Mare Incessantly Pawing at Stall Door

[LucilleBluth]

My big, spoiled warmblood mare has a very annoying habit of pawing at her stall door for attention. Since it’s summer, she gets turned out at night. She did it when she was turned out during the day too. She’s in a regular program and gets plenty of exercise. She’s well-behaved with the occasional mare attitude. It seems to be completely attention related. Any suggestions on curbing this behavior?

We gave her a jolly ball - she wasn’t interested.

If you yell at her, she looks at you all cute and innocent because you’re give her attention.

If you ignore her, she just. keeps. pawing.

Help!

[Foxglove]

Hang a tether ball (or your Jolly Ball) (using break away) right above where she’s pawing so that her pawing makes the ball move --or wet one side of peppermint and press against Jolly Ball so that horse has to lick the Jolly Ball to get at the peppermint (it will move so horse is occupied). Look on Pintrest for all kinds of things to hang in stalls on strings to occupy horses – blocks of ice with carrots in them, strings of apples, etc. Another idea is to wet down your Jolly ball and dust it with salt or sugar --again, she’ll have to lick it to get at the treat and it will move away from her.

Foxglove

[shezabrazenmare]

Put a rubber mat on the stall door.
Worked for my TB mare who liked to hear the sound of her hind hooves kicking the stall wall. Once we hung a rubber mat, it was too quiet for her to bother to kick it. Also since your horse may be pawing the stall floor also, a mat right at the door might stop it. Worked for a paso gelding at one barn I boarded at.

[buck22]

The real Buck is an attention monger. When he was stabled way back when, he would paw incessantly no matter where he was. If pawing didn’t get your attention fast enough, he’d up the ante and start tapping things with his front feet.

Even now, though he lives out 24/7, if he thinks I’m moving too slowly or not paying enough attention to him, he’ll find something to bang a foot on to voice his discontent.

As a very determined pawer, treats and toys only worked for a bit. He knows the real goodies are with the humans! And scritches!

The only solution I ever found was simply walking away and completely ignoring him. Even now, if he starts to paw or bang, I just up and walk away and go out of his view for a while. He’s looking for attention, so any attention I give him, positive or negative, is a reward. By walking away I am making it 1000% clear that this behavior won’t be rewarded.

Any pawing these days is infrequent and short lived.

[MissAriel]

Adding mats to the wall also helped a horse prone to kicking the wall where I board.

[betsyk]

There is an epidemic of this where I board.

Horse 1 did it when she was feeling territorial about the crossties in front of her stall - she’d kick the door or run her teeth across the bars to show us how much she hated someone in her airspace. We did two things to “end” that behavior – one was threatening her with a dressage whip to get her to back off and break up the behavior, and then rewarding good behavior. If she nickered nicely, we’d throw some hay to her which distracted her from snarling at the boys in the aisle. Win-win. As time passed, she cared less and I haven’t heard her do it in years.

Horse 2 (and 3 and 4) do it for attention when people are around because they want food; all are on limited rations, hay nets at fixed intervals, and can’t just have hay whenever they want. No single approach has really worked very well, other than being 100% consistent about ignoring them and never, ever giving them food. They don’t bang when I’m there, but they know exactly who’s a pushover (including their owner). The dressage whip/curse like a sailor approach does absolutely nothing for these guys. I’m with Buck - don’t give them the thing they want and hope they don’t substitute another undesirable behavior that you can’t ignore!

[HealingHeart]

Does she have enough hay in front of her? Bag perhaps to help pass the time.

[Ryle]

First, understand that this is a reaction to a stressful situation for your mare. Stopping this unwanted behavior without resolving the stressor can lead to her picking up an even worse habit.

As an animal designed to be in company and eating/walking for a large portion of the day, stalling and meal feeding is unnatural. Because the activity seems attention based, her issue is likely a lack of social time. Try to increase her turnout or ensure that she has a neighbor that she can socialize with.

[LucilleBluth]

[QUOTE=buck22;8768445]
The real Buck is an attention monger. When he was stabled way back when, he would paw incessantly no matter where he was. If pawing didn’t get your attention fast enough, he’d up the ante and start tapping things with his front feet.

Even now, though he lives out 24/7, if he thinks I’m moving too slowly or not paying enough attention to him, he’ll find something to bang a foot on to voice his discontent.

As a very determined pawer, treats and toys only worked for a bit. He knows the real goodies are with the humans! And scritches!

The only solution I ever found was simply walking away and completely ignoring him. Even now, if he starts to paw or bang, I just up and walk away and go out of his view for a while. He’s looking for attention, so any attention I give him, positive or negative, is a reward. By walking away I am making it 1000% clear that this behavior won’t be rewarded.

Any pawing these days is infrequent and short lived.[/QUOTE]

Yep! Sounds very much like my mare. She’s basically like “Mom. Mom. Momma. Mom. Mom. Mommy. MOM. MOMMA. MOM. MOM!” until I’m like “What?!” And she’s like “Hi.” Therefore any attention is good attention in her eyes.

I think I’ll be installing a mat on her door and walking out of eye sight when she’s pawing at the door. Hopefully that’ll curb the behavior.

As for the comment about her socialization - she’s out with her BFF from 6pm til 6/7am, and can see all the other horses in the barn and out of her stall 360 degrees when she’s in. She’s SUCH a mare about other horses - she has two geldings (the one she goes out with and the one stalled right next to her) who sometimes she loves, and sometimes she hates with the fire of 1000 suns.

[whitney159]

I’ve got a two year old who does this. She is out 24/7, except for 10 minutes in which she’s fed in a stall. I have one stall area she can walk into from turnout, and if I am in the barn, she will come in, stick her head out the stall door opening and paw at the door to bang it to get attention. If I fuss, just like yours, she gets that sweet innocent look. Like Buck the only thing that works is walking away. She will follow me outside and come to the fence and put a foot on that to get attention, if I am in the pasture with the horses and she isn’t the center of attention, she tries to paw to get my attention again (this gets negative reinforcement immediately-it’s all good and well to say that she’ll accept negative attention as well as the good, but getting scraped up by her big foot isn’t amusing at all, she’s getting much better about it in the pasture but she does forget herself sometimes).
Due to the fact that she is two, and it’s 100 degrees outside with a heat advisory, she has no real work schedule right now. Hopefully when she becomes a solid working barn citizen she’ll feel less of a need to have my complete attention at all times. As far as socialization, she’s out with three other horses, including her mom, and a gelding that dotes on her.