the new horse ordeal - the stress of moving horses

The New Horse Ordeal – The Stress of Moving Homes

So, you go and find yourself the perfect horse and spend a lot of money.

You bring the horse home, or it arrives on a transport truck, and then your nightmare begins…

The perfect, easy-going horse is now hard to catch, difficult to lead, impossible to ride. It's freaked out by the world and suffers the worst case of separation anxiety you have ever seen!

A long time ago, this happened to me.

I had purchased the horse sight unseen (yep, I have done all the “wrong” things!), and I am sure if I had seen the horse, I would have wondered if it was drugged or something. But instead, I thought he obviously had a mental illness and diagnosed him with generalized anxiety. I proceeded to try every supplement, herb, and promise of anything that would help him. Unfortunately, nothing worked because that wasn’t what was wrong with him. I just didn’t understand what was happening to him and I didn’t have the insight or skill to help him build a relationship with me.

I have learned a lot about this situation over the years, and here is my explanation so you can understand what has happened to that perfect horse you paid a lot of money for.

1. Moving homes is an ordeal:

When horses are presented with a change in their environment, they will not feel at ease in that place until they have processed where they are and worked out there is no threat. The same thing happens when you take a horse away from home for a show or clinic, but when they change homes permanently, this causes them a lot of stress because, unlike when they have just left their home temporarily, there is no return home where they can relax. Besides getting used to everything at their new home including new ways that things are done, they can struggle to sleep. Sleep deprivation can be a major source of problems in horses, and just this alone can set a chain reaction leading to everything from gut health issues to reactivity.

2. Ability to cope with differences:

When you test rode the horse pre-purchase, you would have been riding, what I call, the “ghost” of the rider before you. The horse would have been all tuned up from the rider before, which was either the horse’s usual rider or a skilled professional rider. When you got on, the horse probably noted the difference but since it was in a familiar place and feeling at ease, it would have been in an emotional state to cope with your slight differences. However, with a dysregulated and stressed emotional state from transport, new home, and sleep deprivation, that horse will be confronted by your differences and be completely different from the horse you rode.

3. Conflict and negative association:

Most people do not have the skill to deal with a horse struggling with the mental, physical, and emotional ramifications that a new home brings. The horse they expected to bring home and enjoy has turned into an unpredictable, frustrating, and scary ordeal. The interactions with your new horse have been full of conflict, negative emotions, and struggle. You are confronted by the horse, and you have to respect; the horse feels the same way about you. Their experiences with you have been negative, and they will see you in this light. It is unfortunate but understandable. This is why they can suffer so greatly from separation anxiety or be buddy sour or barn sour. These behaviours are triggered when a horse feels alarmed by their experiences instead of confident. The good news is that this is only temporary when you understand what is going on, learn some skills to rebuild your relationship and how to help the horse through their struggles.

So, how do you help this horse?

You need to physically, mentally, and emotionally support the horse in the transition and understand what they are going through. Allow them time to settle in and get used to a simple routine and remember that you have to teach them what you expect them to do in the way you ask them. Respect that everyone does things differently and allow them to adjust and learn your way.

If you have had a bad start, I want to assure you that you can work through this with the right approach and skills. That horse I mentioned above, he frustrated and scared me for 7 years and by changing my approach and learning some new skills, he completely changed. Yes! Even after all that time.

If you want to learn more detail about what I recommend when buying a new horse and transitioning the horse to their new home, I wrote about it in my book called Buying and Supporting a New Horse.

Then, what I recommend to resurrect the relationship with a new horse that has gone pear-shaped, is to do what I call RE-BOOT them. I call it this as it is hitting the reset button and building the relationship with the horse from the ground up. It is a very effective process.

If the whole thing has left you with your confidence shattered, then I spell out how to understand what has happened and an approach to help in my other book Confidence & Trust – Solving the Horse + Human Equation.

Finally, these problems are common. You are not alone. Just the fact that I have written a program, two books and travel around the country showing people who have found themselves in this very situation, shows you are not alone…plus remember – it happened to me!

The fact that I owned a beautiful easy-going horse but didn’t have the skills or insights to understand what happened to him when he got loaded on that transport truck to get delivered to me, is a big reason that sits behind what I do

Photo credit: Cassandra Relph (see blog called "Black Belt Horses" for the story of one the greatest re-booting cases ever )