This is a timely post for me. Next week I have to take my pasture pet horse to the vet to get his teeth floated, and I’ve been a little worried about how my riding horse will react being left alone. Pasture pet and riding horse are both fine when I ride off with my riding horse, but riding horse has a fit when I take pasture pet out of his sight. I’m going to take your advice and practice leaving riding horse every day for a week. Hope it helps.
3 Likes
I’m lucky enough to keep my horses at home. Unfortunately that increases the herdbound response. My gelding can be a danger to himself and anyone remotely close to him if he feels abandoned. My property is set up so they can come and go on their own accord in and out of their stalls. He must not be allowed to do so. He needs daily handling and marching orders otherwise he forgets he is a domesticated being. I’ll admit the winter suck got me good and I got lazy and I am paying for it miserably. We’ve been here before, you’d think I’d learn by now. So for the next two weeks when i let the horses out I hand walk him out and around the perimeter before letting him loose, we do the same thing at night. Ground work helps. “Leading for Respect” normally helps us find some brain cells.
4 Likes
yes! Leading with respect! Until we moved to this lovely bucolic setting he never was such a fool. We were always at bigger, busier places. I walked him over to my friends barn to see her new mare. He drug me around like a ragdoll. I was pissed. So now we have a chain. Funny how that worked instantly with little use. horses…lol. smart little buggers!
2 Likes
Do let us know how it goes and good luck. I think it’s so important to not let them get so over threshold as you are building tolerance for them being alone. So first day when your riding horse loses it, come right back and he settles and then leave again. We’d leave and then I’d watch from around the corner of the barn to see how he was doing. And yes, great advice up further in the post to be sure to leave a good distraction in the way of food goodies. I would also add if you’ll be gone a while I would try to have someone there to watch him and be there.
Someone up higher in the thread said “if they run around so be it” but that’s not my opinion. I had an incredible Arab who was left alone at a boarding barn and ran a fence for a couple hours and blew a suspensory. I’d even told them to never let him run a fence because he’d had soft tissue injuries in the past. A brutal 6 months in a stall as a result. God I was pissed.
How long will you be gone? And is it possible to have someone babysit? It was interesting how happy my mustang was to have me there and kept watching me for comfort.
2 Likes
Give the horse who is left behind some atravet (tranquilizer). Once you are gone, the horse left alone will probably give it up missing his buddy, but less likely to injure himself. You can only work with the one you are with.
1 Like
@OzarksRider thanks for sharing that Warwick video. I’ve followed him for years, watched his videos, have his Principles book and have listened to pretty much every podcast. And really valued seeing this video too.
1 Like
I’ll be gone 2-3 hours, and I plan to get my husband to watch my horse while I’m away. I’ll also put him in the corral so he can’t run the fence and give him some hay to keep him busy. I’ve left him like this before and he was ok although stressed from being left behind. Today I started your technique of taking the other horse out of sight for short periods, and I’ll continue that all next week.
I don’t know why it never occurred to me to teach both horses to tolerate being left behind, because after reading your post it seemed such an obvious thing to do. When I first got the second horse I made it a point to ride off with my first horse so they could both learn to be apart before they bonded too closely. My riding horse learned to go with me, and the pasture pet learned he could survive being left alone. But even though my riding horse has never been barn sour or buddy sour, he has never learned to be comfortable if he’s the one left behind. So that’s something to work on.
I had one other idea about this topic. Whatever horse is upset…if you can wait until they calm/stop themselves for even 5 seconds and then return. That timing is important. Try not to “release” them mentally in the middle of a meltdown. So for my mustang, I was watching from behind the barn and the moment he stopped and paused…then we returned.
1 Like
I think it’s also worthwhile to break it down further by going and coming in the area that’s under threshold. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked my horse up and down the “front aisle” of my barn before stepping one foot out the front exit and then back into the barn. I will do that until the horses are both bored out of their minds. Progressing from there a person may be able to avoid any meltdowns in the first place.
2 Likes
Yes. So important they see us as helping them find relaxation, comfort, ease.
1 Like
