I have owned my gelding for 7 years now and we have had an ongoing problem with his ears.
He was abused in his past, and I also know they used to ear twitch him.
His problems are really on and off, he’ll be good for months and then suddenly he’ll freak out whenever people touch his ears. The problem is mainly when haltering and bridling. He tosses his head up as soon as you get near his ears and shakes it for a second and then he puts it back down and acts fine.
I have had vets look at him and the only thing one vet said is that maybe his head is sensitive and the bridle rubs him. He does it in any halter or bridle, with or without a bit. His teeth were done a couple months ago and looked good, he looks good weight wise, and has no soundness issues.
he has been great about his halter for a while now, (but still gives me trouble about the bridle) and then last week he started up again with the halter. Other people that work at the barn have brought it up asking if something is hurting him. I haven’t seen him act off in any other way. No head shaking/itching, no jaw clenching, nothing visible in his ear as far as mites.
could this just be a behavioral thing that comes and goes? It’s just so odd to me how he can be perfectly fine and then suddenly flip a switch. Is there something else I should have a vet look for?
What systematic ground work have you done to address his head shy tendencies?
Any chance of aural plaque in his ears? My companion gelding has it badly in both ears and you’re asking for a broken nose if you touch his ears unexpectedly. It’s painful and unfortunately very little that can be done.
If past handlers ‘regularly’ ear-twitched him, I’d suspect that there is some permanent damage, somewhere. Since it comes and goes, maybe consider what conditions tend to be in place when it’s bad. Or maybe some movement he makes brings it back?
I think of that because an animal can become increasingly resistant to an abusive practice, and the handler responds by becoming more harsh - it becomes a cycle of escalation. Don’t know if that happened to OP’s horse, but it could go on the list of possibilities.
Another possibility would be the possibility of a pest in his ears, even a fungus or something like that. Something that is periodically present, but not always at a level that he reacts. Anything from ticks to some type of ear mite. Usually we can see those, or the vet can see them … but only at times when they are there, of course. And if it’s possible to get a good look at a tetchy horse. And it usually requires intervention to remove them.
And of course, just behavior. If the horse had this behavior for a long period in the past, likely he will never be completely past it. It is just engraved too deeply. My late horse who was a mostly-reformed pullback would rarely have a pullback episode in the last 6 to 7 years of his life. It might be 2 or 3 years since the last one, but the possibility was always there. In his case it was more likely to happen when he felt pressured or stressed, and/or in a new place. (The Blocker tie was a major breakthrough. Instead of pulling back on a daily basis, he worked on untying himself on a daily basis. I could be sure that would be a long process without him feeling a hard tie.)
I have had vets look at him and the only thing one vet said is that maybe his head is sensitive and the bridle rubs him.
I am not sure what that means as it is vaguely worded. It doesn’t sound like much of an examination. “Maybe the bridle rubs him” is a nothing statement from a vet, sorry but that isn’t a vet who is trying.
Was the horse showing the behavior when a vet “looked” at him, because that would be when we know the problem is present? It seems he would have to have been sedated to be able to look and a far more thorough examination could be made. What exactly did the vet look at - how far down the ear channel? Swabs? Ear structures? Did the vet examine the skin around the ears? And so on.
Do you know for certain he was abused? Or speculating?
Another vote for Aural Plaques. Bugs exasperate the issue, so if you are in N. America, that is likely why you’re noticing an on again, off again response.
https://www.merckvetmanual.com/ear-disorders/diseases-of-the-pinna/equine-aural-plaques
Also, its hard to know what’s happening when you are not at the barn. When many different people handle the horse theres many different failure points in horse behavior that only responds to consistent, correct handling.
IME, it doesn’t take actual abuse to create head shyness, its an easy hook to hang poor ground manners on, But it takes 100%. consistent, correct ground handling by every person touching the horse to correct it.
I see two problems here, One is OP not consistently working on correcting it. Sometimes he’s good for while then reverts. Should think if it was plaques, it would always bother him, typically those are visible. Even with plaques, there are work arounds to help the horse accept halter and bridle without fear of having the ears hurt that are used every tine the horse is handled by anybody and everybody touching it.
The second is the boarding barn environment. You see little of thus type behavior in barns with full time, adult, professional staff. They know how to work with it and everybody us on the same page. Even if the owner is not consistent, the staff handling the horse multiple times daily is.
All it takes is one kid or less experienced handler, like another boarder, trying to catch or bring him in moving the hand with the halter too quickly in the blind spot in front of his face, Or poking him trying to reach up and over with the crown piece. Or getting frustrated and raising a frustrated or scared voice at him. All the groundwork, the hours you have worked on it recently and poof, you are back to square one and that person invariable shares how ‘bad” your horse is.
