VENT! Stupid people trespassing on horse property!

[ESG]

So I had a repairman come out this morning. As he’s leaving, I follow him to the front door, to lock it behind him. As I reach for the lock, I notice a car pulled up outside my next door neighbor’s paddock, which fronts on our street. Two of her three horses are standing there, while a woman with her four year old(?) son pets them. The kid is about to climb through the fence and into the paddock as I walk up, while mom is busy stroking the friendly gelding’s (thank god! :eek: ) nose. The mother looks at me and says, “Are these your horses?” “No,” I reply. “Do you know the people who live here?” “No,” she says,“we were just passing by and thought we’d stop and pet them.” WTF?!? “Well, that one bites, and you’re trespassing. What you’re doing is very dangerous.” “Oh, this one I’m petting?” Like it matters, lady - you’re not supposed to be here! Happily, she did say, “I’m sorry - we’ll leave.” and did so, posthaste.

Why in God’s name are people so dumb? You’d never catch them stopping in someone’s yard to pet a strange dog, would you? Is the “My Little Pony” school of thought, still so prevalent?

GGggggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…:no:

Okay, end of rant.

[Andalucian]

I’m glad it’s not just me. I’ve discovered that I have to keep my security gate closed all the time or people just drop on in “to pet the horses.” Unfortunately, even that isn’t sufficient all the time. I generally open the gate prior to lessons arriving and close it right after students leave; however, now I’ve discovered I have to close it almost immediately upon their arrival unless I have someone else around to supervise the barn while I teach. Imagine my surprise one day when, opon returning to the barn after a lesson, I discovered a woman I’d never seen before with her (very young) daughter in my stallion’s stall.

She seemed quite taken aback when I asked them to exit the stall and leave the property. Just not too taken aback to ask if she could put her daughter on my stallion for a minute “so we can take some pictures of her on a horse” before they left. :eek:

[Iron_Horse_Farm]

Thank God for 4 strand hotwire!

[JSwan]

Trespassing is a really big problem in rural areas. :mad:

[mp]

Our farm is within the city limits. Our pastures front on a street that isn’t heavily traveled, but we see our share of traffic. People driving by sometimes stop to look at the horses. Sometimes they’re walking by and pet the horses if they come up to the fence. I don’t get too buzzed about it. Technically, they’re trespassing but they’re not hurting anything and the horses are free to run away if they want to.

Besides, there really isn’t a whole lot I can DO about it without looking like a grumpy old ass. Most of these people live around here and I really don’t want anyone to get the idea that opening a gate in the middle of the night would be a funny thing to do.

If they come up the drive and ask to ride, I say “Great idea! We’ll do that after you help me build some fence.”

[CanterQueen]

@mp;2969440

If they come up the drive and ask to ride, I say “Great idea! We’ll do that after you help me build some fence.”

I have to remember this one!!!:lol::lol::lol:

[ESG]

It’s an even bigger problem here, because we’re not really rural. We’re a formerly-rurally-located neighborhood, that the city has reached out and enveloped with suburbia. In the four years since we moved here, there have been roughly 3000 new homes going up, and a middle school and high school added to the elementary school 1/4 mile from our house. We’ve gone from having nothing around here, to having every fast food and regular restaurant chain you can imagine, every grocery and department/discount store you can name, plus movie theaters, about seven different banks (not counting the ones inside the discount stores! :eek: ) and specialty shops galore.

You’d think it would be nice, having somewhat of a captive market here, but it doesn’t seem to work that way. :sigh:

And my husband wonders why I want to move when he retires. :no:

[ESG]

@mp;2969440

Technically, they’re trespassing but they’re not hurting anything and the horses are free to run away if they want to.

Unless, of course, one of your horses bites/kicks/injures someone who might richly deserve it. Then you’re set up for a lawsuit, and guess who’d be the first ones to cry “attractive nuisance” and take everything you own?

Besides, there really isn’t a whole lot I can DO about it without looking like a grumpy old ass. Most of these people live around here and I really don’t want anyone to get the idea that opening a gate in the middle of the night would be a funny thing to do.

I understand where you’re coming from, but that’s why all my gates stay locked, and my property is posted. And I don’t particularly care about looking like a grumpy old ass. I care about still owning my place if some @$$hat who wants to pet the ponies gets hurt on my property, and decides to sue. If I have it posted, that takes a lot of the wind out of their sails. :winkgrin:

If they come up the drive and ask to ride, I say “Great idea! We’ll do that after you help me build some fence.”

