Weird, cuz today he seemed to turn into Mara, during our walk with Ani and Rudi.
His heart was pounding out of his chest, and his entire body was shaking, because....Um.....some riders passed us by on well-behaved horses (one of them Star Island the Standardbred I'd ridden before).
WTH!
As those riders approached, Rudi flipped out completely. We were on foot, and Rudi started running around Ani and deliberately ramming Ani with her massive dun-colored shoulder. Ani is tiny and frail, and the mare just about trampled her....repeatedly!
Because of three horses under saddle walking by?
Ani ended up with her mare tangled in the bushes as she tried to hold on to her 20 foot rope. She almost lost her, but the mare kept coming back to ram her shoulder into Ani's body.
Mag was OK at first, and then he seemed to catch the seriousness of the issue and he bolted around me. Shaking in fear.
The riders continued and Mag stopped his rushing around and I said hi to them. Star Island looked up at us like, "You freaks." Yah.
But Rudi is a 21 year old Quarter Horse. Why would she flip out at the sight of other horses?
***
After they had gone Ani told me she thought that Rudi would actually kill her. That the mare was running her over and Ani was just running for her life, getting out of her way but trying to hang on to her 20 foot rope. I wondered aloud what would have happened if Rudi had gotten away and Ani said, "She'd have run to the far hills!"
Ani was so angry she'd shouted at the mare, and rightly so. She told me she never yells at horses and I told her Rudi deserved it.
But what about Mag? Why was he shaking?
***
It took me a while but I think I know. Although he can get "hektisch" when he encounters another horse/dog/human, today the 21 year old mare showed him true panic at the sight of other horses, and Ani's body was releasing a ton of fear hormones that he caught right up the nose. Mag simply believed Ani and Rudi - this was a life-threatening situation.
I was perplexed but able to hold onto him, and he truly did look like he was at the All Nations Cup in Aachen alongside his father. Wow, can he pose in terror. And I couldn't help wondering why an 8 year old Arab could hold it together better than an aged mare. It must be that thing in his brain that makes him the laziest Arabian I've met.
***
As we continued I felt, for the first time, the need to "help" Ani. I try so hard not to tell people what to do, but Ani kept saying, "She was trying to KILL ME!" and so we stopped, and worked on personal space. Cuz up to today, I'd never seen a horse purposely try to run someone over.
Ani has a little idea about personal space, but it ends in centimeters. I admitted to her I have to concentrate constantly on this, because Mag, and all horses, want to sneak up close to their humans and push them along.
Ani has an idea, but she doesn't understand how to implement it. The mare is always standing with her head right on Ani's chest, and her huge shoulder at Ani's hip. Then the mare presses forward and Ani backs up.
Yah, you know what I'm gonna say next.
***
"Ani, with Rudi it's important that you never back up. I mean, when she comes toward you, she's displacing you (supplanting) and it's rude."
She said, "I know, I have to teach her to give way to me!"
I said, "Did you know every foal is born with the knowledge of personal space and defending it? On day one, foals understand this. But humans do not. We have to learn it, and since most of us love to have a horse nuzzling us and licking us, we don't realize when they push us out of their way."
It's a horrible situation to try to work through. We love them but they need to stay back, unless we come to them, and then they must stay back again. Over and over.
I admitted to her that Mag is really good - but we're far from great. He is careful to keep his hooves a meter away from my feet, but he sure tries to reach his head into my bubble. I told her it's a constant struggle, and I'm only human.
***
Then the two horses saw a hiker in the distance. They both froze, staring. For-e-ver.
It was almost comical, how long they stared at one distant person in the woods.
We stood there and I tried to help her get Rudi out of her space.
"Ani, ask her to take a step back. With BOTH forelegs. OK now watch her hooves. Cuz she's gonna come right back into you. OK, now, correct her, send her back again."
I HATE being a teacher, esp. when someone didn't ask.
But I had the feeling she would give up on Rudi altogether today. "She wanted to KILL ME!"
We worked on that for a while but the mare just escalated. If you can believe it - over a hiker in the distance.
She peed.
She pooped.
She kept her head straight up and I realized her body was covered in sweat, and she was trembling.
From a hiker in the distance.
