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11-03-2009, 10:04 AM
| #41 |
| Full Member |
Seriously, I have no idea why he is being so pig-headed! He does have a stubborn streak, but I have never seen it to this degree. I guess part of it was that I "came at him" with no subtlety on the issue. But, it is hard to be subtle when you see things going on that make you boil  (god, I would be an awful politician) ... Unfortunately, I could not make it out to the barn for the hooves this morning, because my baby got his first tooth (sort of) overnight and I am operating on next to no sleep. But, I have heard through the grapevine that there were some "issues." I have a call in to the farrier, because I know that I will never get a straight answer from the barn about what went down ... I am still trying to figure out a way to PUSH him (kicking and screaming) to either move the filly to the new barn and start the training program there himself or give her to me (maybe as a Christmas gift?!?!) and then I will have her out of there within 15 minutes. In terms of the child comparison that is actually interesting. At home with the baby, he is "Mr. Rules" and is definitely the one who keeps control at home (Mommy is a pushover as soon as I get flashed a gummy smile by our little guy). But, I don't know why all of his good judgment and sense flies out the window when he sets foot in that barn  |
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11-03-2009, 10:06 AM
| #42 |
| Senior Member+  |
Does this BO have any examples of his so called training? Any references? Any young horses he can produce that have been SUCCESSFULLY trained and are now thriving in whatever discipline he set the foundation for? If not, big red flag for your hubby.
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11-03-2009, 11:58 AM
| #43 | |
| Senior Member+  | Quote:
I'm wondering if she's got some health issue that's causing this behavior? Horses in pain can get really P.O'd with everybody... it could be something really hard to notice since she looks to be in fairly good physical condition. Hormones, head injury, I wonder.... How long have you owned her for? Did you ever see her mother? (would it be possible to see her mother). I'm wondering if this is a learned behavior from the dam, and nobody nipped it in the bud when she was still small enough/young enough to clue in. If you miss the "training window" as weanlings and early yearlings, it's harder to reset the behavior, especially if they learned it from mom. How about play drive? If you throw a bucket or a plastic ball or a blanket or something in her stall, does she want to investigate and play with it a bit? Would she spook at it, ignore it? Does she seem "spooky" or "too quiet" in general? Is she always fidgety and insecure, or will she just chill in her stall? What does she do if she can't see any other horses or is left in the barn by herself? There's gotta be some key piece here. Just gotta dig a little deeper.  I would love to see more videos of her when she's outside, interacting over the fence with other horses, or turned out in someplace where she is not normally turned out (Ie, the riding ring or arena). When confronted with something "weird" (Go to the dollar store, buy the weirdest looking plastic gnome or something that you can find, and show her it over the stall.)Videos with good lighting (adjust the brightness level on the camera) would be best for me to get a good look at her and see how she reacts to certain things, places, and people.
__________________ Three Bars The Fifth Jags Fleeting Rocket Wish I'd Get Lucky Chipped In Stone Zip Code Bay B Suns Eternal Flame | |
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11-03-2009, 03:17 PM
| #45 |
| Full Member |
We actually had her tested for all sorts of neurological problems and other issues when we first got her in the beginning of September, since she was having problems stepping up into her stall and just in general she seemed really clumsy. She vetted clear across the board -- including blood work. We have called the vet out for another check up next Tuesday to see if he can come up with anything. But, I definitely agree that there is a piece of the puzzle missing. In the stable, the horse to her left is a Welsh pony gelding (maybe 12 hands) and mellow as all get out and the horse on her other side is a pretty feisty little Arab (maybe 14.2 hands). She is equally mean to both of them. And she used to try to bite my weanling (when he was still alive) when we had them out on walks together -- so size and gender do not really seem to make a difference. There have been a couple threads about her in the past and one thing that did come up was an issue with her dam. The stud owner (who is an absolutely wonderful woman!!! and owns a beautiful animal) said that the mare, who was not hers was one of the biggest witches she had ever dealt with in all of her years of breeding. Unfortunately, we cannot look at the dam to see what is going on there since she died this summer. She collapsed 5 days after giving birth to this filly's full sister. I have not tried to track down the owner of the full sister yet ... In terms of play drive, I would say that it is absolutely non-existent. I have never seen her go above a walk even when she is turned out to pasture -- and toys seem to hold no interest (although I think I will make a swing by the dollar store tonight!). In general, I would say she goes through periods of being if anything almost too quiet to everything and then will flip out over relatively small things. Measuring her for her blanket was an interesting adventure. My hunch is that she was never desensitized along the way AT ALL! I will try and take videos of her, unfortunately I did not have my camera with me when I went out to the barn to pick up her farrier bill from today (still waiting for the full tale from the farrier). But she immediately pinned her ears when I went up to get her and tried to bite me when I went to unhook her gate. So I decided to see the "trainer" in action. She did stop appropriately at least half the time when he asked for it. But her head was all sorts of up in the air and she had her ears pinned back. I would not have tolerated it, but I kept to my vow of not touching her ... Hopefully, there will be videos coming up tomorrow ... |
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11-03-2009, 04:25 PM
| #46 |
| Senior Member+ |
