horse acting aggressive

[treeclimber233]

I have a 16 year old Saddlebred mare that I have owned since birth. I don't do much with her and she is a beautiful pasture ornament. When she was younger she would bite me and kick at me but we had lessons about manners and space. She has not tried to bite me since she was 3-4 years old. When she would kick at me she was way out of range and there was never any danger of her actually getting me but I still reacted by driving her away from me. She has not done that for about 4-5 years now. But today while I was standing in the pasture watching her eat her hay (which I find very relaxing) with no provocation at all she started acting aggressive toward me. Her body tensed and she started shaking her head. Then she started to charge me with her ears laid back. I was so shocked I did not react at all so she charged me again!! I hollered and threw my hands up. That stopped her for a second then she came on again. She has never charged me before like this. I finally started toward her and clapped my hands and hollered again. She still seemed tense and was looking at me so I ran toward her clapping my hands until she moved away. I looked around to make sure there was nothing behind me that she might be showing aggression to but there was nothing in sight so I don't know what happened. Any ideas?????

 

[sevlep1]

I'd say it's a dominance situation. You should start working her a bit, maybe halter her around and be more hands on. Groom her and start some bonding or if you would rather not and just prefer relaxing and watching her eat, take a plastic bag or small flimsy twig and if she tries you then wave the twig in the air so she hears the whipping sound or rustle the bag. Horses will push you if you let them. Gentle but firm is best. Best wishes

 

[MDres]

Horses are herd animals, and their herd ALWAYS has a pecking order. Even in a "herd" of two, which is what you and your mare are. Her behavior shows that she thinks she is in charge. That IS NOT the way it should be - YOU should ALWAYS be in charge. You don't accomplish this by beating her, or loving her, or spoiling her. On the contrary, you can actually enforce her position as herd leader by loving and spoiling her and ignoring basic horse behaviors. I'm not saying horses cannot be loved and spoiled, you just have to always be thinking like a horse when you do it....

It is simple. The "horse" that moves it's feet is the loser. So if she threatens you, and you back away, you have just reinforced her status as alpha. In order for you, the human, to be in charge, she is the one who has to move her feet. You tell HER when to stop.

Issues like this are easiest to resolve if you have a round pen. You can use a lunge line, but it is A LOT harder to accomplish. You can do some exercises with a halter and lead, but you have to be careful that you are staying in charge, and not letting her push you around. You can also put her hay/feed down, and not let her near it until you say it is okay. Put it down in an area where she can work in a circle around it, and don't let her near it until she drops her head and licks her lips. Just keep moving her off in that circle, and you may need to use pretty aggressive body language. None of my horses is even allowed to *look* at the feed in their pans until I give them the go ahead, and then they have to WALK to the pan. They had that lesson 30+ years ago, as youngsters, and it has never had to be repeated, because I have NEVER dropped my alpha status.

I am not a follower to any *one* trainer or method of training (there are some training celebrities that almost have a cult following) but I do feel that Clinton Anderson has the easiest to understand approach to resolving behaviors like your mare has. If you have access to any of his videos, TV episodes, or books, then I would look into them. He has one TV episode/video in particular that deals with horses that are aggressive and how to deal with them. It will really open your eyes as to how your mare can become an even bigger threat if you don't correct her behavior.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

X2!

 

[taylorm17]

I have 2 suggestions. One is it is trust. If you haven't worked with her a lot she might have trust issues. I would (as silly as it sounds) start all the way at the beginning again with ground manners and building confidence between you and your horse. Also you probably know that if she is a mare she has moods. I am not against mares or anything, but some mares are just terrible and she might (not to offend you) be one of them. You can't really help it. There is something called moody mare we use on our mares at my barn and you can also just work with her more when she is in heat. My second suggestion is the dominance thing. If you have other horses, is she the lead mare? If so she thinks she can also be with you. You can't let that happen. Don't be mean or anything, but be very firm. You also need to be consistent with her either way you go. Some people believe that if you force your horse to lay down, you will be on top of them and be in complete control. Even after they get up they will have the sense that you are in charge. This is dominance bug time. I personally don't do this. I prefer a more gained trust and relationship with the horse and not a forced relationship. Sometimes it works sometimes not. You may not be the type of person to do it. I fyou are try it on a more suttle and trained horse and practice a lot before doing it on her so you both aren't learning because then neither of you will get anywhere. I really hope this helped and I hope she gets better. Thank you for reading
- Maggie

 

[norseofcourse]

It's been well over 3 years, so I hope treeclimber233 isn't still having trouble with this mare.

As was said, one way horses show dominance over other horses is by making them move away - especially from something like food.

Not sure how the OP feeds, but picture a typical scenario when you feed a horse hay out in the field: You walk out with the hay, put it down, the horse sees you coming and walks toward their hay as you walk away. You may or may not see any aggressive horse body language, but to some horses, they just 'chased' you away from their hay.

Do this enough times ('enough' varying widely depending on the horse and the situation), and then one day you stay and watch your horse eat, and your horse starts thinking, "You're supposed to leave when I approach my hay!" - and they try to chase you off.

My ponies are out 24/7, so I feed like this, too. Many times, especially in the mornings, I'm in a hurry so I put their hay down and leave (with a visual check to make sure they are ok of course). But when I have time, I try to hang out for at least a little while. Can I stand there while they eat and they don't mind? Can I lay my hand on their back while they're eating (from both sides)? Can I scritch them around their withers while they're eating? If they're ok with all that, they're unlikely to be getting food aggressive. If they're not ok, I work on doing all those things until they are, and I would make it a point to hang out with them as they eat more often.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Treeclimber registered on this forum in 2010 - the post was made on 8/6/2013.

 

[norseofcourse]

Treeclimber registered on this forum in 2010 - the post was made on 8/6/2013.

LOL - oops, read the wrong date! I wasn't awake yet, yeah, that's my excuse

 

[w c]

Stop sitting in the pasture watching the horse eat, first of all. Watch it from the porch. You don't have any control over the horse when it is loose. Oh sure, I know, 'so and s on his DVD series says you do'. Well you don't - he may, but you don't. And what you do not see on his video is that he spends months beating the snot out of his horses to get them to act as they do and THEN he tapes his DVD....lol. EVEN THEN these guys still get kicked because what they're doing is stupid and unsafe. Horses are not robots - they're animals.

One of these days you're going to clap and shout and run at her and you're going to get kicked in the head and killed, so stop it. Unless you are extremely quick on your feet, a real expert and willing to work with this horse far more often, and even then, willing to take what surprises come your way, stop sitting in the field watching her eat.

As horses age, you're going to get more of these incidents as their vision starts going to pot. They start reacting to things in a different way. So you have to be especially careful with older horses, and even with younger ones there is no guarantee.

A horse is not like a cat that you sit and watch eat. It is a big animal, and it has instincts to protect its food, and those instincts are powerful and require frequent skilled training(sometimes very FORCEFUL training), and no, going at the horse and clapping your hands and shouting is NOT training, no matter how many times you see some yo-yo on a DVD do it. And a horse needs a job, exercise, training, every day, or it gets neurotic and loses respect for people.

It really sounds like the horse never got any solid training, even when it was young. So this behavior may seem like a big surprise, but honestly it just sounds like an extension of what it always has done. You might consider getting some help from an instructor in training this horse and working on your handling/riding skills.