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Ask Chelsie...
Chelsie,
I have just brought a haflinger mare named Barbl. She is a pleasure to have around although she becomes very distressed and starts leaping around every time her two other feildmates are out of sight. I was wondering how to reassure her to make her feel happy and secure without the two other geldings around, what's the best way going about this?
-Amy M. from Bournemouth, Alabama
Q.
A.
Hi Amy,
First off read my other question on barn sour horses. That is my answer for you and your horses, just in a little different words.
What is happening is she is unconfident being left alone in her corral with out the other horses. So is thinking that they are leaving her for the lions. So what we need to do is build her confidence. The answer that I gave in the barn sour horse question about thresholds is what you need to doing with your geldings. But instead of doing thresholds for your geldings you are going to do thresholds for your mare.
First off, can you take one of your geldings away and have her be fine? If so, then can you take the other gelding away and have her be fine with your other horse? If you can take them both away at different times and she is fine then you can start working on taking them both away at the same time.
First, start by just haltering both of them and taking them out of the corral, but only 5 feet away. If she gets upset just stand there and wait till she calms down (you can groom your geldings or play with them, but stay at that distance). Then when she relaxes you can put your geldings back and call it a day, but the next day you will take them 10 feet away. Wait until she relaxes and bring them back and call it a day. The next day you will take them 20 feet away and so on and so on.
When you finally take them out of sight of your mare, take them out of sight and then appear in sight right away and repeat that until she calms down.
When she can handle that, you will take them out of sight longer and longer till you can go for a short ride and then bring them home.
Another thing that helps sometimes is if you halter your mare and have a friend take the geldings away slowly. While they are gone you play with her and take her mind off of them and then when she calms down have your friend bring them back. This is for horses that I am afraid they are going to hurt themselves.
The signs of relaxation that you are going to be looking for is: her head lowering, her eyes blinking, blowing of her nose, and a big deep breath.
Those are just some of them.
This is something that when you get her doing really good with them leaving her your job is not done. You are going to have to keep her used to them leaving her. So like once a week take them away from her and out of sight so as to not let her regress and then have to go through all the above steps again.
Thank you,
Chelsie Kallestad
