BOs - Things you never thought you had to tell your boarders NOT to do......

[sid]

[QUOTE=chai;7919103]
That’s true. Lady Eboshi, but sometimes there are unbelievable things that even in your wildest dreams, a BO can’t factor into a contract.

I let my neighbor board his brand new mare and 4 month old foal. They arrived from a cross country trek and were settling in nicely. The ower, who had talked up a big story about how experienced he was turned out to be a nice guy but totally clueless.

A Week into their boarding arrangement, I came home from the grocery store to find the mare and the foal tied to the fence in my riding ring - no sign of their owner.

I flew into the ring, untied them and called him in a fury. He was very apologetic, and said he had just run home to get a brush he forgot.

Unbelievable. I had already set some guidelines for him, but they got much more specific that day.[/QUOTE]

Yes, it’s hard to write the specifics of “good horsemanship” and good manners into a contract;).

[Sparrowette]

[QUOTE=AmarachAcres;7917237]
The worst one… please don’t take your drunk friend who has never ridden trail riding on your wife’s horse, at dusk. He rode her off a cliff. The friend lived, the horse didn’t. Everyone tried to stop them and called his wife who showed up as fast as she could but not fast enough.[/QUOTE]

I don’t think anyone can top that. Did the wife divorce him? I’d sure think about it, at least, if I were her.

I’m not a BO, just a boarder, but I’ll add:

Do not ride your male horse right into my tied up mare’s rear end. She isn’t interested, as the sequels and kicking might have told you.

[Megaladon]

Do not put wet laundry on other people’s tack.

Do not tear a hole in the screen that prevents manure, shavings, etc. from going down the drain in the wash rack.

Do not leave a fully tacked horse who’s bridle you’ve tied by the reins to the saddle horn in the stall while you go have lunch because you are “training” him to bend.

[BeaSting]

I never thought that my BO should actually have to tell you not to come out to hack your horse when we are in the middle of a hurricane. We are furiously working in a driving rain to sandbag the arena door to divert water away from the stalls, there’s a furious wind (including a tornado ripping down the road in front of the barn) and we are shaking our heads in disbelief while you are obliviously riding your horse. Yeah. BO thought most people had enough sense not to come to the barn during a hurricane.

[dotneko]

Giving your horse a treat or attention when he bangs the front of the stall is reinforcing bad behavior and DOES NOT endear yourself to those of us who have to live with him the other 23 hours a day. Good job, though, it only took you a week to teach him that.
Ditto counting by pawing.
And if you teach him any other tricks like bowing, please warn me before I think he is going to drop in the cross ties while I am changing his blanket.
Really, don’t just treat him like a big dog.
Also, letting go of the lead shank on your spoiled rotten pony the second he tries to pull away from you because you are afraid of him hurting you does us or him no favors. When said rotten pony bolts over me as I try to correct your poor leading habits at least have the decency to ask me if I am OK before soothing pookums.

[It_s_an_Onion]

[QUOTE=McGurk;7907522]
Please don’t hard tie your horse to the stall fronts when there isn’t a set of cross ties available.

Please don’t act surprised when I ask you to pay for the damage when horse breaks the tie.

Please don’t ignore that set of cross ties I hung in your stall for exactly this reason and hard tie your horse in the aisle again.[/QUOTE]

This happened a few times at County Fair!

The Youth Barn is basically this roughly 40 stall barn (not really a barn, just stalls under a roof) with a huge middle aisle, with no cross ties so basically you had to either tack and clean your horse in a stall, have someone hold the horse, or tie your horse to the front of the stall.

Now I’m a green rider, and I was doing some last minute show-sheen and bug spraying before I went out to my next class, and I tied my horse to the stall door. I accidentally sprayed some bug spray by his ears trying to get his neck, and he actually snapped my tie down that he had been tied with!

Then an “experienced” family a few hours later tried to clip their horse’s nose and bridle path with him tied to the stall door. With non-horsey people traveling through the barn no less! The minute they touches his nose with the clippers the horse freaked out, and tore the stall door off it’s hinges and dragged it towards the other end of the barn.

However the stall doors aren’t very nice and typically horses escape from them because they are super easy to open so, maybe if we break enough we’ll get new ones?

[It_s_an_Onion]

To the non-horsey people at County Fair!:

Please do not come into empty stalls that are closed for a reason and try to be “cool” in front of your friend by flooding the stalls. Yes we do pay for hay, and shavings that you just rendered unusable.

However thank you, because than we had local police patrolling the horse area for the rest of the Fair, so no one had to worry about tack stealers!

