When Your Horse Becomes Unraveled By A String...

She writes:

We have a 6 year old appendix gelding that just can't seem to concentrate on his job for any length of time. He is crazy scared of anything plastic or that rattles like cans in a bay. I have tried desensitizing him in his stall, as was suggested so that he is confined and can't hurt me - which he would not do intentionally. I am able to, with some patience and persistance, rub a plastic bag over his body and even on the end of a buggy whip. He does not like it and is nervous but he tolerates it. He will walk over a plastic tarp - with apprehension but does do it. Yet, if you are riding him and you have anything that makes noise in your hand - or if you are even leading him - like the other day when I decided to try a little desensitizing while I lead him out of the barn using the whip with the bag tied to it (which he has seen many times and I have used on him) he becomes freigthened and reacts.

The other day was not pretty and prompted this email. He basically scrambled on the cement barn isle knocking over everything on the cabinet and thank goodness I had a lead on him and was able to stop him before he took for high heaven. Then my mistake, so upset because he reacted this way after all the time he's been exposed to this whip/bag combo, I decided he was going to get use to this plastic bag once and for all and was proceding to tie it to his halter (probably not a good thing) and was going to just let him loose in his pasture to "deal" with it, when he bolted away from me and went tearing around our property putting big "foot prints" all over our lawn, etc. I never did get the bag on him - he just went - and after about 10 minutes, he finally came up to me when I had a handful of alfalfa hay.

He's been a fright case since he we got him as a yearling - yet there are times after he becomes use to his surroundings he settles down and does his job as as a show horse but he ALWAYS reacts to new situations and this plastic bag thing is NOT new but he definitely has a freight issue with it. Cruzer is 16'3" and a very personable horse. I had high hopes for him when we got him. We've now changed his show career to jumping and he has fear issues with that but I believe we are seeing progress with him but don't know if he will every be reliable. I don't think a crash course/clinic in desensitizing will help him as he accepts things after a while - although with apprehension - but two days later he'll react badly all over again. So, there you have it - any suggestions besides find him a new zip code? My daughter does really care for him and we don't have a lot of $$ to send him out right now as she is in college and we have a young filly we need to concentrate on too (my horse!). Thanks for any advice.

First of all I rarely, if ever suggest someone find their horse a new zip code. My job is to help horse and human exist in the same zip code as much as possible.

If I were there looking at the horse, and I'm not, I'm dealing with what I see in an email, there are number of factors in this email that can influence the behavior. It may be one factor, two factors, or all of the above.

I don't think this is a spooking problem. Oh, the horse is excessively spooky, no question, but I don't think its problem is spookiness.

The first thing I'd look for is a physical issue. Physical issues play a very large part in "fleeing" reactions. If a horse has a stiff neck for example, and horses can have stiff necks just like we can, it becomes difficult to EASILY look and assess the situation. If the situation cannot be assessed, the horse flees. The length of time between perceiving the threat and assessing it can be extremely short. If something gets in the way of assessing the threat you go from perceiving to instant fleeing.

A physical issue can be a physical injury. If there is a cervical subluxation, for example, (a disc in the neck out of alignment) the horse may very well have a stiff neck. If a human has a stiff sore neck looking any direction other than straight ahead is difficult. To look anywhere else the human has to turn or pivot the body. The pivot point of a human body is inches from the outside of the body. The pivot point of a horse may be two feet from the outside of the body and thus the leverage and speed of the body is much greater and more marked. If your life depends on how fast you pivot to look it is better to just flee rather than push through the pain and discomfort. If you are a horse and you feel pain or discomfort you are beyond the assess point. You are at the escape part. Subluxations can occur anywhere on the skeleton. The body tries to re-align the subluxations by pulling the subluxation back into place with muscle tension. Prolonged muscle tension causes muscle pain which also serves to protect the area. A stab of pain means protect yourself. Horses protect themselves by fleeing.

Also the horse has some jumping experience. Horses are not really built for jumping. Do they do it? Sure. Sometimes you gotta jump to get away but horses don't make a habit of it. I have watched a good share of horses in jumping classes and few horses flow over the jumps like a deer. Most hop over something like a rabbit. If the horse does not follow its head over the jump but kind of hops over its weight drops straight down rather than flows in forward line. The span between the front and back legs is not supported by anything other than the spine and muscle. Most of the strain goes to the weakest point, the sacroiliac. This can easily result in a condition referred to as a "hunter's (or jumper's) hump or bump." This is a sacroiliac strain and is a very serious injury for a horse. Most horses I see with this condition are very inconsistent in their actions and behavior.

A physical issue can be a conformational defect. A horse should look like a horse. When you look at a horse and scrunch your eyes to silhouette it, all the lines of the horse should curve back into the horse. If you follow the line of the neck and it shoots into space (ewe necked) that's a serious conformational defect. Follow the lines of the hind quarters and they shoot straight to the ground (post legged) you have a serious conformational issue. If the front, or back, legs seem to come out of or go into the same hole, you have a serious conformational problem. If the back goes down, or uphill, you have a serious conformational problem. Do a search in your favorite search engine for "conformation defects in horses" and you'll come up with a slug of things. Many of these "defects" cause significant effects on how horses react to "threats." It is commonly said, there is no such thing as a perfectly conformed horse. While horse conformation is greatly influenced by the function of the horse, a well conformed horse is a well conformed horse. The fewer the defects the better.

Not too many decades ago horse were used for production. If they didn't produce they weren't kept and they certainly weren't bred. Now days horses are hardly used for production any longer and now people breed mostly for sentimental reasons quite often regardless of their conformation. This the main reason I advise new comers to the horse world to stay away from horses bred for a particular characteristic such as color, gait or racing. As long as the horse has the desired characteristic, or they think it has the potential to acquire the characteristic simply because it is bred to a horse that has the characteristic, they'll breed it. This can be borne out by looking in the breed journals. In the color journals, "He Shore Throws Pretty Babies!" "100% Color!" And so on.

I know a very successful horse trainer in Utah. He has a horse troupe he takes around to rodeos and the like. They do some pretty amazing things. He and I have some philosophical differences in our methods but there is no denying the guy knows horses inside and out. His wife is the emergency room director for their area hospital. He was telling me since they live in a "cowboy" area a good share of their emergency room cases are horse caused. He had asked his wife to keep track as well as she could of the breed of horses involved. "By far and away the number one horse was the Appendix-Quarter horse and the distant remainder was pretty much equally divided breed wise." He then went on to tell me if he puts an Appendix through one of his procedures, "I have to push the others to test it. One time, they give in. Not so with an Appendix, they will immediately react and often end up flopping around on the ground like a fish." (I said we had some philosophical differences.)

If you wish to speak with me for any reason my phone number is 706 816-7190. If you miss me, leave your name and number and I’ll return your call. I do not return missed international calls so if you are calling from outside the U.S. email me at Marv@MarvWalker.com and we’ll set a time for me to be ready to answer your call.

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