Articles: horse behavior

You enter your horse’s stall or corral, he flattens his ears, flares his nostrils, swishes his tail and threatens to kick or bite. He's sending a clear message: "Get OUT!". Does this look familiar? If so, your horse is exhibiting a normal horse behavior of dominance. Perhaps he only displays this aggression when you bring his food. You’re worried that he’ll eventually hurt someone. Why does he do this and what can you do about it? Aggression toward people is especially common with many horses who have a history of abuse, or who are confined to small corrals or in stalls, but can also be common with horses that spend a lot of time around people. Horses can get used to people to a point where they start viewing us a other herd members. Aggression is often manifested around food, or it may just be whenever we enter their stall or corral. If we don’t curb this behavior, it can be dangerous. Horses outweigh humans by over 1,000 lbs, it is easy for them to hurt us, even if they don’t mean to.


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Horses are spooky because they are prey animals. In the wild it is the spookiest prey animals who will survive the longest. Horses that are too slow to react to danger will be the eaten. Instinct says run now and ask questions later. If you even think, hear, or smell danger, run first. Horses would rather be 100 miles away and then ask if it was really a tiger that they heard in the bushes. In the wild, horses can not afford to stop and think. A spooky horse will be reactive, jumpy, nervous and quick to take flight. Why? Because as a prey animal, the horse must constantly be on the lookout for looming danger, which could be behind a rock, hiding in the tall grass, or prowling in the bushes. Those that react and bolt the quickest are more likely to survive in the wild.


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