SOCIAL ANXIETY – MANAGING A HORSE WHO IS AFRAID OF OTHERS

Most horses love other equine company, and for many of us, this idea is so ingrained that it can come as a shock to realise that some horses are, in fact, nervous around other horses. This usually comes about through a specific event or a collection of events, but it can be challenging to manage and even dangerous in certain situations. In this article, we look at the potential causes of this fear and ways in which you can manage it and work on it to help your horse cope better in ‘social’ situations.

Causes

Fear of other conspecifics is not a ‘natural’ behaviour and usually results from one of the following:

• Young horses are often wary when first taken into spaces with other horses being worked or ridden. Naturally, horses display certain behaviours when meeting other horses, and in the work environment, we don’t allow them to practise these. Without this ‘introductory process’, horses can feel anxious and unsettled. They are left unsure how to react to each other, and this can make them excitable or nervous.
• Horses who have had insufficient socialisation, such as those kept alone for a long time, are often very wary of new horses.
• Horses kept in a stressful herd environment, such as one where resource guarding over limited grazing occurs, will often develop anxiety about being with other horses.
• If a horse suffers an injury or has an accident in a particular situation, this can cause them to be fearful of it in the future. For example, if one horse runs into another or kicks out at another in the warm-up arena, it can cause fearful associations with all horses and all arenas.

Behaviours displayed

In these situations, horses usually show their anxiety through behaviour such as reluctance to enter the arena or paddock, shying away from other horses, ear pinning or threatening to kick if other horses come too close. Ultimately, if not dealt with, the behaviours can escalate into rearing and bolting.

Overcoming the issue

To help horses overcome their fear and learn to be relaxed and confident around others, you will need to go right back to basics and build up positive associations again. To work through this process, you will need plenty of patience and the ability to read your horse’s mood. You will need to spot if he is anxious, calm or shutting down due to too much pressure.

The key with this work is not to move on to the next step without achieving relaxation in the previous step. Rushing through the stages will do much more harm than good, and this is not an exercise to tackle when you are pressed for time.

The exercise

1. Take your horse into an empty arena and get them working and settled. You want them to be listening to your aids and tuned into what you are asking of them.
2. Once your horse is working well alone, you can ask a friend to bring their horse, ideally a horse that your horse is familiar with, into the arena, but keep them at a distance. This distance may need to be very large in the case of a very anxious horse or shorter in a less worried horse. Scratch your horse on the neck to reward them if they remain calm and keep their focus on you when the other horse is present. If they are unable to focus, ask your friend to increase the distance between the two horses. As soon as your horse is calm, reward and reassure with scratches.
3. Once your horse is relaxed, start to ask him to move on small, simple schooling patterns like the circle in the walk. The other horse needs to remain in halt. Your horse may be a bit more tense or distracted, but reward him with scratches when he pays attention to you and keep calmly guiding him through the exercise when he is not, and you will eventually get him to settle.
4. Once your horse is relaxed and able to work in a calm fashion with the other horse in the arena, move your horse closer to your friend’s horse. Use circles and serpentines to approach, rather than walking up to them head-on. Using circles and serpentines also allows you to gradually get closer and then move away before getting even closer, etc. This approach and retreat method can be really useful for nervous horses, as the retreat serves as a ‘reward’ for being brave in the approach. If your horse struggles to cope with this part of the task, then back off, and find where he is comfortable and reward him with scratches for paying attention to you and being calm in that space. When he is ready, you can try to approach again.
5. Once your horse is calm in approaching the stationary horse, you can ask your friend to start moving their horse in small schooling patterns in their section of the arena whilst you continue moving your horse. You need to do this until your horse is relaxed again. This may mean initially moving further away from your friend’s horse while they both move.
6. Once your horse can work in a relaxed fashion while the other horse works, ask your friend to start walking their horse around the arena and follow them on the same rein. Again, wait for your horse to become relaxed with this.
7. Finally, once you can do all the above steps in relaxation, you can try moving onto opposite reins and passing each other at a reasonable distance. You can reduce this distance as your horse becomes more accepting of the other horse.
8. Over time, you can start to do this in trot and canter and repeat with different horses and then a couple of horses at a time. You need to set your horse up for success by working with sympathetic riders who understand your training process.

This process may take several sessions, particularly if your horse is nervous. Do not ‘stick at it’ until you have completed all the steps, as you are likely to overface your horse and ultimately set him back further in his social anxiety. Instead, do a small amount per session and always end on a positive note. When you return to work on the issue more, simply start from step one again and see how far you get. You should find the earlier steps take less time each session, but recovering from anxiety is not a simple linear process, so always give him the time he needs at each step, regardless of whether you feel his progress should be ‘faster’ or not. Move at his pace, and you will achieve calmness much more rapidly than if you ‘force’ your own timeline and expectations onto him.

NOTE: Do not rush this process. It may be that you only get to step two on day one, and that is perfectly acceptable. Rushing your horse through the stages will only add to his tension and mistrust of other horses and make the issue even more difficult to tackle.

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Top tip

Another option for helping these horses is finding kind pasture mates with whom they can be turned out. Having herd mates who are not anxious can help your nervous horse calm down. Having said this, the introductions to herd mates will need to be done gradually and in a controlled fashion to avoid overwhelming your already anxious horse. Finally, it is vital that there is no need for any of the horses in the herd to resource guard. Water and grass must be readily available for all horses in the paddock and must be easily accessible in more than one location.

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Final thoughts

For many of us, it will not have crossed our minds that our horse’s issue with a warm-up arena or crowded space is actually the other horses present, yet this problem is more common than we think. Working on it gradually over time and allowing our horse plenty of time to be a horse in the company of other mature and well-adjusted horses will really help him overcome this challenge and feel safe with his conspecifics.