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Green Horse Green Rider Followup club
This is a talk club made for those who have commented or read articles from Green Horse Green Rider, real life horse situations club. Here you can talk about you and your horse's progress together. On the G.H.G.R. page you can ask questions on how to solve horse related problems and recieve advice; here you can post stories on you and your horse progress, shows, days together if something interesting happened.

cool star!!!! my dad is buying a purebred Arabian mare named Cutzie Suzie:) she is dappled gray and my dad said that it is a Christmas present for the family:)	jjpals & Dynamo
2014-11-24 21:20:30
That's amazing Star and jjpals! Sounds fun. I don't know if I really have said anything like that before, GS. If so I can't remember.	Horsesforever12 & Jedi
2014-11-26 01:16:04
Go this from Stacy Westfall's blog I thought it was interesting. Why does my horse paw while eating grain? 24 NOV “Help!! I just got my mare a year ago, and from day one, whenever I feed her grain, she picks up her front foot. She isn’t aggressive in any way, shape, or form. Has anyone ever seen any type of behavior like this? Eating grain is the only time she does it. Thanks!!”-Kelly S. When I watch horses eat their ‘natural’ food source, grass, it is easy to see that they have to work a little to eat it. If you watch a horse eat grass they pull, tear or rip it up. If you give a young horse hay or grass from your hand they gather it in their lips and pull like they are going to tear it from the ground. As they get more experience they often learn that this isn’t necessary, but it does tend to be their first response. I have even seen horses that pull apart round bales seeming to prefer to eat hay that requires them to pull on it over the loose stuff on the ground. Not all do this and some horses are content to eat the loose hay on the ground. Low corner feeder discourages pawing while eating grain. My theory is that the grain is easy for them to pick up but easy isn’t what they were designed for. Some horses that are picky eaters are ok with nibbling but others seem to struggle with feeling satisfied by the method of feeding. There have been entire books written about the the pros and cons of feeding grain so I will save that topic for another day. If the grain feeder is raised the pawing is generally more animated with the leg being lifted higher. If the grain is fed on the ground the horse tends to spread it out…and then nibble around for it. In our barn we built low corner feeders with a concrete base that was ground level and the boards were about knee height. This eliminated almost 100% of pawing in all the horses because it is more difficult to paw with their heads down and the board in the way. Occasionally a new horse would paw and bump their leg into the board but either the board or the difficulty of the position discouraged pawing and they stopped. My horses have free choice hay and the minimum about of grain necessary. I use a ration balancing feed that doesn’t require a large amount which makes it easier to digest and they tend to eat it and then return to their hay. We have also noticed that the horses that we have that would normally paw while eating alone in their stalls don’t tend to exhibit this as much when out in a group. They seem to know that they had better spend more time eating and less time playing if they want to get their fair share. Written by Stacy Westfall	Golden swallow & Bow tie
2014-11-26 01:16:04
:) I can't wiat	Starwalker123 & Star
2014-11-26 01:26:32
Wow, that's an interesting article. I never knew horses did that!	Horsesforever12 & Jedi
2014-11-27 00:09:44
:0	Starwalker123 & Star
2014-12-07 15:59:17
I love the new horse he is super friendly and clam	Starwalker123 & Star
2014-12-28 02:08:05
What to do with a bolting, bucking pony? 26 DEC “Dear Stacy, I have a question and it will be a little long to ask. I know your awfully busy and there’s little chance you can find time to answer it, but since there is a girl and her pony at stake, I thought I’d go ahead and ask, anyway. Last year in February we decide to buy our 5 yr old daughter a pony (she’s been taken lessons since she’s 3 and is quite proficient for her age, not extraordinary, but pretty skilled). We found a 10 yr old mare in a riding school going bankrupt. She was rail thin and poorly maintained, but she seemed docile enough. We bought her (saving her, really), put 120 lbs on her, trimmed her feet, clipped her, etc. I started some groundwork with her as she had no basic manners and zero notion of personal space. Our daughter started riding her twice a week, and things went reasonably well for a while. Later I started working again and we could only get to the stables once a week. In the meanwhile the mare had put on a lot of weight, had become the boss in the herd she lived with, and had really gotten an attitude. Nice and behaved in hand, but she started trying to buck our girl off on a regular basis, and our kid being a good rider, the mare really had to amp it up to get rid of her. This evolved to the point that every time our daughter would mount, within a few minutes the mare would start showing signs of annoyance, and