Deconstructing Horse Aggression

When I got home after school, I walked in the front door, dropped my books, and walked out the back door to see my horse, King. I called him a strawberry roan because I was in love and he was a sorrel with a smattering of white hairs. That day, he wasn’t grazing, which was odd, so I went over to the shed that passed as a barn. King was inside, looking wild-eyed like he’d been in a bar fight. Hacked up garter snake bodies littered the dirt floor of his stall.

Later research informed me that garter snakes don’t build nests, but prefer to take over other animal’s dens. They like cool dark places, sometimes under rocks or building foundations. The very definition of a shed in an orchard in Washington state. And they hibernate in large groups. Right then, there were hundreds of little corpses. So many that even I could smell them. And there was my horse, looking anything but proud. He was terrified.

After I got him out and raked the mess out, I found an area of ground collapsed in a corner of the stall. Maybe the snakes all broke through from their den for some reptile spring frolic. Do snakes stampede? Did they scare King bad enough that he panicked and started an untrained piaffe, not stopping until the ground stopped slithering? Why didn’t he run out of the barn? Did the snakes block the door? How long did it take for this level of carnage? Was he in shell-shock now? The only thing I knew for sure was that it had been self-defense. Horses aren’t natural killers.

Horses are peaceful animals. They do not have a dominance hierarchy. Herd life is normally quiet and cooperative. They are vegetarians and will live together with many other kinds of animals. But even after generations of what we call domestication, their survival instinct is strong. Horses never give up the three main survival methods: flight, fight, and freeze. If there’s a threat and a horse has room, they’ll run. If they’re in a small space, or if they have experienced fear-based training, they might choose to shut down or freeze. But the third option, fight, is the least common, and probably the most misunderstood.

What has to happen to a horse for them to change their nature and act aggressively? How do they go from cooperative herd animals to pinning their ears and lunging at people or other horses? It feels like aggression, but are we reading it right?

The number one reason for what we recognize as aggressive behavior is pain. Horses that appear angry are frequently screaming for help. It might be gastric, lameness, or even something invisible, but don’t be fooled into thinking it’s a training issue, especially if that behavior is escalating. Call the vet. We should always think of pain first when a horse behaves in unnatural or unusual ways.

If we are certain the horse is sound, then look to the other horses sharing the space. Is your horse living with a bully? And no, bully isn’t a fair term if we don’t know the health of those other horses, but you get my drift. Horses can’t thrive under threat from others and it will impact their health and their temperament.

Then we must take each horse as an individual. Some horses prefer one friend rather than a herd. Some mares don’t associate with geldings. Sometimes horses age out of the group they have lived with for years, no longer feeling physically sound. Maybe they fear lying down in a group or cannot eat in peace. Just because horses have lived a certain way for years doesn’t mean it still works for them. All horses change over time, and a change in behavior is a request for help.

Once in a while, you might meet a horse who is so tense their body looks like metal. Rather than looking away or other common calming signals, they seem to hold ground with hard eyes. It’s so unlike most horses. A step closer and they aren’t welcoming. Maybe they air-bite or pin ears. These horses almost act as if they want to be hit, like they would rather start a fight rather than linger in fear or dread.

Back in the day, we were taught to oblige. Snap the rope, make them blindly back up, and scare them out of it. We might put them in the round pen, wave a flag or a whip, and try to chase it out of them. Exhaustion doesn’t resolve the problem. And now we’ve allowed ourselves to be baited into an unfair fight with an animal who isn’t behaving normally.

The FBI made animal abuse a felony in January, 2016. Not just a felony, but a Class-A Felony. That puts horse abuse on par with the same category as arson, rape, and murder. It had been a long time coming, but it wasn’t from a deep concern for puppies. They acknowledge this because animal abuse is closely tied with violence against women, children, elders, and indeed, our entire society. They consider it “entry-level” abuse.

I’m not saying we are all monsters, but I’m hoping horse owners will come to a similar conclusion about the day-to-day dominance they have been taught to exert over horses and other domestic animals. I say “taught” because when it’s always been that way, we no longer notice it. Fear-based methods are so interwoven into our culture that it seems as normal as spanking children. Currently, corporal punishment is permitted or not banned in public schools in 23 states. Even that is an improvement over previous generations. But humans are slow to change.

What I knew about King and the Great Garter Snake Murders back then is the same thing I know today. Horses still aren’t aggressive by nature.

Some horses and other animals learned aggression from us. Can we at least agree that they will not be “fixed” by more of the same treatment that created the problem in the first place? Aggression does not heal aggression.

And can we forgive ourselves because we learned it from those before us? We are the only species of animals with a dominance hierarchy, but we should never normalize that worn out trickle-down hypothesis. Let us be the ones to change it.

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