That’s an odd takeaway. Most of us aren’t on our farms 24/7. Most of us have jobs and lives. Most of us can’t mold their worlds. 
7 Likes
That’s why I said most. Not all. 
She. Was. Not. Freaked. Out. Going. Through. The. Strips.
No matter how many times you fabricate that she was. She’d gone through them multiple multiple times that day, alone. Her brain did what Shayney-brain does. Shorts out, can’t figure it out. So I brought it back to square 1 for her little brain, because I don’t want her to hurt herself.
She could not figure out how to do it ALONE. That’s the disconnect with this horse. How to independently problem solve.
4 Likes
I think like people , like dogs , and like horses… they can exist intellectually along a spectrum. I have a dog I’ve owned since she was 7 weeks old. She’s an American Bulldog. Rescued (?) from a litter of 12. She’s been consistently handled with patience and love since day 1 …. BUT she is dumb as a bag of hammers. And I’ve worked with her A lot. With a professional and alone. Her prey drive is off the charts. That’s really not the issue though. It’s her COMPLETE lack of self preservation that’s just WEIRD. AS in she seems to lack the ability to be concerned of her surroundings when she’s focused on something. Or stimulated. She’s 8 now. She’s not going to change. So I just manage her. But my God …. She’s different.
10 Likes
Until. She. Was. Freaked. Out. By. The. Strips.
This whole thread started because she was freaked out by the strips and her inability to navigate them
You can accept that there was something upsetting about the strips at that point, even if there wasn’t something upsetting about the strips before that point. Or you cannot.
There is no harm in believing her independent response, even if you don’t understand it. Horses are weird, and their perception is not our perception.
It sure sounds like you don’t enjoy managing her personality, so finding her a new place is smart for you both. She looks very marketable, and you’ve done a great job flushing out her resume.
4 Likes
Just send her to WV 
, she is a beautiful mare.
If you don’t like her, I’m sure plenty of folks that board in a busy place would enjoy such a lovely mare.
3 Likes
I’m confused. I thought the problem was that when alone she sees the strips as an impassible wall, not a scary object, and she is freaking out because of the enforced (in her mind) separation from her buddy. @endlessclimb, do I have that right?
15 Likes
I have one of these. I’ve had him his entire life, owned his dam. Very smart, but processes information in a way that’s somewhere out past left field. It’s just the way he is.
To me, it sounds like you’ve been incredibly patient with Shayney. There’s no blame to assign, it’s just a square peg, round hole situation.
Best of luck.
10 Likes
Exactly right. The Old Man left and she couldn’t remember how to get through.
3 Likes
My friend has a horse, who is great, until he isn’t. It’s a personality trait. One day we were riding some hills with a deep ditch going down to the next trail. He is 19 yrs old and has done this many many times. I was ponying my 3 yr old horse so we stopped to give me a chance to prepare to navigate this ditch.
When she asked him to go forward he looked at the ditch and panicked. You could see his mind go out the window. He decided going sideways onto the bank was the thing to do, but next to that bank was another ditch- basically he was straddling the bank and going downhill fast. He very nearly hit my friend into a tree on the way down.
I have ridden him many times and he is a nice horse, but when he is stressed it doesn’t take much for him to completely come unglued. I should know. I have a horse just like him.
When a horse becomes panicked or feels anxiety, they can’t reason their way out of it because it is an emotional state. “My buddy left me” means the horse gets a rush of adrenaline and anxiety and suddenly they panic so their ability to make decisions just goes out the door.
My 3 yr old horse is often like this. I said if she was a person she would want you to hold her hand all the time. Actually when I lead her she likes to be touching my hand with her nose… She wants that reassurance. She is like my friends horse as her spooks don’t come very often, but when they do they can be explosive. It’s such an instinctual reaction with her.
She actually did really well navigating that hill because I didn’t put any pressure on her. Slow and calm is good.
It’s very difficult if not impossible to reason your way out of an anxiety or fear because they are emotional states. The only solution I have is to keep exposing her to the things she is afraid of until it isn’t scary any longer. No matter how long that takes. But desensitization exercises are not an issue because she isn’t afraid of those types of things.
10 Likes
So what would be your change of approach regarding this horse and her touching the fence multiple times per day?
15 Likes
It’s the fence detail that really gets me - I’ve seen horses test fences or occasionally forget where they are in pursuit of yummy grass - but standing there getting zapped over and over isn’t usual. I don’t think you can “go back and really introduce it slowly so she isn’t scared” at that point!
Anyway. I would not trust this horse as a trail horse, no matter all the rest. Trail horses need to be pretty self-sufficient and keep their wits about them - they’re still horses but trail riding adds a lot of risk since you’re outside and off property and usually far from help. You can’t just get off and call it a day if you’re miles into the woods and the suddenly scary culvert is between you and the trailer! Not to mention if she does unseat her rider and bolt - is she headed into the wilderness or is she smart enough to run for the trailer?