I’ll also steal that, if I may? Good one! :yes:

[ESG]

@Andalucian;2969362

I’m glad it’s not just me. I’ve discovered that I have to keep my security gate closed all the time or people just drop on in “to pet the horses.” Unfortunately, even that isn’t sufficient all the time. I generally open the gate prior to lessons arriving and close it right after students leave; however, now I’ve discovered I have to close it almost immediately upon their arrival unless I have someone else around to supervise the barn while I teach. Imagine my surprise one day when, opon returning to the barn after a lesson, I discovered a woman I’d never seen before with her (very young) daughter in my stallion’s stall.

She seemed quite taken aback when I asked them to exit the stall and leave the property. Just not too taken aback to ask if she could put her daughter on my stallion for a minute “so we can take some pictures of her on a horse” before they left. :eek:

OMGiH! :eek: Someone would have been sporting at least one new orifice in an interesting place, had that happened to me. Yikes!

[rabicon]

We live in an urban area in Georgia. It’s actually the fastest growing area right now and our side pasture comes right up to the road. The street is a side type street but is also used as a cut thru so we get a good share of traffic on occasion. We also have 3 subdivisions 2 houses down so of course all the soccer moms (no offense) and their little ones go walking or riding their bikes in the afternoon/evening. We came home the other evening and a lady and her probably about 10 year old daughter were on our property petting the 4 yr old we have out here. Needless to say that when we pulled up to the house they left so they knew they were in the wrong but why do it. My daughter has her pony in there and he is a mouthy sucker. He has big ole lips and he will get nippy and what if it was him they were petting and WHOOPS there went a finger. People can be so ignorant when it comes to horses.

[pegasus209]

EsG, Your’e not anywhere near little Elm are you? You’ve described what’s happened to us to a ‘T’, except it’s probably closer to 20,ooo houses! :eek:

Andalucian…Are you freaking kidding!!!:eek::mad: Someone actually entered the barn, OPENED A STALL-- AND WENT IN!!! WTF!!??? Who–WHO with 1/2 a brain would think that was even remotely okay!!! GAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!! :mad::mad::mad:

I had someone slip under my horse’s stall chain once…fortunately I was quietly brushing his other side… I said “You need to GET OUT NOW… the chain is there to keep PEOPLE OUT, not him in!” :mad: :lol:

[Showjumper28]

This happens to me all the time! The cars that stop usually don’t pet my horses but they do other peoples horses. But the other day, I look out the window to see a mom and her son ON BICYCLES stop to pet my very mouthy, 17.2hh gelding (He is only 6). Just as I am about to go out there to tear them a new one, my gelding does the job for me. He grabs the kid by the front of his jacket and literally lifts him 6 inches off the ground. Kid starts screaming, and frightens my gelding who immediately drops him and backs away. Needless to say, they left right after that. Thank god my gelding was only playing! (He probably was thinking “Ohhh a new red jolly ball that moves by itself!”) I haven’t seen them back, but the next time I do see some one, I’ll be very tempted to tell them I am calling the police. The last thing I need is a lawsuit due to someone elses stupidity.

[deltawave]

Gee, I can’t count how many times my dad and I used to do this when I was a young kid. Call us both stupid, I guess. No, I never would’ve dreamed of climbing through a fence, but maybe those were friendlier times–we never were scolded or chased off, in fact more often than not we’d get a friendly wave from the house or a smile from the owners if they happened to be nearby.

Not at all supporting the practice of trespassing or intruding. Our “horse petting” forays were limited to the pastures that lined public roads way back when there WERE pastures in Central NJ. :sigh: But geeeeee . . .

[JoZ]

Deltawave (and others) – if you remove the parental sanction (which I absolutely did NOT have), I had the starring role in all of these scenarios as a child. I could NOT be stopped when it came to horses. I stopped MYSELF short of going into stalls – but pastures, fields, barns were fair game. I loved horses, and I couldn’t imagine what harm I was doing.

I know now that this was wrong. But as I said, my parents never condoned or even knew about my exploits, and for the most part the horse owners were nice about it, even if they asked me to remove myself. Sometimes something else was offered: “hey, you shouldn’t be in that paddock – c’mon in here and you can help me groom some horses”.

