So I’ve had a little bit of time to handle and observe Dexter and while I have not seen any of the bad behavior on the ground (he’s been quite compliant still), I have seen some of the behavior concerns with regards to fences and other horses. I think the issue here is a horse that is young, and was gelded late (at age 3, we were told), who has no social skills at all, and has learned he can get through fencing if he tries hard enough. I first turned him out with a couple of mares (Zan and Calamity) and while he was not aggressive to them he did get very possessive of them and liked to herd them around. I added Goliath and Annie to the mix one day and Lucky and my yearling gelding Truman another day and he got very concerned about them getting close to “his” mares and spent a lot of time running the two paints away from the other geldings.
The next day I tried him by himself in one of my front pastures next to my three horses (two mares and a gelding). He was fine for a while and then started pacing the fenceline and finally breaking through it to get in with my horses. To his credit, we are talking about just a single strand of hot wire that is not very hot right now. Once he got in though he immediately started herding the mares around in a similar fashion. He was put back in his pasture and he did the same trick twice, so he was put back in a paddock, and THAT was the point in which he went kind of nuts and started threatening to climb/tear down the gate to get back with the others (he earned a night in a stall for that one).
The next day I tried him with Lexi. Lexi immediately HATED him and spent some time chasing him off when he got near her, but her presence was enough to keep Dexter quiet and he didn’t even think about testing a fence that day. Last night I had him in a paddock two paddocks away from Lucky and for some reason his very presence there was driving Lucky mad and he kept rushing the fenceline towards him. There is something about his behavior or lack of social skills that pisses some horses off. Today I have him in the front pasture with just the wood fences with Lexi again and he is remaining quiet.
I still haven’t seen him do anything REALLY aggressive towards another horse, just a lot of running around, herding them, obsessing over other horses. I think, like Baxter, he is just studdy and may need to be pastured separately, or with a dominant horse. He does need secure fencing that his hot if he is going to be turned out separate from other horses.
I will say this, he looks like a million bucks. Need to get new pictures!
