OMG - horse temper tantrum

[Sparrowette]

[QUOTE=thoroughbred21;8251731]
If you have checked out possible pain, and have a good vet team working with you, then I suggest my patented Boredom Training Technique.

Wherever the horse is acting up, you and he must spend enough time in that place to be mutually and terribly bored. You must walk around, back up, stand, lead, yawn, and generally take the idea of “escape!” away from the horse while keeping something going on, but not enough to be a tax on his attention. The horse is processing the environment, and has highly developed side vision and sense of smell. Whatever he is experiencing you stay out of it and be consistent, calm, steady, bored.

This can take hours. Bring water or coffee, and your phone. Stop him to check your Facebook etc. Key is not to let the horse leave the space until he is manifestly bored out of his mind and non-reactive.

I’ve done this at shows, on grounds, in the arenas in dark of night, etc. It worked for me.[/QUOTE]

This.^^

OP, I’m glad you are thinking of the boredom method. My first thought was: is there anywhere in the indoor where he could be just tied for a few hours and still be out of the way of others? Get him bored without pressure (except the standing) and when he’s good with that, then add a bit of work. Just a thought…

[Flash44]

OP, you sound like a very good rider, but you are humoring your horse a little bit too much. It sounds like he is a good guy at home, but sometimes when you take him off the farm, he decides he’s not going to play nice.

I’d do some ground work with this guy and really get his attention and respect. Also do some desensitizing with obstacles and really strange spooky objects and noises. Once you feel that he is handling things well, you need to get him off the farm and put him in some situations where he will be uncomfortable, but you can safely work with him. He needs to learn that no matter what is going on, he has to maintain his composure. It’s OK to be nervous or unhappy about something, but it’s not OK to pitch a fit.

If you go through a systematic training program to address this, he will learn to safely communicate to you that he is nervous or unhappy, and you will learn to work him through it in a humane and effective way that does not result in mayhem.

I do this because I don’t ever want to be on a horse that is pitching a fit. I’m getting old and don’t have the heart to simply ride it out. And it works for me.

[OverandOnward]

[QUOTE=Flash44;8253825]
OP, you sound like a very good rider, but you are humoring your horse a little bit too much. It sounds like he is a good guy at home, but sometimes when you take him off the farm, he decides he’s not going to play nice.
…[/QUOTE]

I think OP is acknowledging this with her comment about “brat behavior” - that’s shorthand for the explanation that she has safety concerns around other people, so terminates the session, and yes that’s a reward, so yes he does it again and it is natural for that path to escalate - and she knows this. She’s putting general safety first, and I agree with that, so good for you OP. :winkgrin:

I’m reading between your lines of course, OP, but everything you’ve posted indicates you are well aware of what is going on, and that’s why your strategy of removing as many safety issues as possible before confronting this. I think you are on the right path.

I’ve ridden horses that schooled and/or warm-up super outside, enter the indoor arena and fall apart. I don’t know exactly what it is, but I doubt they all had traumatic experiences in indoor rings. Their history just didn’t have that kind of treatment.

If you look at the individual stress points it doesn’t make sense because he handles those in other situations. But it isn’t one thing, it’s everything cumulatively that pushes him over the edge. We are too focused on individual triggers when it is the entire scope of the situation that is the problem. Or in basic folk terms: “the last straw”, “you’re working my last nerve”. :winkgrin:

Or in behaviorist language, “stacking”, “being overwhelmed” or “threshold”. The additive effect of all the inputs.

The training and expectation of the handler/rider are large on the list of stress points, because the horse is resisting natural reactions and has to make an effort to focus on the training/expectations. The more distractions, the harder it is to ‘behave himself’ (that’s not natural behavior), and the bigger that particular stress point grows in relation to everything else. Now let’s add an indoor arena he is unfamiliar with and … boom-meltdown.

Indoor arenas are a huge load of smells as well as different types of sound. Some horses are VERY sensitive to that. It’s as if they smell everyone and every creature that has been in that enclosed space for the last several years.

One horse I rode was fine in most indoor arenas, but would react if the arena had been used for cattle - that is, cutting, roping, penning, etc. He would be weirdest at whatever area the cattle had been held in pens. The arena that was most difficult had not had cattle for a couple of years, but I think the horse could still show you every spot where one pooped. :winkgrin:

[Calamber]

What struck me is that the horse colicked and was still taken to a clinic. Why would you do that? I think this horse has stress related problems which add up to where he can no longer behaving, not necessarily the indoor is the trigger as others have said but that is the limit for him and also where he can act up and be taken away, I am also not convinced kissing spine surgery solves the problem. Has he ever been treated for ulcers after surgery, confinement period?

