Not a big bird…but I was tickled when a boarder sent me this picture. I have a bird whispering fjord 
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So much this.
Re: leaving the herd
I have a mare who will wonder. Nothing nefarious, she just up and decides she wants to go take a walk by herself in the opposite direction. Collect her thoughts, I guess.
I had a TB gelding that was not very bright but quite athletic. He was retired so he had a lot of free time. He would randomly jump his pasture which was surrounded by a tall hedge and fencing. Not easy to do. Twice he jumped out and ran down the road to visit the neighbor’s horses.
It’s normally pretty quiet here but horses will horse.
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I’m not addressing those posters. Please go on to post these wonderful stories by all means. Everyone.
No one is stopping that productive conversation - not “even me”.
What we (I) learned from this thread is that some people (g) will pretend to be “trainers for the day” and diagnose all of the problems even thought they have no grasp of them. Right, the NH trainer calls the shots - so bizarre that you think that because - when do you think the last time I took a lesson or did a clinic with him was? Can you please tell us because you seem to think you know? I think some people are drinking their own brand of Kool-Aide here.
Nice snark, @SuzieQNutter
I’m sure you really aren’t sorry about being mean. That’s your intent. My common sense is deficient? What a freaking insult that yes, you meant to be as an insult. You are very much being mean and you know you are. 'fess up to that.
Yeah, it IS the fault of the inexperienced person, who had no experience blanketing horses, blanketing my horse and causing him to run into the electric fence. I pay for experienced handling, like most people who pay to board their horses do. I suspect no one wants inexperienced people dealing with their horses when they are paying hundreds per month. Do you disagree?
I guess you blame the horse when inexperienced people handle the horse. I don’t blame any horse when an inexperienced handler results in an issue. Horses react to the people doing “stuff” to them. I don’t blame the horse. So many of you do. I suspect few of the frequent flyers on this thread pay to board, and so few of you would be happy with inexperienced people suddenly handling your horses. Nobody who doesn’t board their horse and pay for care should comment here. They can’t respond to the original situation.
The subsequent situations - please feel free to comment on!!
We have very different ideas from people we pay to do things with our horses. I’m 100% OK with that. You can predict my outrage and find someone else to blame? Please, please try to post in a constructive, “adult” way.
None of the horses leave the property. You are not acknowledging they are mostly supervised. My horse has free grazed for many years due to his pasture’s late blooming grass. No, he’s not comfy on trail rides, he’s not going to leave the property like MOST horses would not leave the property besides anecdotal stories here. IF THEY DID, we observers would notice and stop them.
It’s so bizarre how much peoples’ ideas of that is happening on this thread isn’t actually happening. And people question my frustration?
The difference between us is that you seem to require somewhere to lay blame when a horse does something like touch a hot wire while being blanketed. I, on the other hand, see no need to lay blame anywhere, except maybe on whoever’s choice it is to feed and blanket a horse close to a strand of electric fence. That’s not smart. But that’s not the BO’s daughter’s fault, nor is it your horse’s fault. It’s the fault of the person who decided that was an acceptable set-up.
You have no evidence at all that the young woman somehow caused your horse to touch the hot wire. You were not there. You didn’t see what happened. Yet you have no doubt in your mind that it is all her fault and that the blame must lie with her. So much so that you emailed her parents while they were away dealing with a family situation and suggested that someone give their daughter lessons in blanketing horses.
You’d have been looking for a new barn immediately if I’d received such an email as your BO. I don’t care how evenly your horse grazes his pasture. Your reaction to a normal thing that just happens sometimes (no blame) was absolutely over-the-top and unjustified. You. Were. Not. Even. There. How dare you blame the young woman who, it seems, handled the situation just fine and got the horse blanketed despite the accidental zap from the fence.
It’s no one’s FAULT. Not everything has to be someone’s FAULT. Shit happens. Period. And life goes on.
