Would you smack a pony for being naughty ?

Kimberley

brighthair wrote: »

Have you seen the damage a horse can do to a human? I will not let any horse walk all over me, bite me, push me about or barge me. Whether I have to growl, push them back, or yes, slap them
That doesn't mean I am advocating hitting dogs or children. There's a small size difference, and a horse will feel a smack a lot less than a small child

You would have to ask why that Horse has Bit, pushed or barged at you in the first place. A Horse Whisperer can train a Horse to behave without smacking it.

giantmutantbroccoli

I have a question for the "don't smack your animal" folks on this thread.
How exactly do you think issues of dominance/submission are worked out among pack animals like horses and dogs?
There is no animal moral code of conduct. A pack of wolves will follow the alpha male and female, because if they don't they get bitten. Simple.

Kimberley - I don't know that much about horses, but dogs don't speak English either and yet, if a dog goes to bite you and you smack the dog, that dog will know exactly why it was smacked. It knows enough to associate whatever it was doing just prior to the smack with an unpleasant sensation. Granted, if you beat an animal that will teach it absolutely nothing except that you're somebody the animal should avoid, but a short sharp smack is not a beating!

Raksha

giantmutantbroccoli wrote: »

I have a question for the "don't smack your animal" folks on this thread.
How exactly do you think issues of dominance/submission are worked out among pack animals like horses and dogs?
There is no animal moral code of conduct. A pack of wolves will follow the alpha male and female, because if they don't they get bitten. Simple.

No they don't - they suffer a far worse 'punishment' - they get expelled from the pack, but only if they are adults. A young wolf has a 'puppy licence' which allows it to get away with murder. Domesticated dogs are a long way from packs of wolves - they are behaviourally more like those litters of wolf puppies. Rarely is a domestic dog truely 'dominant' over it's humans, as behaviourally it simply isn't wired up like that. Also, and Alpha male or (more likely) female would rarely bite hard enough to cause damage, as a bite is a source of infection - an infected animal can't hunt and attracts unwanted attention from scavangers. Most wolf pack theory is based on captive wolf packs, where the behaviour is very different anyway from wild wolves.

giantmutantbroccoli wrote: »

Kimberley - I don't know that much about horses, but dogs don't speak English either and yet, if a dog goes to bite you and you smack the dog, that dog will know exactly why it was smacked. It knows enough to associate whatever it was doing just prior to the smack with an unpleasant sensation. Granted, if you beat an animal that will teach it absolutely nothing except that you're somebody the animal should avoid, but a short sharp smack is not a beating!

There is a difference between the dog knowing 'why' it was smacked and associating it with the unpleasant sensation. For a dog - if dog does A and it is followed by B it's cause and effect. It doesn't know *why* something happened, only that it did. If the reward from doing A is not outweighed by the punishment from B, it will keep doing A regardless. However, if the reward from doing C outweighs the reward from doing A, it will prefer to do C (effective house training is a good example of this - smack the dog for pooing in the house, all he will learn is not to poo in the house where it can be found, or at least remove the evidence...... Reward him for going outside - and bingo!)

laurauk

what a sad world we live in. people find it acceptable to smack an animal if it bites or kicks?
who is the animal and who is the human? i thought we as humans, had brains?
all i can say is that there are some very controlling and sad people that should think, of what it would be like to get a slap, every time they didnt do as they were told.
all animals hav a soul and feel pain too,
remember that, next time you get the urge to slap.

giantmutantbroccoli

@Raksha -

No they don't - they suffer a far worse 'punishment' - they get expelled from the pack, but only if they are adults.

Where do you get your information?
I ask because I'm curious, as it directly conflicts with what I've read, heard about, been lectured on and been told. I don't have a degree in animal behaviour/zoology, but it interests me greatly & I've got a background in biology, so I've pretty much read the entire Manchester university library shelf on predator behaviour - and many of the books were based on the behaviour of wild, not captive wolves. I think I was going to write a story about werewolves, and got carried away with the research... Anyhow. Different, individual wolves behave differently, to a much greater extent than dogs, but it is certainly much less common for a wolf to be ostracised than it is for it to be bitten! I'm not talking about proper, all-out fighting, which is also quite rare, but a nip or a bite is the usual response if a threat doesn't work. You'll notice I didn't mention that bites DO break the skin - I'm not making the point that wolves are cruel! The response depends on the situation, the time of year and the position of the offending wolf and the dominant wolf within the pack.

