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My friend Kaitlin owns a horse, Dexter. She does riding and dressage, and is a pretty active horsey-person. She also lives in the city, probably at least 30 minutes away from the stable. Last night she was talking about Dex being a jerk to other horses. That got me thinking. She probably goes several days in a row without seeing her horse. Horses were domesticated like dogs, and I'm sure they get attached to particular people. If someone had a dog, but let other people care for it and only visited it twice a week, I'd think they weren't being very considerate about the emotions of their dog. Is it fair for city people to own horses? I know it's different, with horses being a prey animal and not living in the same building as us, but it still seems a bit cruel to the horse.
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May 22, 2016 01:32
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| # ? May 5, 2024 20:36 |
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Horses aren't dogs. They spend most of the day hanging out with their horse buddies and most prefer hanging out with their horse buddies than people anyway. They don't really give a poo poo or notice if you're there every day or not. My horse lives on the east coast with my family so I only get to see him a few times a year now but he's still happy to see me when I turn up.
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May 22, 2016 15:23
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Aquatic Giraffe posted:Horses aren't dogs. They spend most of the day hanging out with their horse buddies and most prefer hanging out with their horse buddies than people anyway. They don't really give a poo poo or notice if you're there every day or not. What happened to driving all over the world with a horse  Domus posted:My friend Kaitlin owns a horse, Dexter. She does riding and dressage, and is a pretty active horsey-person. She also lives in the city, probably at least 30 minutes away from the stable. Last night she was talking about Dex being a jerk to other horses. That got me thinking. She probably goes several days in a row without seeing her horse. Horses were domesticated like dogs, and I'm sure they get attached to particular people. If someone had a dog, but let other people care for it and only visited it twice a week, I'd think they weren't being very considerate about the emotions of their dog. Is it fair for city people to own horses? I know it's different, with horses being a prey animal and not living in the same building as us, but it still seems a bit cruel to the horse. Some horses get more attached than others. It's really doubtful that Dexter is being a prick because he misses his owner. It's likely Dexter is being a prick because he's a prick and horses are assholes, even to each other. Their minds function at a different level wrt group life mentality than say, a dog would, which is why while horses are like "oh hey cool my horse friend is back that's great" and they're happy, they aren't actively looking for said missing horse 99% of the time. Dogs sometimes do. So yeah, it's fine for a horse to chill out with it's a horse friends. It doesn't mind.
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May 22, 2016 16:02
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Fluffy Bunnies posted:What happened to driving all over the world with a horse What about it? That has never been and will never be the plan.
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May 22, 2016 16:56
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Oh, cool. I guess I thought because horses have a herd, and dogs have a pack, they might have similar reactions to a member going AWOL. So do you think horses mind being stabled? Again, comparing them to dogs, I'd think they'd be understimulated. I guess I don't know much about what makes a horse happy, but googling just gets info from people selling toys or guides about keeping the bedding changed.
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May 23, 2016 01:46
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Depends on the horse as far as liking being stabled goes. Mine loves it, and he does horribly if he doesn't have a nice cozy indoor stall to go to. Tried a mostly outside barn once and he lost a lot of weight due to stress since he's socially retarded and couldn't make friends (ex-racehorse, never got the whole herd experience as a youngin' so he's the equivalent of a home schooled kid with no social skills) and was generally really unhappy, so we moved him to a half inside/half outside arrangement with segregated herds based on age/sex/personality and he's much happier. Some horses are totally fine being out in a field in a huge mixed herd 24/7.
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May 23, 2016 02:48
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Domus posted:Oh, cool. I guess I thought because horses have a herd, and dogs have a pack, they might have similar reactions to a member going AWOL. Most horses that live in a herd will get agitated when the other horses are removed and they remain alone. The big difference to dogs is that horses are prey animals who need safety in numbers to avoid getting singled out by predators. Being alone is a life threatening situation for them and very stressful for a horse. Domus posted:So do you think horses mind being stabled? Again, comparing them to dogs, I'd think they'd be understimulated. I guess I don't know much about what makes a horse happy, but googling just gets info from people selling toys or guides about keeping the bedding changed. Also, horses really REALLY like routine. If a horse has been stabled for most of its life, its quite possible that it will not be able to cope with the change to living outside in a herd. Nektu fucked around with this message at 20:20 on Jun 3, 2016 |
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Jun 3, 2016 20:13
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Nektu posted:Also, horses really REALLY like routine. If a horse has been stabled for most of its life, its quite possible that it will not be able to cope with the change to living outside in a herd. This is most of it here. Mine got little to no contact with other horses in his formative years so he bonded more strongly to people. He loves having people around and generally couldn't care less about other horses. He was happiest when he was at a stable with the stall closest to where people would congregate and hang out and he had a private paddock next to the parking lot so he could watch people coming and going. Other horses would be totally happy never seeing a human and hanging out with their horse buddies all day every day in a huge field and would go nuts with the above arrangement. It all comes down to finding a situation that works for both you and your horse. Just like with dogs you gotta find one with a personality that meshes with what you want to do with them.
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Jun 4, 2016 00:53
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| # ? May 5, 2024 20:36 |
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If you can find a stable where he can see out and look at stuff, he'll be happier than if he's by himself. Also, a professional stable has someone to feed, water, clean, and generally keep an eye on them. That's better than coming home to find that she's managed to unlock the gate and is merrily destroying the neighbor's yard. Again.
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Sep 4, 2016 07:12
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