Couple things that have helped my my horses that came head or ear shy are a halter that unsnaps at the throatlatch so it goes over the ears easier and doesn’t squash them and not swinging closed reins over their heads, unbuckle, untie or unsnap. On and off, don’t forget and hop off throwing the reins over their head. When bridling, you can use a skimpier type headstall and unbuckle it on and iff, PITA but works to remove fear of sliding something over the ears.
Might consider having a taller person bridle for you if you cant easily reach over the ears…or a step stool but be real careful. Don’t just rip the headstall off over his head either,
These things do not replace ground training and should not be considered permanent. Its no wonder they get ear shy. They get stuff that sometimes rattles waved in their faces, hands coming at their faces, poked, pulled on and suffer their ears squashed back putting it on and pulled down taking it off and get verbal reprimands or yelled at if they object. if you doubt this, just watch others in your barn. Miracle some people can get anything on them. Some horses don’t care, some have become immune to it and some are too tired or don’t feel well enough to care. Often you don’t see it when buying but after the horse gets more comfortable, rests up, healthier or the drugs wear off, they suddenly display the behavior.
Any way, best part of NH is thinking what the horse thinks, seeing what they see as a prey animal. and respecting that in your thoughtful handling.
Think about that and how you approach the problem every time and you can build trust and acceptance, But a single episode of thoughtless handling by one person in a hurry will erase your efforts. Besides thinking, find out who else handles your horse and be sure its not some random boarder in a hurry and maybe scared of even minor misbehavior.and yell at him or even slap him. Happens ALL the time in too many boarding barns. Might need to request staff only handling or even only selective, named staff to handle him. BTDT and it can be the solution to correcting ground manners issues.
Look online for working with head shy horses or introducing the bridle to colts. Its really not hard, just boring and repetitive but thats the way to fix it.
Any chance of static electricity? My mare just comes unglued if you accidentally shock her. Unfortunately, it is dry here and static can be an issue for about 3/4 of the year :sigh:. Last Saturday I went to halter her and as I was getting the halter over her ears, I shocked her. She flew backwards, snorting and as of yesterday( Thursday), we were still dealing with the aftermath of that one little shock. She was getting better but still fearful of me touching around her ears.
Some horses are are really sensitive to stray electricity. Where you say the problem is intermittent??
Susan
My OTTB mare (no known history of abuse) has always been funny about her ears. There was one specific event, at one boarding barn, where she randomly started freaking out when anyone would try to halter her or when I’d try to bridle her. I had the vet out, he cleaned her ears and had to give her THREE tranq doses to do so, didn’t find anything in them or wrong with them. Desensitizing work didn’t do anything, the longer you tried the more forcefully she pulled away (and reared). We circumvented it by flipping the crown piece over her neck to put the halter on (not pull over her ears) and I rode her in a hackamore for a while (not tight to pull over the ears like a bridle with a bit is). When I felt she was ready to try a regular bridle with bit again, I put an oversized browband on it to give her plenty of room and I put it on with my bit two holes lowered, then put the bit up to the right spot after it was on. Eventually she got over it. I found out weeks later that the BO’s non-horsey son brought the horses in for dinner the night before she started freaking out and there was an issue. He realized he’d put the wrong horse in my horse’s stall, so since he was walking my mare in, he cross tied her in the wash rack - backwards. Butt in the aisle. She did not appreciate it for whatever reason, and in her escape she smacked her head on the low header beam across the front of wash rack. So at least the madness was finally explained. Is it possible there’s a barn worker who’s only there occasionally who’s doing something that’s hurting/upsetting him?
Even before that she was always a bit fussy about her ears, and she still is. I’ve done so much desensitizing, had trainers do desensitizing, all to no avail. She bridles/halters just fine, usually she lets you rub her ears with your hand, but if you try to approach the area with anything other than your hand (i.e. carrot stick as one trainer tried, scissors or clippers to cut the bridle path, etc.) it’s an absolute no. She knows. She always knows.
She’s a spooky, sassy type in general, and 24/7 turnout has significantly reduced her idiosyncrasies, including the ear fussiness. I always got an oversized browband to put on her horse-sized bridles, which always seemed to make her happier about her ears both putting the bridle on and while riding. I now just buy oversized bridles.
I’ve known some horses that were really, really fried due to ear twitching. One of them was 18h tall and that was a real problem. He would get better but was set off very easily even by unintentionally getting out of his comfort zone.
Aural plaques would also be high on my list…they can bother any horse a lot even without any poor handling history. You might have to really sedate him to get a good look in there. Friend of mine had a horse with a couple of really sensitive ones. Horse had to go in for surgery on a leg, and they froze off the plaques while he was under to give him some relief.
My horse is like that but to a greater extent. It waxes and wanes though, the same way.
He did it for years until another problem lead me to have his neck x-rayed. It turned out that he has abnormal findings on the top of his first vertebrae that cause pain near his poll.
I’d look for a source of pain in your horse.
