Who's The Boss?

One of the episodes we filmed was about an ill-mannered horse and her submissive owner.  I don't think that this is an unusual problem, though it is a dangerous one.  One of the things that we were told in our crew meeting was that we weren't supposed to correct the horses and that it was best for the horse owners to do all of the handling.  At first, it seemed like kind of a silly directive, but it made perfect sense; not a single one of us on the crew would have tolerated this kind of behavior from a horse and would have made a correction without thinking twice about it.

I know several horse owners who are excellent riders, but not such great handlers.  Over the years, I've known several people who were injured by their horses because they've allowed their horse's manners to slip - or they've never instilled manners in their horses in the first place.

This is not to say that Estes is the best mannered mare on the planet.  She's got manners, but just like letting my kids slide once in a while with theirs, I've allowed hers to slip somewhat.  It's easy to do.  Little things like letting her stop shoulder-to-shoulder with me instead of behind me where she belongs.  She can be pushy on ocassion when I've fed her one too many treats and she gets it in her head that it's okay to start snuffling at my hands and pockets. 

Linda over at Beautiful Mustang has written a post on how easy it is to raise a monster.  Go read it, it's definitely worth your time.