My two geldings have become a bit too close and one in particular gets very anxious when he thinks he is being taken away from the other one, especially when being ridden away. He starts to get very anxious and worried and squeals, pigroots and bucks for about five minutes. I have enlisted the help of an experienced rider who is coming once a week to ride him and help sort this out, she is excellent and is very calm and gentle which he responds to. I have decided not to ride him myself until she has worked with him a bit more as I to tend to get a wee bit tense when riding and I don't want to undo her good work. However, I would like to also do some groundwork to help the situation - I am much better at being calm on the ground. I was thinking maybe of fencing off the older more sensible gelding in the corner of the paddock and then practising leading the other one in a Dually headcollar and long lead rope around the paddock, trying to get a bit further away each time. Eventually I might be able to lead him out of the paddock and out of sight for a short while. I have been told I should just go cold turkey and take his paddock mate away completely for a while until he settles, but when this happened with a previous paddock mate he went berserk charging about and crying out, and spent two days in a really stressed state before attaching himself like a limpet to the new horse when he arrived. Has anyone else had to deal with this type of situation and how did you overcome it? I would appreciate any suggestions or advice. He is an ultra sensitive horse and I want to make sure this is handled properly so as to cause him the least stress possible.
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I have also dealt with this situation between two gelding a younger and older gelding. This is not an easy thing to fix and it will take a lot of perseverance to overcome. It's important to take each horse out for short periods and separate them for a few minutes and then back again to reassure them it's ok. Then longer periods of time, Monty talks about this in his book "From my hands to yours", and he actually suggests exchanging horses with a neighbor at least 2 miles away riding your horse to the neighbor's and riding their horse home and exchanging the boarding responsibilities, "Do this a sufficient number of times until your horse appears settled and no longer difficult about leaving to your stable". I took this directly from Monty's book. Ground work is also extremely important as this helps the horse to trust his rider and not be so anxious while out riding. My old sensible gelding just died and my other horse whinnied for him for two days but he also had another horse with him so it wasn't terribly traumatic for him, he didn't run all over in a panic. There are other threads on this subject, but you might read Monty's book on this subject. I've given you just a part of what he has to say on this subject.
Hope this helps,
Kleinne
Thanks for your reply Kleinne, I do have a copy of the book and have just gone back and read again the bit about swapping horses, I had forgotten about that - perhaps that would be something to try when we've got his confidence up a bit, I think I need to do some of the gradual separation stuff first and take tiny baby steps.
Klienne's comments are great hear and you seem to be doing all the right things yourself too. If you haven't got a friendly neighbour to swap horses with then continue to do your ground work with the dually as you have explained as it sounds good. Try to get them out of sight of each other for a few minutes initially and then just lengthen it. My QH gelding gets very upset when I take Tricka out so I just shut him in a small yard and hope for the best. He is fine to take away from Tricka so it is a different issue. I think horses that have had to be by themselves at times in their lives tend to be worst with this as they don't wish to be alone again. Good luck - it sounds as if you have thought it all out pretty effectively. Great to have an experienced person helping out too.
When I bought him he was kept alone by the previous owner. Once he got to my place and was turned out with his paddock companion he was super excited and just wanted to be friends with him, so you may have hit the nail on the head as to why he is so clingy, Maggie. It's an interesting point that I hadn't considered.
Kleinne, I forgot to say before sorry to hear about you losing your old gelding, that sucks.
Thanks, he had just turned 32 four days before he died, he started losing a lot of weight last summer and we just couldn't seem to put any on so by the time he died he was a walking skeleton. It was really a blessing for him to go I could hardly stand to look at him in the condition he was in, I was just glad he didn't have to suffer any more and it solved my buddy problem. So again, it really was a blessing.
Hi Emlaw
Lots of good advice above but thought I'd let you know what I did with my 2 geldings. My situation was different but if I explain what I did there may be elements that help you? One of mine had to go to the vets for sarcoid treatment but we knew it wasn't going to happen for a couple of weeks so we had a bit of time to start the separation work.
Both boys are extremely close (they are rescue ponies)so we knew it would be traumatic for them to be separated for the first time in their lives. With that in mind we did it in small stages. I was lucky that a friend near-by offered for them to stay at her stables - our added complication was that the one needing vet treatment was going to have to spend time in a stable for his treatment so he had to get used to being in a stable too!
Anyway, we put both boys in our friend's paddock and where they were able to see her ponies but were separated from them. Naturally they were curious about each other so touched noses but because they were separated by a fence they were all safe. Two days later we separated my boys in the paddock - with electric fencing and energiser - so they were still technically near one another but not next to each other. Then we put one boy in another section so he had his mate on one side and my friend's ponies in another. A couple of days later we put one boy in with the other ponies and kept the other one where he was.
A day later we started taking one of the boys out for a walk around the fields but his mate could see him. After that we took our boy out for a 5 mins walk so his mate couldn't see him but returned after a few minutes so his mate could see he would come back. Finally we had to take one pony to the vets - the one left behind had his other pals for company.
As I say, our situation was different to what you are having to deal with but I wonder if before you take one horse away from the other it might be an idea to have them in the same paddock but separate them with an electric fence and energiser etc before you take one away? I suppose what I'm saying is 'why not break it down into tiny steps as preparation for their eventual separation?
I hope it works out for you. Lizzie
Thanks Lizzie - it's always good to hear how different people have dealt with similar situations, we can all learn a lot from each other, that's why I think this forum is so great!
Kleinne - it is so hard to see them go downhill like that, but as you say a blessing in the end.