I know OP knows all of this. And they have given silly mare a lot of time and training to be a good citizen - but I think this is just her. Someone else will be happier and better equipped to work with her silliness and around the things that won’t change - and that’s okay!
27 Likes
LOL I need to read this entire thread but I’m laughing already.
I boarded a horse like this once. It was so frustrating. And, apparently due to lack of leadership qualities in my other horses at the time, she was the boss mare.
She would lead them through the snow and find the only dead end in a 7 acre pasture and they would all stay there, Stuck. Can’t get anywhere from here. (Even though I would see my old mare rolling her eyes at the stupidity.) I’d lead them all back, and it would be a few seconds and she’d be like “Oh look! Tracks! I wonder where these go!” and off they were again.
I ultimately had to remove the dead end because it was so frustrating. Other horses never had that issue but she was dumb I guess. Interestingly - she seemed to be really easy to ride for my boarder. I wonder if stupid horses just do what their told and never try to evade so long as they have a pilot on board.
14 Likes
Right! I recall OP posting about this mare’s struggle with the electric fence at her previous board barn. Pretty unusual imo for a horse to take more than a week to learn for life to stay off the hot fence.
My homebred had a less than sensible moment yesterday evening. Mr LS was riding his mini dirt bike around. Made a loop around the back lawn adjacent to the paddock where the horses were grazing. No response from horses. Looped around the front drive and down the road, came back by the house looping through the yard then back down the road the other way and back. Still no response from horses. Rode mini bike down the lane next to the paddocks. No response from horses. Turned around at end of lane (still in clear sight of horses, no response from horses) and came back up the lane. Homebred looses his mind snorting and running and generally acting a fool. Pony stands there confused looking at me, the mini bike and his friend loosing his shit before dutifully taking off to show homebred how fast pony legs can go. For sure that last pass with the mini bike was the homebred’s 13th rabbit, but the point remains that personality type isn’t my top pick to take horse camping ya know.
Note we’ve had the mini bike for like a year and Mr LS rides it about once a week in all those some areas and he’s not doing anything silly like popping wheelies or jumping ramps. Literally just putzing around. It’s not even fast or even very loud.
7 Likes
Sea slugs and fruit flies can be trained to avoid a shock:
Saying this horse is dumber than a fruit fly and can’t learn to not to touch the fence doesn’t track. If she were truly that incapable of learning, she’d starve, not able to figure out where hay is, or forget where the water trough was. She clearly can learn.
So why does she touch the fence? And so purposefully?
She must be getting something from it.
I’m curious if it’s some sort of stereotypy. Equine stereotypys range from cribbing to weaving to stall walking to self mutilation. This might be a weird presentation of self mutilation, since she’s purposely hurting herself.
Here’s a paper on self mutilation:
It would be interesting to send some video of fence touching to that author, and see what she thinks.
8 Likes
So, in other words, you are trying to say that you do not really have an answer on how to stop the mare from touching the fence when on her own…
Am I reading that right?
19 Likes
I watched her touch the gate standoff just this morning. Blew up when she did it. She doesn’t appear to enjoy it.
4 Likes
I am proposing it’s not a learning thing. If it’s a stereotypy, stopping her from touching the fence is stopping a cribber from cribbing, or a weaver from weaving, or a stall walker from stall walking.
If she’s touching with her nose, a muzzle could work. But as far as stereotypys go, if that’s what this is, getting zapped isn’t harming her, so perhaps letting her do it provides some sort of comfort, in some sort of way.
Neither do typical self mutilators, often.
3 Likes
I’ve seen this happen with very wide (16’) gates between pastures. One little idiot will lose their friends (who have gone through the wide opening) and flip their lid because they just can’t figure out how to ‘operate’ a giant opening that leads them directly to their buddies.
Go out, lead them through the opening and all is good. Some remember for the next day. Others need to have their environments changed so they don’t get stuck after following their buddies through the opening and then losing them after the buddies go back through.
No fly strips involved.
Horses are weird and some are not that smart. It’s a thing and some of us get exactly what you’re talking about.
23 Likes
I haven’t read through all the responses yet, but just wanted to touch on this.
I had a little welsh mare come in for backing and riding away and I just couldn’t click with her at all despite having successfully started her full brother after others had failed (they were the epitome of hyper performance bred section D’s)
I had a window of about 2% of her focus at best to work with, either side of that she was either completely switched off, or manic. She’d go through fences like she didn’t even notice they were there, she’d not acknowledge if you were with her, then she’d switch on and work OK, but lose it again. She didn’t remember anything I tried to teach her and she had zero self awareness.
I advised the owners that it was dangerous to continue as she could never be relied on to look after herself never mind a rider.
She was also weirdly hyper-mobile in her neck and as an aside I asked if she’d ever had any damage to it.
Well it turns out she’d got stuck in a haynet as a foal (not sure how) but ended sort of strung up upside down from her neck.
Yeah that’ll do it!
6 Likes
