly the YO was at fault? As per usual livery contracts are not worth the paper they are written on. Although I guess if the horse had been seriously injured the livery would have a good case against the YO should they want to sue which of course most people cannot afford to do or stand the stress of.

 

[stormox]

I fail to see how reading a FB post which can be seen by them is stalking someone. The poster can control the privacy settings on each post.