They all are. Some sincerely deluded, some con artists, some not truly “communicators” in a psychic sense, but people with a good knowledge/understanding of horsey body language, etc.
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Thank you for helping this horse.
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A horse that cannot deal with the sight of tack, for whatever reason, and reacts so violently, may need to be PTS. Although you may have the skill and patience to help him, he still would be at risk of randomly freaking out and hurting someone. He is flat out dangerous to himself and anyone in the vicinity, from your description.
FWIW, if you do decide to try an animal communicator, I recommend Pam Sourelis:
http://wingedhorsehealing.com/
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I think that it’s quite an anthropomorphic stretch to call this horse’s behavior PTSD. Horses think and feel, but very differently than people. Getting excited and whinnying is not a sign of fear. Instead, whinnying is evidence of anticipation and/or loneliness. Fearful horses seldom make any noise at all. Many horses that enjoy their work can experience anticipation and excitement as they see and hear cues that tell them that work is soon at hand. Think of a hunt horse that gets excited in his stall when he hears the truck being hooked up on a hunting morning. Of course, for some horses this excitement and anticipation is overwhelming to the point that it is difficult for the horse to do his job properly. Excitement and anticipation can cause a horse to act “aggressively” towards another horse as they nip them and shove them to “stir up the herd” or boss them around or encourage them to also be on their toes.
While I can’t see any evidence of PTSD or abuse here, all the same this does not sound like a particularly useful horse. If you have the desire and the money and time to spend on this horse, I commend you for it.
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I beg to differ. My former horse most certainly screamed when he was terrified. Property owner once started bush hogging right behind the riding ring and hit a bunch of rocks. My horse was on the lunge at the time and went absolutely mental. Screamed his head off.
I think the OP can tell the difference between fear and happy anticipation.
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I’m glad this horse is with you. It sounds like he has landed in the right place, for sure. I hope you can help him.
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Horses have magnificent memories. As prey animals in the state of nature this was a survival trait. We humans use this trait regularly and frequently for our benefit. But it can also lead to difficulties as horses never really forget anything. The best we can usually do is overlay new memories and “bury” the old ones. The deeper the better. Sadly, no matter how deeply you bury one there is always a risk that something will trigger it and you’re back to square one.
The first question in addressing the problem is does the OP have the time and money to deal with this? It’s likely going to take a lot of both as the problem appears quite severe. If the answer is “no” then sell the horse. Or put it down.
If the answer is yes then engage a competent professional experienced in dealing with bad memories and follow their program. If the program works then all is well. If it doesn’t then you’re back to asking that question about time, money, and/or disposition.
G.
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He’s anxious about the tack, hency the WHINNYING (per OP’s explicit instructions), was probably mistreated somehow. He’d be wearing the tack all day in my barn. He’d be in the round pen until he stopped running away from the tack, he’d get tacked up then he’d wear it all day. The basic foundation training of any horse is to get them to handle stuff that bothers them. Instead of having an explosive reaction, the horse stops and thinks. You give them tools to reduce anxiety since that is probably the biggest cause of bad behavior.
Well someone recommended…don’t waste your money
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Can’t comment on a OTTB but I’ve seen similar behavior in a saddle seat arab that came to the barn I worked at with great big ole chemical burn scars on his legs and body and the ability to go from sweetheart to insanely terrified in under a second if he saw a saddle coming. His owner bought him from an online auction and basically bought him based on his show record and breeding.
With him, we did our best to ignore the behavior for the first six months or so … we didn’t go out of our way to either introduce or hide tack from him, we just did our thing and let him slowly come to the realization that a person w/ a saddle walking down the isle probably had nothing to do with him. If he actually stuck his head out of his stall when we were going past, he got a cookie.
When we did start working with him, we used a western saddle & pads and we started him like a complete green horse, complete with clicker training for all the new steps. We took it slow and he never really had the panic attacks about the western gear.
We were able to eventually get him back into english tack but it took months of work even after he was going well in the western tack. The first two dozen times I put a jumping saddle on him, he stood there and shook like a junky. I spent weeks tacking him up, walking him around the yard a few minutes then putting him away.
