Your Standards........for fun only!!!!

[my bfg]

Agree with quite a few of these!
Mine are:

Horse:
Head rubbing (it hurts!)
Not being caught
Door kicking
Biting/kicking
Not leading well
Napping

Not horse:
Not properly caring for your horse
Hitting horses in temper (if you're about to lose your rag then back off and calm down!)
Bad mouthing/name calling your horse
A teeney buck is not a "bronc" and you are not a superstar rider for staying on the "dangerous" horse!!
Dirty water and/or buckets
Bad mucking out
Folk who rock up hours later than usual on the weekend but don't give any extra hay the night before
Folk who text to ask you to feed their horse that night but you find theres no feed ready, wtf do they eat???

 

[Tobiano]

I have standards in as much as behaviour that I will correct if i know how to do it. This includes barging and head rubbing (no). However, my very sweet cob HATES being left in his stable if his field mate is out (or vice versa, but he can't see any other horses from his field) and so I just manage this by trying to make sure it doesn't happen.

In terms of my own behaviour - ALWAYS see to the horse's needs before my own (drummed into me aged 11 and never forgotten); always walk the last half mile home; don't keep a horse on its own; don't put the water in the stable in the morning if the horse is coming in at night (it absorbs the stable smells); always close the gate. This means that i get impatient with other people who don't have the same standards - doesn't mean i am right but i don't really care!

 

[HashRouge]

I've been working as a full time SJ groom/ yard manager for a while now so I'm pretty relaxed when it comes to dealing with bad behaviour. Not that I LIKE bad behaviour, but I can deal with it. I don't particularly like things like biting and being hard to catch but I'm good at dealing with them so they don't stress me out too much. The horses we currently have in are actually very well mannered on the ground, can be mucked out/ rugs changed etc in their stables no problem, are polite to lead, don't bite or kick. In fact they are a lovely bunch in general. We have two that can be hard to catch but you just have to know them and how to deal with them - they can't say no to food ever, so if you pick a handful of grass, they have to have it, even though it is the same as all the other grass! Works every time, with both of them. They are half brothers, so I wonder if it is an inherited trait. And I have been kicked several times, but usually it is a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Last time, we hadn't turned out for a few weeks due to our fields being mud baths and a very, very excited horse bucked while being led into the field and (still not entirely sure how it happened) managed to catch me hard in the back of the ribs despite my being stood at his shoulder. I wouldn't say bad behaviour bothers me a huge amount as it can almost always be ironed out. We tend to just get on with it and the horses that come here end up being lovely, well balanced horses even if they don't start out that way.
However, there are some things (mainly relating to stable management) that I am very particular about. The two main ones are:

- On a day to day basis, I never, ever brush tails. You'd be surprised at the difference it can make to the thickness of a tail. We only ever brush tails as part of our show prep - they get washed, liberally sprayed with conditioner, then brushed, and then they will be brushed again immediately before the show to remove bedding. That is it. I learnt this in my first SJ job and it is something I will take with me, definitely. It makes me cringe when I see people tearing away at tails

- I always, always pick out feet before taking a horse out of it's stable and so do all my staff. The only person who doesn't is my boss, but we try to ensure he hardly ever gets a horse out of its stable! After all, what is the point of us keeping the yard swept and clean if horses are constantly treading muck out of their stable! I also insist that all horses have their feet picked out before returning to their stable for the final time, whether they have just been ridden, been in the field or the all weather turnout pen. One of our old grooms was a nightmare for forgetting to pick out feet when she put horses away, and it would annoy me so much when I came to get them out in the morning only to find their hooves packed with dried mud.

I have lots of others - I like clean rugs, the yard has to be swept properly, tack cleaned every day and put away just so, all horses wear sheets under their stable rugs, they must have their rugs off and be brushed at least once a day even if on box rest and rugs HAVE to be folded a certain way. I usually go round an re-fold rugs after everyone else has done it . But funnily, behaviour doesn't bother me - I think because I handle horses all day every day, I am used to dealing with bad behaviour but also am usually very positive that it is something that can be improved.