Anomaly

Lately, it appears that there are many horses that seem determined to behave in ways that make absolutely no sense. Behaving in ways that I have never seen or heard of before.

In the Chosen One video, we have a mare that instantly bonds to a human so strongly that she literally lies down at my feet, trusting me that much, within minutes of meeting. Another horse in another pasture, miles away, bonds instantly so strongly, that while running free in a pasture all year around, he is more than happy to trust me so much that I could spray him anywhere, even in his sheath area, his face, wherever. A baby deer wanders up to me in the middle of nowhere. And now I have one stallion that shows stereotypical behaviour that he quits the moment I arrive at the barn, and the behaviour remains gone.

What the heck is going on?

This makes absolutely no sense. It has left me struggling to understand. Struggling to grasp what is going on. Why? What is going on in the stallion’s brain? What is he thinking? Why would he go from a stereotypical behaviour so strongly present on Friday night to none the next day, from the very moment that we took him into the barn?

After thinking about it for a week, the only thing other than long-distance telepathy that I can possibly come up with, is intent.

This stallion is so sensitive that intent is strong enough to create a change that physical actions couldn’t. He is so sensitive that clear intent, even with no obvious physical manifestations, is enough.

I personally had seen and experienced his stereotypical behaviour close up. The lead rope became one of the most important things in his world. His skill set in grabbing, sucking on and inhaling the lead rope, lunge line or any other rope-like object in his purview was truly phenomenal to watch. He literally inhaled the rope to blissfully chew on it with his back molars. Crunch, munch, his molars chewed down onto the rope.

Nothing seemed to work to stop this behaviour. Frustrating to experience. Difficult to keep your patience. Costly, with the number of lead ropes that needed to be replaced.

The loss of focus on his part was even more frustrating. His world became that rope. It didn’t matter whether he was tied, being led, being lunged, or ground worked. The rope, the munching, was too much of an attraction.

One can wonder or talk about why, or what could have been done to resolve this stereotypical behaviour, many of which solutions we talked about between ourselves. That isn’t the point. The point is that on Friday night it was there.