Tag horse behavior

An itch, a scratch and a real doorbuster

Nancy Crowe Leave a comment

This is Tuff, a 23-year-old quarter horse I work with regularly in my animal communication and Let Animals Lead® practice. He’d been scratching his itchy back end against his metal stall door, popping the door loose at least once.

Please scratch on the post instead, his carers requested. I passed that along and got only a sigh, but for the next month or so I didn’t hear about any more door busting from the humans.   

One day I was at the other end of the barn and heard a rattling thunk, thunk, thunk. All I could see was Tuff’s door bending into the aisle with each scratch.

I hurried over and asked Tuff to stop. He did, then proceeded to take a very splashy drink of water. (You know you’re in the right line of work when getting dribbled on by a huge mammal makes you laugh.)

Tuff’s itch was treated and a staff member put a butt-high brush in his stall for those inevitable scratching needs. He was reportedly doing better about leaving his door alone. Then what did he do the next time I stood outside his stall? I’ll tell you what I did – I stepped out of the way of the stall door bending into the aisle.

Maybe that was Tuff’s way of telling me to cut the conversation and get on with the calming meditation. Next time I’ll try that. Or I may have to explain to him why he has something worthy of a medieval Scottish castle in place of his stall door. Stay tuned.

(Photo by Nancy Crowe)

Communication gets you further than compliance

Nancy Crowe
Image by Rebecca Scholz from Pixabay

Frustrated dog, cat, and horse owners will often enlist an animal communicator to get the animal to do what they want. They’ve tried and tried to get the cat to use the litter box, the dog to stop digging up the dahlias or the horse to just get on the trailer.

These are all legitimate concerns and ones I’m happy to address. However, animal communication is not about compliance. It’s about gathering information that will help animals and their humans find a way forward.

For example, a communication session can tell you:

• A noise from the water heater startles the cat in mid-pee. Moving the litter box out of the utility room, or adding one in a different spot, could make a big difference.

• Your dahlia-digging dog needs more enrichment. Which seems obvious, but he may also tell me that nose work or agility training would be even more fun than additional walks.

• The horse’s previous owner used force to get him to load. A small change — even you doing some deep breathing before you lead him to the trailer — would let him know he is safe now.

As with human brains, making the link between actions and consequences can be a work in progress. Nevertheless, knowledge is power, both for the animal knowing what the human wants and the human knowing where the animal is coming from. Why ask for compliance when communication gets you so much more?

Dental anxiety? Reign it in

Nancy Crowe

Itchy with bug bites, Megan the gypsy horse was in no mood to have her teeth done. I’d been told she had dental issues and, even with sedation, anxiety to the point of rearing. Now her turn was coming up.

I told her what was happening and that I knew firsthand that tooth and skin problems are no fun … but not insurmountable. She’d indicated a few weeks earlier that she was “the queen around here” — so I said: “Be the queen. You’ve got this.”

She was skeptical but shared a meditation session with me. I pictured her bathed in a gentle light, regal and unbothered.

Megan reportedly had a good visit with the equine dentist. As befits a queen, all four feet stayed on the ground.  

We all require maintenance now and then. If an air of royalty helps you get it done, go for it. Just reign kindly.

(Image courtesy of Canva’s new AI wizardry)