[rascalpony]

Urgh. I don’t board but for the boarders at the farm I used to be a working student at, there was this one awful woman who harassed her daughters into taking lessons so that she could live vicariously through them. And dammit, they were going to be eventing stars! I’m still extremely bitter about this entire barn, so sorry

Don’t assume you know more about horses, riding, and training. than anyone else here. You’re a forty-five year old mother of two who hasn’t ridden in twenty years.

Don’t talk about other riders at the farm behind their back, discussing what awful riders they are, and what training mistakes they’re making. Are you a trainer? You clearly think so.

DON’T offer me your training advice, especially while you sit on the sidelines. NO, you know nothing about my horse or me. I am definitely not going to listen if you tell me to saw on my horse’s mouth (“that’s how they learn to submit to contact”!). Unfortunately, then-trainer agreed with this method, which is how I got to the next issue.

Don’t tell me that if I train with someone else I’ll never get anywhere, because 'nobody else has [former trainer]‘s experience and skill, and nobody knows as much as she does’. My current coach, a USDF gold medalist from the same town, would beg to differ.

Stop insulting my horse because you think she’s not as good as yours. She’s awesome! And tbh, she did far more than any of your horses ever did.

Stop insulting my tack. I don’t ride in a Butet, nor do I have a Charles Owen helmet, Rambo saddle pad, or an expensive eventing vest. There was a small club at this barn that bought all this stuff, and they were convinced that it put them on the ‘highest level’ as eventers (they were riding Novice). Anybody who didn’t have it was by default not as good a rider as they were.

And to non-horsey people:

DON’T let your small child run up to a horse’s hind-legs, by itself, without asking permission! :mad: People don’t want their kids approaching a strange dog, but a massive draft horse? Different story. Horse (very quiet, gentle Belgian) gets scared by small thing squeaking around its hind legs. It spooks and kicks out. Little girl is fine, but parents are furious, and try to sue. Luckily judge sees how stupid this is and throws case out, asking parents why they were dumb enough to let child run to a strange animal.

[Lady_Eboshi]

[QUOTE=BeaSting;7920394]
I never thought that my BO should actually have to tell you not to come out to hack your horse when we are in the middle of a hurricane. We are furiously working in a driving rain to sandbag the arena door to divert water away from the stalls, there’s a furious wind (including a tornado ripping down the road in front of the barn) and we are shaking our heads in disbelief while you are obliviously riding your horse. Yeah. BO thought most people had enough sense not to come to the barn during a hurricane.[/QUOTE]

Oh, I’ve had 'em come during blizzards and leave their cars smack in the middle of the road since we weren’t plowed out yet. For this one interesting pair, I really DID have to give them a formal letter explaining what I consider “bad” weather to be! :rolleyes:

I attribute a lot of the Bad Horsemanship problem to the fact that vanishingly small numbers of people grew up as working students or “barn rats” like many of today’s BO’s did. You have noobs who know NOTHING at forty, thinking a horse is somewhere between a big dog and a Kewpie doll. Tearing them a new one will only get you a blank stare, so I see it as an educational opportunity. I’ve actually had to teach a VET why you don’t tie to rails, but only to posts. :eek:

It’s a WHOLE NEW WORLD out there today! Just don’t EVER assume no matter WHAT they tell you; they THINK they know, but they DON’T know!

[CarrieK]

@MistyBlue;7905409

*Please stop running over the chickens.

:: shifty eyes ::

[CarrieK]

@Jingo-ace;7907384

There are several of these “please don’t do XXX” rules that are unbelievable,

INORITE!! Why can’t folks strip or pole-dance or otherwise porn–

:: re-reads ::

Oh. Wait. Nevermind.

[CarrieK]

[QUOTE=Mara;7910245]
$30/box? Organic or not, they’d better vibrate for that price![/QUOTE]

:: wipes brow :: Phew! At least I’m not the only one who XXX ifyouknowwhatImean

[Synthesis]

Quote Originally Posted by MistyBlue View Post
*Please stop running over the chickens.

[QUOTE=CarrieK;7921322]
:: shifty eyes :: [/QUOTE]

Having been chased partway around a training track by a rooster, as a child, I might consider that the chickens had it comin’ (leave the chicken, take the cannoli)

[CarrieK]

Somebody might have, as a child and teen, thrown the garden’s rotten tomatoes at the chickens instead of to the chickens because someone might know down deep in the depths of her soul that all chickens want to kill people because someone can tell because you know how chickens look at you with one eye and their heads all jerky and bobbin and weavin like they are just planning on taking you out.

Anyway, that’s what someone might think.