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ok, I’m sorry but this is funny. I have watched too many 4 legged critters easily out-maneuver any human - even groups of humans - to think i would have a prayer of stopping any critter set on heading a different direction that I want them to especially w/out a fence. This includes fat old cows with the maneuverability 1/50th of that of a horse…
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My friend, with the unit economics of board, hundreds of dollars per month does not get you experienced handlers. I was a boarder in the past, have since bought my own place, ran it as a boarding stable and I’d be happy to go through costs with you to help you understand this. I say this with kindness and care - to get what you want, thousands a month (multiple) is more appropriate. Even then, no one is making bank boarding horses.
Beyond that, no matter how experienced people are, manure still happens. I’ve been working horses for 35 years and still I do things periodically that make me think “oh that was dumb”. There’s a complacency factor, a just plain old mistake factor, and then a “I didn’t think in a million years the horse would try THAT” factor. We all have errors in judgement based on fatigue, stress, or the sheer fact that we are human and have human frailties.
I don’t know what you do for a living, but imagine if every time you made a mistake of any sort you were blasted on social media. It wouldn’t feel very nice. That feeling of defensiveness you have right now is likely what that young girl and her family are feeling as well.
We are all human, and we all are doing our very best we can with what we have. It’s worth it to pause and take a deep breath, and see if there’s something valuable to learn here.
I say all of this with gentleness and kindness which is hard to convey over text. The internet has been way too salty as of late, I think we are all ready for spring!
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This reminds me of a couple of stories.
One, former barn that “free grazed” (more like the ponies routinely went through the fence and the barn owner just shrugged their shoulders about it rather than fix the fence) had two or three ponies out. I went to help the 6 year old to catch her loose lesson horse. The ponies were somewhat in a corner but went to scatter as we got close. I used my “you will die” voice and called the lesson ponies name. He immediately downshifted out of his canter transition and turned back into the corner to be caught while his buddy quickly ran past us. We were maybe 20 ft from them.
The other, same barn. The paddocks had a track all the way around them, so loose horses had an easy route to just gallop around in a circle. Once during a show they decided to take all of the pasture horses and put them in the various paddocks so they could use the pasture for a show. Instead of leading horses back to the pasture the BO decided to just have us positioned at various points along the “track” to “block” the horses paths……and then let 20+ horses out to run galloping around and hoping they went back out into the pasture…….yeah, great plan……
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This makes no sense.
If a horse wants to go backwards on the crossties, guess what? I can observe it all I want and TRY to stop it, but if a 1,000 pound animal wants to do something, I’m very unlikely to be able to actually intervene. (And if you’re thinking about standing in front of a horse to prevent it from going out a gate - well, I’ve got an anecdote about that, which ended with me almost dead. I won’t be doing that again, and I wasn’t even TRYING to stop the horse.)
One or two stories? Anecdotes. Dozens as have been posted here? Not anecdotes.
This seems to be the hill you’ve chosen to die on, however, so I will bow out now.
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Oh, for sure have seen random single cows in really odd places and know what a PITA single stray cattle in heavy underbrush create when trying to round them up.
To be kind here, sheep are not on top of my list of independent thinking creatures yet they can and do stray from the flock. Creating that whole shepard seeking a lost lamb tradition. Go figure, like I said upthread, no rational explanation for prey animal behavior.
Think this wreck can hit 1k posts?
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Assuming the OP stops in every few days to make more ridiculously nonsensical posts accusing EVERYONE ON THIS BOARD of not understanding how horses or boarding barns or training work (
), then absolutely.
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Yup.
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As much as you all want to hit 1000 posts…
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Why thank you. What an appropriate and thoughtful suggestion.
You were not there so you have no idea why your horse chose to hit the fence. What exactly did she do in her " inexperience" to spook your horse so badly?
If your horse is blanketed/ unblanketed every day, there isn’t really much you can do that will spook them during the blanketing process unless they are a nervous/ spooky individual but you say your horse isn’t that type.
What exactly did she do to cause it?
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How many horses is the girl blanketing every day?
How long before she becomes experienced?
If she is doing 20 horses a day, morning and night, that is 40 horses a day.
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Correlation does not equal causation.
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You spelt that wrong, K_V
It’s
ASSuming.
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