[Princess_Sparkles]

Calamber, I think the OP took the horse to THE clinic when he colicked (not ‘a clinic’, like the OP rode him, but to the vet). Or at least that’s how I understood it.

[Calamber]

Yes, that is probably it. But still, the horse is dramatic? Pain is pain. This horses has had enough of it clearly. I still don’t believe kissing spine surgery is going to eliminate all pain and their is still the memory of pain. He is not having a “temper tantrum”, he is having pain or the remembrance of pain problems. Severing ligaments to allow the spine to open up so that it will no longer touch can also allow it to “open up” to other options, like weakening for instance.

[Flash44]

[QUOTE=OverandOnward;8253878]
I think OP is acknowledging this with her comment about “brat behavior” - that’s shorthand for the explanation that she has safety concerns around other people, so terminates the session, and yes that’s a reward, so yes he does it again and it is natural for that path to escalate - and she knows this. She’s putting general safety first, and I agree with that, so good for you OP. :winkgrin:

I’m reading between your lines of course, OP, but everything you’ve posted indicates you are well aware of what is going on, and that’s why your strategy of removing as many safety issues as possible before confronting this. I think you are on the right path.

I’ve ridden horses that schooled and/or warm-up super outside, enter the indoor arena and fall apart. I don’t know exactly what it is, but I doubt they all had traumatic experiences in indoor rings. Their history just didn’t have that kind of treatment.

If you look at the individual stress points it doesn’t make sense because he handles those in other situations. But it isn’t one thing, it’s everything cumulatively that pushes him over the edge. We are too focused on individual triggers when it is the entire scope of the situation that is the problem. Or in basic folk terms: “the last straw”, “you’re working my last nerve”. :winkgrin:

Or in behaviorist language, “stacking”, “being overwhelmed” or “threshold”. The additive effect of all the inputs.

The training and expectation of the handler/rider are large on the list of stress points, because the horse is resisting natural reactions and has to make an effort to focus on the training/expectations. The more distractions, the harder it is to ‘behave himself’ (that’s not natural behavior), and the bigger that particular stress point grows in relation to everything else. Now let’s add an indoor arena he is unfamiliar with and … boom-meltdown.

Indoor arenas are a huge load of smells as well as different types of sound. Some horses are VERY sensitive to that. It’s as if they smell everyone and every creature that has been in that enclosed space for the last several years.

One horse I rode was fine in most indoor arenas, but would react if the arena had been used for cattle - that is, cutting, roping, penning, etc. He would be weirdest at whatever area the cattle had been held in pens. The arena that was most difficult had not had cattle for a couple of years, but I think the horse could still show you every spot where one pooped. :winkgrin:[/QUOTE]

So how are you solving the problem of the horse not being comfortable in the indoor scenario? Sometimes, the horses that are generally cooperative are the hardest ones to “teach” because they usually just go along with what you are asking. It’s when they make mistakes that they learn. It’s up to the trainer to figure this out and then present the horse with an situation in which he is not comfortable to get rid of the unwanted behavior.

When I reschooled OTTBs at a busy show barn, I’d stand in the center of ring after my ride for upwards of 30 minutes while everyone else rode around me. The horse was tired and ready to stand still, so we did, while all the commotion continued. by the time the horse got ready to hit a schooling show, the commotion did not bother it a bit.

We did this with my son’s young WP mare. He was doing trail at one of her first schooling shows, and backing through an obstacle, and a horse got loose and ran into the ring and galloped around and around. My son wasn’t sure what to do, so he finished the obstacle and halted. The judge had hopped out of her chair and was ready to grab my son’s horse because she was SURE the mare was going to blow up, but the mare just stood there and watched the loose horse gallop around.

I had no way of know that was ever going to happen, but we prepped for mayhem.

The OP has identified a specific situation in which the horse is bad, so IMHO, she should gradually try to replicate that situation, but in a manner where the horse is unlikely to have a big ugly reaction. OP sounds competent and can probably come up with a plan to address this.

[Frosty_M]

I am surprised that nobody has noted that this horse " Walked perfectly all the way to the indoor warm up ring and then threw the same exact temper tantrum (rearing, kicking, bucking, striking) on the lead that he does when he is on stall rest and hand walking and doesn’t want to go back in the barn." Obviously this behavior has been going on for months, possibly years without being controlled by OP, despite her best efforts and considerable horse smarts. “Rearing, kicking, bucking, striking…” are extremely dangerous behaviors. OP could be seriously hurt or killed in the blink of an eye by this horse. I suggest she find a trainer experienced in curing this behavior or put him down. I see her original post as a cry for help because nothing has worked to calm this horse and he is getting worse. For your own sake, OP, please recognize that for whatever reason (“treating him like a cat”), this horse needs professional help.