Julie Goodnight Natural Horsemanship / Horse Master TV Show

The Training Library
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Question Category: Horse Behavior
Question:	Thanks for responding to my first email. Now, the deal is that the mare is neighing, which she has NEVER done in the year and half that I have had her. She also makes this donkey bray sounding noises, when her head is down and ears pinned back. She is mostly doing this with the little minis that are in the next pasture. This seems to be with the mare more than the stallion. With the gelding, she is kind of coming around. She is a bit buddy sour, I guess, cause when I took her out with the gelding to their "spot", she heard the goats and started to go toward them, as far as the rope would allow, then, gets tangles up in the rope!!!!!!!!! I went on and took her back, since I was alone, and felt that my safety might be at stake, as well as hers. She didn't hurry to the pen, she was good. Once she was in the pen, and off the lead rope, she walked to the end of the pen, where the goats were, and started neighing. We also have a stallion about 3000' from our pasture, I wonder if that could be part of the problem? The gelding and her are doing better, and we are pleased with their progress. We are not able to work with them everyday, but mostly on the weekends as my husband works nights and I work days..............
Answer:	The behavior you describe, "head down and ears pinned back," is known as snaking. It is an aggressive herding behavior most often seen in the wild when a stallion is herding up his mares or fighting with another stallion, but any horse can snake and it is always a sign of aggression and dominance. The sound you are describing is probably a squeal; which is what horses do when they are very irritated and about to become aggressive. This is a dominant behavior and your mare is trying to get control of her herd. The stallion in close proximity could be contributing to the mare's need to gather her herd and establish control over them. Hopefully the herd hierarchy will eventually straighten out, once all the horses are secure about who is the leader and who are the followers. Anytime a horse is displaying snaking behavior, you should be very careful around the horse. If the horse is out in the herd and there are no humans around, it is probably just a herd thing that needs to be sorted out, but it is an indication that the horse is fairly aggressive so you should always be careful when interacting with the horse in a way that may provoke him to become aggressive. If the horse ever acts that way when a human is around or toward a human, that is a big problem and one that needs to be dealt with by an expert hand. Good luck and be careful. Julie Goodnight, Clinician and Trainer _________________________________ If you liked this article, Julie suggests the following products to help you continue the work with your horse (or call 800-225-8827 for ordering help): Animals in Translation Book: http://shop.juliegoodnight.com/shop/baanimalsintranslation.html