Poor guy had champion breeding and a show record a mile long but his owner never got to ride him saddle seat. He never really relaxed in a flat saddle. It just stressed him out too badly and he was the type to seriously hurt himself or his rider when he panicked. She eventually turned him into a cute little arab hunter, though, and he really got into motoring along and bopping over jumps.
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Also, I know you didn’t ask for advice on some part of this but I can’t really remember what part so I’ll share. You can ignore if you know this already. I love this video for any issue that’s… an issue. It easily translates to the tack issue and can help dramatically. I’m sorry your new horse has such feelings of distress over tack but I do feel that this is something that can be solved.
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Well, horses never cease to amaze me – the way they process experiences, past or present.
This morning I brought all three boys, ‘Trigger’ included, into the barn as usual. After they munched on their hay for a bit I groomed everyone and then duplicated Trigger’s bad day. I got tack, walked up and down the aisle with it – no response from Trigger. He was just a happy guy in his stall.
I then tacked up the same horse as on ‘the day’…pulled him out, walked him around the shedrow a few times, got on and rode around the shedrow. Trigger watched with interest; could hear us when we were out of sight momentarily.
He whinnied once. A normal non-scream whinny and his mental state remained calm, did not escalate.
I got off horse I was riding, took saddle over to Trigger. He was totally relaxed. I put it on him – no reaction. I then led him around the shedrow. He walked with purpose but was not on the muscle. We practiced halting, standing and head lowering with treats as reward. After a couple of turns he was walking like an old plow horse; would stop when I stopped, walked on when I did.
On the day of the blood curdling screaming freak-out meltdown, I took this horse out of his stall and went outside with him (on a hunch) to let him see where he was. He calmed down like a switch had been flipped. Perhaps that moment of realization (that he wasn’t on the track, wasn’t going to pony, wasn’t faced with whatever it was that set him off) was enough.
Hopefully lasting progress has been made.
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It would be interesting to see if anything else triggers him later on…a particular circumstance, sounds, or visual cue. Sounds like he’s going to be okay, though. He had a bad time in the past, that’s for sure. Glad he found a soft landing. He may have just felt panicked, alone, and afraid for his well-being on that day. Horse equivalent of screaming help, or “please no!” Maybe because no one listened to him before. Poor guy.
Oh crap! I just accidentally deleted my detailed UPDATE post that I wrote this morning after working with this horse. Don’t know how to get the post back! :mad:
Oh well, at least some of you got to read it it before it went poof.
Anyway…update was that horse was fine today – no tack freak-out. One normal whinny. Very good boy.
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I saw it, thus my post…glad to hear he’s ok.
I think you are reaching to say this horse should be PTS just saying. I have worked with WAY worse and have ended up with a good citizen.
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No, you need to read for greater comprehension before you categorically dismiss my comment, or anyone else’s…You conveniently overlooked the word MAY need to be. Obviously, it is a good idea to try to fix the issues, but if you had been able to read for comprehension, you would have been able to discern more clearly that my point was that the bottom line is whether the horse can be rehabbed or not. If not, and IF the horse remains dangerous, then euthanasia of the animal is better than possible death of a human.
That is good news that the OP said the horse already has shown some improvement.I hope that continues.
Danacat, I have a horse that came of the track that is not dissimilar. He would begin shaking and sweating at the sight of tack, and in minutes would be soaked and dripping.
What works with him is to 100% ignore it, to move very slowly, and to be very quiet. NO attempts to soothe…anything just seems to confirm that OMG something terrible is happening. I don’t let him do anything wrong but all corrections are super straightforward and brief and we just move on with no fuss. Once he’s settled, quiet praise and a pat works but that just isn’t useful when he’s upset.
I’ve had this horse for years now and every now and then this sort of panic still pops up. This is the best way to approach for him.
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Love that man. Worth his weight in gold.
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That’s what I did. I brought the boys in – I went about my morning – walked around with tack – rode one horse. Basically duplicated the ‘bad day’ as if it had never happened. Got that one normal whinny – ignored it. Later went into his stall with saddle and put it on him. No reaction at all. Took him for a walk around the shedrow and worked on halting, standing and head lowering with treats. Perfect.
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