The "across the board" miserableness is what's sending up flags in my mind. Everything from dietary issues that may not have been recognised, to socialization issues... if the dam was a cow and not turned out with other horses, the filly may have never been properly socialized with other horses.... she may be missing a lot of key socialization points that will reflect on both horses and humans. It's not impossible to to teach her, but the bad attitude and physical aggression makes it tricky and hard. The current trainer's methods may NOT be appropriate for her, either. From the brief video I saw of him, he's not really *communicating* with her, so much as demanding. Of course Miss Princess would not appreciate that. From the socialization point, if she never learned how to "make friends" with another creature (ie, horse), then she will not understand the concept with creatures of other species (ie humans). In her eyes, it may be that you're blabbing at her, pushing her around, and not communicating clearly. (Kind of like how you might feel with an already volatile attitude, stuck in a foreign country when you don't know the language and just want to be left alone, but people keep babbling at you and trying to grab you. A horse who has properly socialized as a young horse will be able to make "connections" between body language cues and tones of voice in creatures of different species. They will see similarities and try to understand or respond back. (this is what happens when neither horse nor human can understand each other's languages... green + green = black and blue LOL)
__________________ Three Bars The Fifth Jags Fleeting Rocket Wish I'd Get Lucky Chipped In Stone Zip Code Bay B Suns Eternal Flame |
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11-03-2009, 04:38 PM
| #48 |
| Full Member |
That is so true -- in terms of tone of voice! She really does not seem to be perceptive to if people are angry with her, happy with her, indifferent. I wonder since she is so aggressive towards other horses, if it may work to try to get her to make friends with a smaller stable buddy like a goat. But, at the same time, I don't want the poor little one (whatever I chose) to get hurt! I had a longer comment that I was planning to make and I will. But, I need to run to the Dollar Store for the scary gnome before it closes for the night ... and any other cheap "training toys"! |
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11-03-2009, 06:06 PM
| #49 | |
| Senior Member+  | Quote:
Personally - I wouldn't go with a smaller animal she can just bully it around then - I'd put her in with a larger/older (not old but older than her) mare. Once they are relatively living easy in the same enclosure, I'd add a younger (2-3 year old) gelding or filly. The larger mare will act as a mother should - a leader, and if the filly get aggressive or herds the older one around, you would hope the filly gets a good bite in the neck, or kick threats, enough that she learns she can't push the mare around. Once she learns respect for her, she will be better able to cope with the younger one... same thing there - they should be able to play together without the filly getting to far into the space of the older horses, and you hope, and generally its does bring this behaviour over to her interactions with humans.
__________________  Pip + TurboLiving A healthy lifestyle only deprives you of fat and lethargy.  Always remember that using your hands BEFORE your driving aids is the same as picking up the telephone before it rings. Why would you pick up the phone? No one is there! | |
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11-03-2009, 07:16 PM
| #50 |
| Full Member |
So many different things I wanted to comment on and most of all I wanted to thank you all for your continued help and patience with the issue: (1) I agree that a small animal is not the answer. But, right now at the current barn, I don't think that any of the mare owners are going to be super keen on having her out with their horses. They have definitely seen plenty of her pushy attitude on the ground. And among the mares there are no good choices, since many of them are "flighty" OTTBs who have been Parelli'zed up the wazoo. There is potentially one gelding who I can think of, but ... At the previous owners, she was, I was later told, out with another yearling and supposedly the other yearling bossed her around (???) ... One of the options that we did have if my husband had not been STUBBORN and would have brought her out to the new barn was a separate pasture with a run-in for up to 6 horses. But, till this behavior is at least nipped in the bud, there is NO way that I would even think about turning her out with my yearling, who is probably 200 lbs lighter and very, very mellow. (2) In terms of the rush to train her, I really do not understand that. Other than that boys tend to be less patient than us girls. But the irony of the situation is that even if she is broken to ride, I don't think she will ever be rideable by my husband since he is 6'4" and probably 325 - 340 lbs. I tried to alert him to this size mismatch when we looked at her, but I guess I wasn't as assertive as I should have been -- partly because at that point I was still thinking oh, she will just move over to me and be my HUS horse. (3) I would need to look back at the stallion owner's previous posts (which were so helpful), but my understanding was that the mare was not a witch (or at least not an uber witch) till she had this filly by her side and then it was almost as if her personality "snapped." So, given that the filly was at her side at this time, the filly definitely saw a lot of naughtiness going down. My understanding too was that what was happening was not simply pushiness on the ground or a regression in manners, but that it was down right dangerous and intentionally malicious behavior. But, maybe I read too much into it. (4) I think that there is definitely a piece of the puzzle missing and I think I mentioned it somewhere earlier that there should have been alarm bells at the sellers. But, some of it I brushed off to the bad horse market that we were just lucky to get her at a reasonable price. And the seller mentioned to my husband that he had recently dropped the price. I was actually trolling through old ads and found her first ad in early to mid-August which listed her at $1500. By the time that we purchased her in very early September, her sales price had already dropped to $600 ... which seems like a pretty drastic drop down in one month???  The other thing that I was thinking about just now in the car was the possibility that she may be deaf. I know that that is probably stretching it and I think I have noticed her twitch her ears to the sound of the train on the nearby train tracks. But, it just seems strange that there is no reaction AT ALL to voice inflection ... HMMMMMMM .... Again, thank you all for your wonderful advice and I am going to try and tag along with my husband tomorrow and take some sneaky video! |
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