Mounted search and rescue

["Thor Burfine" <thor@cpcinc.net>]

There are known and documented cases of "Mean" horses.

 

For the most part horses in their natural environment will run away from people (predator)

As horses become domesticated they gain what we call personality.

 

Example:

I have one that I call the pest, he is like a puppy and will just follow me around all day

I have another that will not allow anyone but women near her unless you have food

I have another one that wants to be near us but is still shy

I also took in a "mean" horse a few years ago, he would bite, kick, and strike out against anyone shorter than 4 foot

    come to find out he came off the track and hates to run, turns out he had an injury that was unknown to anyone

    solved the injury and my daughter 6 at the time was showing him in hunter jumper and is the biggest sweetheart in our herd

 

My neighbor just had to have one put down after it attacked a few people

    I was one of those he attacked. He reached over the fence bit my arm and pulled me into his pen.

        I was a threat to his herd so he defended his herd, I got to close.

 

Most cases of horses attacking people come from the person doing something wrong.

• A horse charging someone with a feed bucket is lack of training the horse to not charge the feed (human error)
• A horse kicking people is a horse that has not been trained to not kick or was startled (human error)

Most of the time its either training or human error.

 

The biggest thing to remember is that a horse is 1,000 pounds of muscle and flight instinct with a brain size smaller than your coffee cup.

 

There natural instinct is to run or defend, if you do something to trigger that instinct then they will run or defend.

 

As for mean horses, most of the ones I have dealt with came from abusive environments or where never touched by human hands

and therefore where just wild and needed to be trained.

 

 

Thor Burfine

Texas Equusearch, Houston TX area

Lost is Not Alone

------------------------------------------
Thorton K. Burfine
thor@cpcinc.net
Creative Process Consultants
C – 832-651-6328
F – 832-550-2749

 

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From: msar-riders-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:msar-riders-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Emily Horsman
Sent: Thursday, February 08, 2007 8:47 AM
To: msar-riders@lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [MSAR] Horse instinct

I'm with Great Lakes Search Team, of Battle Creek Michigan.  I was recently asked by a local professor if horses have a "natural instinct" to not charge/harm people.  I told him that they are primarily animals of prey, and not prey animals, and therefore I don't believe they would intentionally harm people, but advised him that I would ask the experts (you).  Any info on this would help.  Thanks. 

Emily L. Horsman

 

Emily L. Horsman
Academic Advisor
Kellogg Community College

 

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