Steady on!
These are our very first horses. We know we have to break her. We have another miniature horse that doesn't chase chickensSteady on! @KarateHorse How much horse experience do you have? I ask, because I know a lot of people get into minis because they are cute, but don't seem to realize that they need to be given the same respect and training as a big horse. It's kind of like little dogs being brats because their owners let them get away with things that would scare the bejesus out of anybody if a big dog did it. Horses are herd animals. They are used to living in a group where position within the group is determined by who can push who around, and they constantly jostle and test and shift position to see whether they can move up a notch or so. They do this to people, too. LOTS of people get pushed around by their horses, and maybe don't even understand that's what's happening, because of how subtly it's being done. The straight-out people aggressive horse is a bit more unusual, but it's not as uncommon as you might think. A disrespectful, pushy horse doesn't need a one-way trip to the glue factory, what it needs is someone who can firmly, fairly, and consistently enforce the point that "I am #1, you are #2." The human, any human, outranks the horse, every time.This is Syd, the Man-Eating Mini. I have known her from a foal, and have owned her since she was about 2. She has long understood that she doesn't get to push me around, but it has taken a long time for her to get the message that the same applies to people she doesn't know, too. She's not evil, though this tendency of hers could make her dangerous if she was allowed to get away with it. Truth be known, her personality is fun-loving and tomboyishly rowdy, and she tends to react rather than think, but she willingly does what is asked when she understands the task at hand.