Although not usually as intelligent as a wolf, a dog is still capable of understanding its' position in the household/pack. By your logic, dogs would be unable to establish a pack heirachy with each other,yet they do - not as complex as a wolf pack, but a heirachy just the same.
I'm afraid I got a bit lost in all the A's and B's there, but I think I got the gist of it. I'm not suggesting you attempt to train a dog without rewarding it!
House training is not a situation where force should be used, as it's an unnatural thing to train your dog to do - their instinct is to mark where they live, after all. I'm not denying that smacking is something to be careful about, all I'm saying is that a smack does not equate to cruelty, and that occasionally it may be necessary to smack an animal. Not all the time. Not even often.

@laurauk - Sometimes a bit of control is necessary. Like if you own a dog or a horse, or any other animal that could seriously injure another person if it misbehaved. BTW, humans are animals too.

laurauk

abit of control? i wish we had that control with alot of humans, but where do you draw the line? what do you class as abit of control?
you never gain the respect or trust of an animal by raising your hand.
sorry but slapping, poking, whipping, whatever you want to call it? does not control an animal.
how would you like a sharp whip on the butt, every time you misbehave?

brighthair

I'm not saying I go around beating horses up. I know people who use very different training methods. One I would class as old school - handles foals from birth, trains them well and has expectations on manners. She would also tell a horse of if needed. The other one uses natural horsemanship methods and never disciplines his horses. Guess which has injured the owner at least 4 times?
How many who have posted in this thread own their own horses? And if you do, do they back up when you open the stable door? Stand still until you ask them to move? I set clear boundaries for a horse, and if a horse breaks these boundaries then I will tell the horse off. This might be by pushing a horse in the chest if it doesn't back up when I open the stable door. Or by saying stand in a sharp voice if the horse is messing about

Mimi_Arc_en_ciel

Kimberley wrote: »

Ouch! you still love him/her though

Sorry been away and forgot about this thread!

I havent got him any more, i wasnt able to carry on riding so thought it was cruel to keep him. My accident was 3 years ago, have only just started riding again but i wont get another horse for me but if my DD wants one then maybe when shes older and more responsible she can have one.

It didnt put me off riding at all, i was very scared but knew i needed to ride again. I did try to start back up a few months after my accident but then fell pregnant, had 2 ops and now here i am, back at stage one learning how to canrter without freezing up lol ahh ill get there, everytime we hit a corner im expecting the horse i ride to bolt lol

tandraig

I had to reply to some of the posters on here who seem to think that only people who don’t keep or work with horses disagree with physical punishment. As i said before , my OH kept horses for years starting when he was fourteen (way before he met me!). he had about 12 – 13 horses and ponies when we met.. ...one of our early dates he took me to local auction and there he fell in love with this sorry looking specimen. Yeah the ex-polo pony! He wondered why he got him so cheaply, but arranged the ponies ride home. We expected him in early evening but it was dark when horsebox pulled up. One of those huge jobbies. An irate driver jumped out and opened up for us.. god – you should have seen the damage that pony had done! Neither driver or my OH could get near it! OH remembered the pony being calm enough as it was led about ring by a female handler. Yeah he sent me in – told me to talk quietly as if to a baby.....I was terrified – I wasn’t used to horses but i started chanting mary had a little lamb and pony quieted down – i was able to untie halter and lead pony out while OH and driver hid. I let pony go then . luckily my OH had put him in empty field cos apparently it didn’t like other horses!
OH had the bright idea of getting me and his friend (female) to groom pony (named LOCO) and start work with him. Yeah i did get bitten a few times – but never ever retaliated as we had seen the scars on him. Vet (luckily female) confirmed the pony abused. We worked ever so hard and after nearly a year loco could tolerate males near but wasn’t about to let one ride him! So from being a complete novice – i learned to work with an abused pony and in return he taught me how brilliant and intelligent a pony could be.
My oh eventually sold him to a girl who he had broken in her first pony as a second pony and she adored him (the pony not my OH). She had him until he passed away. He never did like males much but to be honest i don’t blame him.
My oh had lots of diff types of horses and ponies – one i particularly remember was half arab half cob. Absolutely gorgeous with best of both features. I never saw my OH raise a hand never mind a whip! And he had trained lots of horses for other people.
To end on a sad note tho – he had broken in and trained a thoroughbred for a milkmans son and we heard that the son had died while exercising the horse – something had happened and apparently the boys foot had been caught in stirrup and he was dragged and died of head injuries. My OH s reaction was ‘ not surprised – the way that b*****d treats the horse’ he wished he had never had anything to do with him.

Raksha

One of the reasons I no longer ride or enjoy watching horse sports is that so much done with horses is based on negative punishment - taking away something which is unpleasant to make the horse do what you want - all the physical 'aids' - leg and rein don't encourage the horse to work for a reward, they encourage the horse to do something to make the rider stop doing something the horse finds unpleasant - move away from the leg or from pressure from the bit. Western riding seems a little better, but not a lot.