[RJC]

Not a BO, but have spent a lot of time helping with chores and “training people” to behave around horses at various facilities.

If you literally do not know how to scoop poop because you grew up in a full service barn, please ask for a captioned demonstration. Do NOT use the back of the shovel to push it 30 feet down the aisle until just over the threshold to the outside then leave it there.

If you cannot extract your horse from her pasture without also getting mine, please ask for help or at least use a leadrope. Don’t just let her wander the quarter mile back to the barn on her own.

Please do not remove your rough board horse from his huge grass pasture to set him loose in the arena to graze the fence line while I am jumping a course (or ever). I will yell at you in front of the friends you brought along, who are also in the arena.

Please do not slam the barn door in my face when my horse and I are 15 feet from walking through it. Yes, I know this means your blanketed “show horse” may be exposed to the 50 degree draft. No, I don’t think the hair this causes him to grow will make you lose nationals in 10 months.

You are not allowed to “schedule” the arena for your personal use only, simply because you don’t like riding with other people. Particularly not the 2 hours after work hours when most of the boarders come to ride.

This one is actually for a barn worker where I once boarded, but along the same lines-

If you allow my horse to walk from her paddock, through the yard, and into her stall by herself, and she chooses to explore the extremely maze-like and cramped tack room instead of her stall, please do not run into the tack room yelling at her and waving your arms. She will destroy everything around her feet and cut her legs to ribbons in her haste to escape.

bah.

[AppendixQHLover]

[QUOTE=rascalpony;7921080]

And to non-horsey people:

DON’T let your small child run up to a horse’s hind-legs, by itself, without asking permission! :mad: People don’t want their kids approaching a strange dog, but a massive draft horse? Different story. Horse (very quiet, gentle Belgian) gets scared by small thing squeaking around its hind legs. It spooks and kicks out. Little girl is fine, but parents are furious, and try to sue. Luckily judge sees how stupid this is and throws case out, asking parents why they were dumb enough to let child run to a strange animal.[/QUOTE]

The farm where I board does public trail rides. 98% of the horses are fine with people petting them in the stalls. Mine does his best flirting face to get attention and smiles. There is one horse that has a sign saying “CAUTION HORSE BITES” in front of the stall and we tell people. Yet they still try to pet him and he tries to bite them.

[sid]

[QUOTE=CarrieK;7921490]
Somebody might have, as a child and teen, thrown the garden’s rotten tomatoes at the chickens instead of to the chickens because someone might know down deep in the depths of her soul that all chickens want to kill people because someone can tell because you know how chickens look at you with one eye and their heads all jerky and bobbin and weavin like they are just planning on taking you out.

Haaaa…:lol::lol::lol:. (Can you tell I miss the old COTH chicken threads – rib-splitting funny).

[AmarachAcres]

Honestly have no idea. The husband’s horse was moved as I heard rumor she couldn’t stand to come to our stable anymore. It was a military barn but there were other places for them to go.

What happened after that I have no idea. As far as I know that poor horse’s bones are still at the bottom. It was beyond tragic.

[QUOTE=Sparrowette;7919694]
I don’t think anyone can top that. Did the wife divorce him? I’d sure think about it, at least, if I were her.

I’m not a BO, just a boarder, but I’ll add:

Do not ride your male horse right into my tied up mare’s rear end. She isn’t interested, as the sequels and kicking might have told you.[/QUOTE]

[Sueby]

My son says “take the warning labels off things and let nature take its course”. I’m beginning to find merit in that idea, especially at the barn. There are some incredibly stunned people around bahahaha!

Like the brother and dad that smoke up on lesson day. The lesson child is well over 25, but seems unable to ride or attend shows without a huge entourage of her family in attendance. Or the lady that has to rehash her entire lesson with EVERYONE while her poor, tired horse waits fully tacked (minus the bridle) on cross ties. Or the woman who seems completely unable to sweep a surface or put anything away after wreaking havoc on the barn…but never seems to ride her horse. Or the person who has 54,000 blankets while we have a rule restricting us to 2 blankets per peg. But we don’t get 2 blankets because she has two blankets on EVERY peg.

Those are my vets haha! I’m sure others would have lots to vent about me too tho…

[JBD]

[QUOTE=CarrieK;7921490]
Somebody might have, as a child and teen, thrown the garden’s rotten tomatoes at the chickens instead of to the chickens because someone might know down deep in the depths of her soul that all chickens want to kill people because someone can tell because you know how chickens look at you with one eye and their heads all jerky and bobbin and weavin like they are just planning on taking you out.

Anyway, that’s what someone might think.[/QUOTE]

True dat