Here’s the difference. If I had gotten bitten, kicked or otherwise injured, you know you would’ve been blamed? ME! ME! My parents would have had absolutely no sympathy for a kid who was somewhere she didn’t belong. I remember cutting myself badly falling on the ice in the schoolyard, when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade. Back then it had to be a torrential downpour to keep the kids in at recess, and ice and snow on the playground didn’t keep us inside. The school actually brought me up in front of my parents for having gone on the ice when told to stay away from it – and my parents were furious, again, with ME! How dare I disobey the principal?

There sure was no way that the schools or the horse owners were thinking “lawsuit” when they saw my sorry, misbehaving self headed their way.

[Ponyclubrocks]

Yeah but…

I know y’all are correct and strangers have no business tresspassing…but sometimes that horsey disease is overpowering…

When I was about 10 years old I used to sneak on my bike, cross a highway and sneak into a pasture to pet the horseys. I did this for weeks without detection until one day when I was petting one of the horses (on it’s belly for cripes sake!!!) and it swung his head around and bit me square in the middle of my back. It hurt and I was shocked. I rode my bike home and told no one…then that night I guess I was whimpering in bed and my Dad came in and asked what was wrong. I told him my back hurt. He pulled up my PJs and looked at my back and burst out laughing. He picked me up and showed me in the bathroom mirror a perfect imprint of a giant set of teeth on my back :lol::lol: I had to confess all my actions. My dear Dad’s response was to sign me up for riding lessons.

I know you all are correctly concerned about liability and safety for people and your animals, just wanted to share something from another perspective…

[inca]

I have caught several people wandering through my yard to pet my horses with little children in tow. It absolutely horrifies me.

I had a 2 year old filly that was a chronic biter. Nothing I did completely cured her of this. When I saw a lady and her little child coming up to the fence while I was filling the water tank, I strolled up to inform her the filly bites. She acted horrified that I would have such an ill-behaved horse! Well, lady, they are HORSES - they acutally ALL kick and bite. It’s just a matter of how often!

The unwanted visitors is the only thing I don’t like about my neighborhood. Well, that and the loose dogs that get in my pasture. At least we live well within the neighborhood (which has no outlet) so we don’t get many complete strangers who stop by to pet the horses.

[Angela_Freda]

[QUOTE=Ponyclubrocks;2969560]
I was petting one of the horses (on it’s belly for cripes sake!!!) and it swung his head around and bit me square in the middle of my back.[/QUOTE]
He was probably getting (or thinking he was getting) a fly?

[DMK]

@deltawave;2969510

Gee, I can’t count how many times my dad and I used to do this when I was a young kid. Call us both stupid, I guess. No, I never would’ve dreamed of climbing through a fence, but maybe those were friendlier times–we never were scolded or chased off, in fact more often than not we’d get a friendly wave from the house or a smile from the owners if they happened to be nearby.

Not at all supporting the practice of trespassing or intruding. Our “horse petting” forays were limited to the pastures that lined public roads way back when there WERE pastures in Central NJ. :sigh: But geeeeee . . .

I’m with you, Deltawave. I mean I understand a finger could be bitten (however did we manage as untrained horse crazy kids?), and damn, if someone enters the property, it’s a new kind of religion they are going to learn.

I have almost always kept my horses on property that is near a suburban setting, and I usually try to be pleasant and informative (take a few minutes to explain why little fingers should NOT feed horses and how to pet them and all that) to such people. Hey, their kid is probably a horse crazy kid like I was, and I know how important those horse petting moments were to me. I mean the people who come up to your fence to pet your horses are just probably genuinely interested (as opposed to freaky scary types that would actually walk into your horse’s stall). I figure it isn’t personally painful to me be nice to them or to politely explain why petting Sharkface isn’t a good idea no matter how cute he looks. They might even educate some of their neighbors if I am polite about it as well.

[Ponyclubrocks]

[QUOTE=Angela Freda;2969587]
He was probably getting (or thinking he was getting) a fly?[/QUOTE]

Yes, I’m sure that was it. :lol: It certainly didn’t deter me from pursuing my passion, but that horse owner would have been mortified at what I was doing I’m sure!

[blton9th]

OMG!!! We have some asshats round here too. Perfect example, there is another small barn down the road from us, a boarder at the other barn sends her young UNSUPERVISED children down to our barn. Many a time we have walked into the barn, and her kidlets were there! We grew real tired of gates and doors being mysteriously opened! The Mom of said kids was a real POS!:mad::mad::mad: