STRESS
Anxiety, Bad behaviour, Fear, Travel anxiety, Show ring anxiety etc.
Causes
These are many and of great variety as practically any strimuli can cause symptoms in any particular animal. Pain, disease and previous bad experience probably head the list.
Signs
Range from mild anxiety or reluctance to perform a given task or action through general bad behaviour to severe anxiety and fear in any circumstance when achieving the owner's goal is impossible.
Treatment
As in many cases prevention of bad experience is far better and easier than cure. When introducing a young horse to any new experience extreme patience must be exersised by the handler. For example, when introducing travel with horse box or trailer let the young horse take his/her own time to sniff out the vehicle and if possible leave it open in the paddock, as long as the side gates can be safely secured, and put the feed and hay inside for self service. When the time comes for the first drive out, ensure that the route is simple and short so that the experience has any problems and anxiety making events minimised. Return home and give lots of praise and rewards taking care that exit from the box or trailer is slow and controlled. Using this approach as a model continue the education of the young horse to cope with all he or she will be asked to do.
If a horse new to you and your surroundings exhibits stress and anxiety in any situation even more patience is needed to re-educate and rehabilitate, professional help may have to be sought. The first cause to eliminate is any pain, then disease and finally seasonal hormonal problems. In some cases stress releiving compounds may be used either temporarily or regularly to ease a horse over particularly stressful events and during re-education. Hormone balancing preparations can aid mares.