I wanted to put my hands over Mag's eyes/nose, but it was too late. He BELIEVED the 21 year old mare and he started to tremble a little and I could literally take his pulse by watching his chest. *sigh*
MAG! CUT IT OUT! I yelled at him and backed him up. The moment he gave me his attention I gave him some cookies. Good that I have them.
Rudi got none from me today.
The thing is...Ani gave up. We stood there with the perfect opportunity to practice body/feet control under stress on the trail, and Rudi was such a mess, Ani said, "I just have to take her home, I cannot stand here any longer."
They left us....and Mag was not happy, he was till a nervy statue, but I waited there another 15 minutes. Why not.
I could see for his heart rate he was at his limit, and watching the mare walk right into danger (*toward* the nebulous hiker) was almost too much for him.
So I backed up to a tree and let him make a few decisions of his own. You can stand there in front of me, or you can pace around a bit, back and forth, if you need to, on the half-circle, as I am safe. He did a tiny bit of pacing but thankfully he wasn't at that point, so eventually he looked at me and said, "Are we OK!??"
Yah, let's go home.
I admit, the entire journey home, he kept looking toward the East. Where that dreaded hiker was. Good Mordor, what a freak.
And Rudi? 21 years old and afraid of horses and hikers? Like, full-body sweat/poo/pee fear? WTH!
I rubbed Mag's forehead, "This day, today, was not about educating you. It was the opposite." *sigh*
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4 comments:
Oh my! Not a scenario I’d care to be part of, though I have been in similar ones. Seems to me if Ani isn’t able/willing to work on this, she’d be better off giving up her lease. For everyone’s safety!
You've got a lot here to unpack.
First Mag gets a star for not forgetting his training. Even when a bossy mare, an OLDER mare starts acting out, he managed to keep himself together, if only barely. He gets TWO stars. What he did is not a small thing.
Next you, who trained him. You get a star too, because you trained him and gave him tools, and then reminded him to use his tools, and then rewarded him for doing right things. Star!
Now Rudi, whom I suspect is full of sh*t. I recently spent several hours with Hana, whom I've known since she was seven. Now she's twenty-one (or two?) years old, and STILL pulls out fake spooks and stops as a means of resisting authority. That really drives me nuts--it's the reason I always said that, although I love Hana dearly, she's not "my kind of horse." She isn't honest. She plays dumb and "scared pony" and it is purely fake. She is plenty brave, but she knows that she sometimes gets away with pretending she isn't.
Rudi, I think, is pulling a variation on Hana's routine, acting like a loony bird over nothing and (this is important) GETTING AWAY WITH IT. You (and I) would have backed. her. the. hell. up. and made her work until she stopped being a knucklehead. And you (and I) would have done a bunch of training before and after to establish a very large body bubble that the horse is not allowed to enter without invitation, enforced by the Fury of a Thousand Tiny Hornets. Rudi probably knows better, but she isn't stupid--she has figured out that this rule won't be enforced and she can break it whenever she wants, without consequences.
Ani gets run over, because she hasn't done that training. Now, perhaps she will be motivated to learn how it works and do it? I hope so. It's possible that Rudi is "too much horse" for Ani's current skill set--and the best options available would be to find something that is "less horse" or to gain more skills. But you can't do that for her.
I think for many of us, our hands were twitching, wanting to get a hold of that lead rope. Even in the pasture, when my horses were running to the feed bucket, I'd stand there and indicate with my body that they were to run around me to the side. I didn't step out of the way. I have to remind my Texas heeler all the time to stay out of my space. Her DNA tells her to be Velcro, as it does to stay close and circle the livestock. Poor Ani. I'm afraid she's cruisin' for a bruisin' because of her timid nature. That's why Mag doesn't want her on his back. I agree with Aarene about the bullshit. The horse picks up on the insecure situation with the human and reflects it back and takes control. If the human is timid, well, someone has to be in control, and it's the same way in the herd.
Please don't feel guilty for what you did. This is a dangerous situation for everybody, which includes you and Mag. Yes, it's a learning situation for Mag to focus on you, but ultimately, I hope you don't have to put yourself in those situations. I hope you can talk to her about the danger of all this. She couldn't understand why the horse would want to hurt her, when she's so "nice" to her. sigh. Wake up, please, dear Ani, and listen to Lytha.
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