then bolt, crowhop or plain buck violently until our kid was off. It’s been a month that our daughter has been totally demoralized and hasn’t even visited her mare, let alone wanted to ride any horse, whatsoever. My understanding is that our mare had been previously underfed and overworked, and even too tired or weak to protest about the heavy schooling she had to endure, but had never been properly trained, and that with renewed strength and self confidence, she is now fighting work with all her might. What is your interpretation ? I don’t think the situation is fixable and have plans to put her up for sale in the spring, with a heavy heart, as she is a beautiful and kind animal, but those bouts of violent behavior I cannot risk, as a mother. Sorry for the lengthy message, but this is my bottle to the sea, hoping it’ll reach your shore. Thanks for all that you teach us, I’m enjoying the Jac series beyond words.”-Claire D. Claire D I would say that your assessment is probably pretty reasonable. While we will never know exactly what lead to this end, we can still make a plan on how to go forward. My first recommendation is to check that there are no physical causes for this behavior. This can involve many steps depending on how in depth you want to go. A vet is the obvious choice but also include experienced horse people, chiropractors, dentists, etc who can all be informative. If you check out physical causes and find nothing then we can move to training and conditioning. In the best circumstances I train with prevention. To me this means that I prevent as much as I can from going wrong and I prevent as much as I can from letting bad habits grow. While challenges will still arise they are different than issues that have been allowed to ‘brew’ for a long time. If I had to modify one thing that you said it would be that she is ‘fighting work with all of her might.’ By the sound of it she does a fair amount of work when she is trying to get out of her situation. For some reason she has it in her mind that this is what she needs to do. Maybe somewhere in her past she had this habit, or a minor form of it, and the lack of weight and strength held it in check. Maybe she had a lack of training and on a particularly bad day in the past she dumped her little rider and found some relief. We can come up with many possible situations that would set this up but in the end we alway end up back at where you are today with two questions: What is best for your daughter? What is best for this pony? Sometimes it is easier for me to look at it as two separate issues and then look at the whole again later. It sounds pretty clear that your daughter is not enjoying her mare or any horses at the moment. As a mom you will need to determine how much this has affected your daughter. Maybe take her to visit other friends that have horses and see if she gets excited or interested just being around them and their horse. Another idea would be to take a trip back to the place where she originally took lessons. Watch her and see if she lights up again or asks to ride the safe quiet horse she knew from past lessons. How she responds to these situations will tell you a lot about how long it will take her to regain an interest. It is also clear that the pony is in need of some training. This may be something that you decide to take on yourself or you may hire someone to train. I cannot tell the ponies size from the photo but you may be able to find a small adult that is able to assess the issue. It would be interesting to know if the pony was this testy with other riders or if she does respond better to a stronger rider. One of the issues with kids is that they really are tiny and lack both experience and strength to execute some things. I would NOT allow other kids to ride to find this out. Find a professional that you trust to evaluate the pony. A good candidate may be the person your daughter originally took lessons from. That person may be able to either assist in the hands on evaluation or give you contact information of someone who can. There are also other ways to train or add to the ponies skills if you have the time and mindset to do so. Teaching a pony to drive can help keep their energy level in check with regular workouts where they are held accountable by adults. If you are determined to keep the pony you can be creative about ways to assist in the retraining. It also sounds like you are considering selling. If you do sell it is your responsibility to tell any potential buyers of this ponies habit. I would recommend reading a blog I wrote titled ‘Should I sell my horse?’ In this article I site three things to consider: safety, enjoyment and purpose. Sometimes the thought of selling causes people a great deal of stress. I don’t think people should buy and sell horses without care but I do believe that there are many good homes out there and often a better fit for a horse and rider. From Stacy Westfall's Blog. Note: The Jac series the mom was talking about you can find on Youtube and is a good series to watch. I watched some to see what training she does. GS	Golden swallow & Bow tie
2014-12-30 02:09:53
Right	Starwalker123 & Star
2014-12-30 19:23:01
nice	Horsesforever12 & Jedi
2015-01-02 21:40:32