Daisy Gets Picked On, Horse Style

Daisy is confined in a 12 x 12 stall with a 12 x 12 covered "turn-out" area beyond her stall. The turn-out area is blacktop, unfortunately. Some enterprising soul apparently decided they didn't want boarders to dig a hole to china, so they blacktopped all four turn-out areas. Grrrr! AND there are horses in a large field on the other side of the turn-out fence.

The horses on the other side of the fence have an attitude. In addition, they have room to wheel and posture. Daisy is confined from top to bottom and side to side. I keep finding the cheeky pony's poops by Daisy's fence, and one of the other horses apparently has been coming up and bothering her. Today when I arrived she had dried blood which had run down both front legs, and she was in a dither.

I took her to the round pen and let her run off her angst, then put her in her pasture for three hours of peace, quiet and grazing. Walking back to her stall, I found one of the horses on the other side of the fence lounging insolently along her fence line, "claiming" it. I quietly poked the rounded end of the rake handle between the fence boards, and the horse jumped a foot. Maybe that will give it something to think about. That horse and its buddy are nippy and disrespectful.

Most humans think if a horse is not making noise that it is not being rude, but horse body language says a lot and horses are gifted empaths. Even I can see that the "loose" horses are trying to boss and intimidate Daisy. This is a very poor set up, however for the moment there is nothing much I can do about it, except continue to show up four times a day and get her off the blacktop and away from the other horses for a bit.

What the other horses are doing is rather like little kids in the back seat on a long car ride. The one they are tormenting can't escape. They say, "I'm  not touching him! I'm not touching him!" but they are intimidating and tormenting the kid just the same.

Interestingly enough, the owner of these horses rides the horses harshly. They have taken the bullying and are passing it on down the line.