Over here over here
Ted suffers some serious separation anxiety/herd bound/co-dependancy issues. He is a little "special"
I don't like having him by himself, he gets miserable and pines at the gate all day long. He was in with a pony mare for 10ish months and they formed a ridiculous bond, I was however able to take Ted out for a ride without him losing it trying to get back to his missus. However, when 3 other horses were temporarily moved into their paddock he LOST it, he was an absolute nervous wreck, herded the 3 mares all day long away from the old gelding. When I took him out of the paddock he would tremble, sweat, scream, jump around. Run around crazily in the arena until he just about fell over. It's like his mind just totally froze over and all he could think about was the herd, totally ignored his other surroundings. Once the 3 horses were taken back to their normal paddock he was fine, instantly himself again
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Now I know that when I go to put him with other horses to proceed with alot more caution. In the first day that he was on spell in a herd of 12 on 100 acres, he took my weanling filly (whom he had never met) and another clydie X weanling, separated them from the herd and formed his own mini herd, acting like a big fat mother hen
The 2 fillies escaped back to the normal herd and now he is forced to live amongst the big mean broodies lol.
So can I join the co-dependancy club? lol
Oh so my solution is chuck them in a herd WITHOUT their co-dependant horsey partner and they will learn the way horses are supposed to learn.