Bo bit me!

[chickbea]

Here's a weird thing:
The old TB mare I take care of, who is well into her twenties and whom I have known for years, bit me yesterday!
I was leaning over her stall door, and she walked over to me (I thought for a cuddle), and she grabbed ahold of my hand and yanked on it! Happily she got mostly glove and only a bit of finger, but what was that all about? She is the sweetest thing ever, and has never offered to bite in her life. It's a mystery to me...has anyone ever heard of a horse going senile? It sort of reminded me of when a dog gets really old and starts becoming unpredictabley mouthy...

 

[miss_jayne]

Quote:
do you usually offer treats by hand?

are they the same gloves you always wear?

no matter what, unacceptable. tell her NO!

sometimes animals just do weird things. my horses have done odd things, but biting, leaning and kicking regardless of what the circumstance get the big NO and sometimes more.

 

[Pumpkinpup]

I must say that is odd.

 

[patandchickens]

I have known clearly senile horses. However they've been a good bit older than 20. (I have to say I've started Wondering about my own 20 yr old TB lately, though... he has done some pretty odd things, unlike himself, and I am concerned... but I dunno, am willing to chalk it up to being cold or spooked, at the moment...)

My first couple thoughts would be, a) is it possible someone has been feeding her carrots or other treats across the stall door? or b) is it possible she is hurting somewhere, either lameness type issue or back/neck/chiro type issue or internal issue (ulcer or etc)? That can cause unusually grouchy acting-out.

I'd keep an eye on her though. I've known two horses put down with what turned out to be brain tumors, both started out with small acts of aggression and weirdness... I do NOT think that's what you're dealing with, but, you know.

Good luck,

Pat

 

[PitterPaws]

She's old.... Probably can't see very well anymore..... must have thought you had a treat for her.... go easy on the old gal, and be thankful you had gloves on

 

[chickbea]

Eeeee - I think I might have figured it out and now I feel silly for not thinking of it earlier - since it's fall the horses have been getting apples, and when I cut them up, my gloves get covered in juice, so I'm sure they smell just great. Hopefully that'll be the last we see of that!

 

[patandchickens]

Glad you solved the mystery

Hope my guy's is something equally straightforward, like, well, I really don't know what, but maybe something.

Pat

 

[chickbea]

Well, I hope I solved the mystery! She's been her old self since then..
What has your old guy been up to?

 

[patandchickens]

He's done a few subtly odd things, but mainly, it's two recent times when it's been cold and wet and I've wanted to put his turnout sheet on. Normally he LOVES to have his jammies put on -- he comes over and pokes his nose out and down so you can put the blanket over his head -- and he's always always been really really easy to catch. However on these two particular days lately, he would not let me get anywhere near him, with or without the halter. One day I was wearing a jacket I seldom wear but the other day I was in my usual jacket. He acted like I was wavin' a chainsaw at him or something, wouldn't even come over to a bucket of grain.

I finally put the other two into their stalls to help troll him in, but after he stood there forty feet away and watched me lead 'em into the barn, he started running all around the different paddocks neighing like he either couldn't figure out where they'd gone or couldn't figure out how to get there himself. (The gate and barn door were standing open). He finally stood still long enough to hear them whinnying for him, and slowly cautiously snuck in the door and into his stall (where he was still really weird about me haltering him) where I put his blankie on.

I am not sure this really conveys how *weird* it was. You have to understand that I have gone out there on countless cold wet mornings to clothe him, over the years, and he knows darn well how it goes, and he LIKES it, and he has never ever been hard to catch. And except for those two days, he has been easy enough to approach and catch.

I don't think he was spooked by anything, b/c I've seen that at work at various times over the years and that generally involves the other two gettin' all snortied up too, and they totally weren't these times. They seemed puzzled.

I am tentatively chalking it up to "he was feelin' really cold and just not thinking straight" (he is the type of TB where once the switch is tripped he stops thinking analytically or reasonably about things).

It's just that he's never been at all remotely like this before. And there's a few other subtler things that are hard to explain succinctly but could be summarized as him seeming to kind of 'lose the plot' when familiar processes are going on.

I dunno.


Pat

 

[chickbea]

Oh, dear. Now you remind me of something else Bo has done a couple of times lately.
There is a section of the pasture that is fenced off because it used to be full of burdocks, but we finally (yay!) have gotten rid of them all, and have left the gate to that section open now. It has been that way for about a year. One of the other horses (hard-headed warmblood), who is not the brightest bulb on the string, is always going into that part and forgetting how to get out (the gate is the opposite direction from the barn, so they have to go down and then come back up). Bo, however, has never had a problem with this until about a month ago. Twice I've found her in that section in the morning, and she wanders up and down the fenceline trying to get out, crying all the time. I have to go all the way down there to help her find the gate. As soon as I get about 20 feet away, it's like a light bulb goes off ("oh yeah, the gate!") and she gallops right out.
Can she really be forgetting? I'd be so sad to see her decline mentally. She had a rough time of it last winter and we spent all summer getting her weight back up and getting her healthy physically. We might have to start a support group for owners of geriatric, senile TBs!