How to behave around Marish behaviour?

[Hedgehog6]

I’m saying it’s Marish because I’ve had geldings for decades so it might be just her. I’ve had her for 3 months and she’s a lovely steady ride and can be soppy and gentle. However, she throws her considerable weight and size around at feed time and in the field. In the morning I will go in and fetch her hay net and buckets and she’ll be charging across the stable or over her stable door pulling the most awful faces and trying to bite her neighbours. She doesn’t do it at people but she’s not very respectful of space. Same at night and in the field if you go in with them (her and 2 ponies and a donkey) she’ll run at the them and kick out to keep them away from me. I have a 10 and 13 year old who ride and have been used to just going into the field with their ponies but they can’t anymore. Her previous home was on livery. She was given lots and lots of treats so is always looking out for food and if she did pull her face she was shouted at. Is there anything I can be doing with her. I’ve been keeping stable routine efficient at feed times and working on backing her up, not adverse to giving her a growl and squaring up to her but is there anything else I could be doing. I’ve been searching for horse behaviour videos online but not found anything relevant So far. Thanks

Look up Gemma Pearson - she’s an equine vet who specialises in behaviour and has some useful videos on instilling basic, safe manners (from memory they’re called ‘don’t break your vet’). The other thing I’d check is your mare isn’t in any pain or discomfort - we often dismiss unwanted behaviour from mares as ‘she’s just being marish’ without digging any deeper. Having said that they are entire animals so may react differently to things than geldings will but animals the size of a horse aren’t safe unless their ground manners are good.

I was going to say the same as @Pleasedontdothat a lot of behaviour that we’d view as pain in a gelding we view as “marish” in a mare.
And my default is if in doubt get it scoped… the amount of horses I’ve known described marish/rude/nasty/bolshy etc etc that turn out to be riddled with ulcers is ridiculous

Agree on having everything checked out. I’ve only ever had mares since I was a teenager, I much prefer them and none of mine have ever been like this except the odd day in season.

That doesn't sound marish.

That sounds like a horse with issues, possibly behaviour/manners but it sounds more like pain/discomfort. If it is hormonal it isn't normal and requires investigation.

Was she like this in her last home? If not what has changed?

I'd knock treats and food in the field on the head for a start for safety and avoid doing anything while she is in the stable. I'd consider fencing her off in the field too, I hate individual turnout but for safety it might be best as a temporary measure.

I agree scoping is probably a sensible first step. The issues around food plus general unhappiness/aggression could be ulcers.

@JesusMaryAndJosephAndTheWeeDon @Ichosetheredpill @Lastqueenofscotland2 @Pleasedontdothat thanks for your replies. I did wonder about ulcers but doubted myself as it’s so specific to situations. Once she’s been fed she’s not bothered about the others (apart from in the field when I’m there) and is very gentle, hacks out happily with others, front or rear, is easily handled and ridden by myself and my children. However, could it be that ulcers might make her less patient at these times of anxiety? At her previous home all had their own individual turnout. Previous owner did say she pulled her face at other horses at feed time. I’ve messaged owner to see if she can shed any more light on it. She’s a fantastic horse, perfect for us in every other way. I’ll give our vet a ring and take a look at Gemma Pearson. Thanks again

An other point is that she was stabled a great deal at her previous home. She’s only in at night because I didn’t want to break her routine. She’ll be out full time once the frosts have gone. I’ve been doing more research and ulcers are looking a likely explanation ☹️

Scope her. As a start. Make sure she always has access to hay in the meantime. Don't feed from the hand. I wouldn't be escalating by particularly telling her off, but make sure you can always move her back quietly and assertively and pick up all 4 feet every day.

Ignorant newbie question - would you mind explaining what you mean by pulling a face and why someone would shout at a horse for it? Where I live, it would mean having a rude expression so I think I am missing something :)

You're not missing anything, it literally means having a rude expression! In horse terms it means pinning their ears back, sometimes showing their teeth, lunging forwards as if to snap at you (they usually don't actually bite though), sometimes swishing their tails or stamping their feet. These are all aggressive/dominance behaviours and the reason people associate them with 'grumpy mares' particularly is that horses are matriarchal and you will often see the alpha mare in the herd displaying these behaviours to more junior herd members to show them their place in the herd, although any horse, male or female can 'pull a face' at another horse or at a person to express general displeasure, 'get out of my space', 'stop doing that' kind of communication.

Why would someone shout at a horse for it, well basically because people want their horses to be polite and non aggressive, they're big dangerous animals and you want to discourage/prevent aggressive behaviours and certainly prevent them escalating, same reason you might see someone shouting at their dog for growling, raising heckles, snapping etc. Now is it actually good horsemanship to shout at and 'punish' a horse for showing aggressive behaviours, I'd say no. Like in dog training, we're coming to understand that actually aggression signs, particularly towards humans, are more likely often driven by anxiety/stress or discomfort than 'naughtiness' or a desire to dominate. And that punishing your animal for giving you an early warning sign/trying to communicate with you is very confusing for them, they will be made anxious and upset by being shouted at but won't necessarily understand the shouting was linked to the 'face' they pulled rather than the underlying reason for their behaviour, so e.g. they may come to associate being in pain or frightened with being punished and thus either hide the signs of pain/fear next time or react even more aggressively. A lot of traditional horsemanship is based off dominance theories sadly (same as traditional methods of dog training) but thankfully more people are coming to see the benefits of actually understanding how horses think and working with that rather than assuming 'naughtiness' the whole time.

Thanks @maxelly , you do give such excellent explanations :)

Hi @maxelly can I hop on here and ask a related question please?

Why is it that lots of people dismiss bad behaviour in mares as being "Marish" rather than investigating them for pain or health issues like they would a gelding?

I've not been riding long and our riding school only has geldings so I've never ridden a mare - but from what I've read on here and on other horsey blogs, mares have a reputation for having a bit of an attitude. But when a gelding displays that same behaviour, people recommend checking them for pain/ulcers but in mares it's so often dismissed and I was just wondering if there was a historical reason for that?

Thanks!

@coffeecupsandwaxmelts gosh hard question. I guess the thing to say is in general historically most undesired behaviours whether in geldings or mares would have been put down to a training or rider issue if there wasn't an obvious/visible lameness/illness/injury - veterinary medicine and diagnostics really have advanced hugely in the last 50 years, for instance physio wasn't a thing when I was a child whereas now most horse owners use one at least occasionally, we were more laissez faire about saddle fitting too, and we'd barely heard of ulcers - ulcers in particular are the 'fashionable' thing of the moment to blame any and all issues on but I am sure more will be discovered so in 20 years or so we may be looking back and retrospectively thinking that a lot of our horses problems today could be explained by XYZ new thing that's been researched more extensively by then. It's not that people were cruel in the past or keen to brand their horses as naughty, just the knowledge wasn't there even amongst vets never mind horse owners.

But that being said, I guess people talk about 'moody mares' because the reality is mares' behaviours can be different without it being a sign of pain - like a PP said they are in full possession of their hormones unlike a gelding and that does affect them particularly around the time of their seasons. Of course just like people, some are far more driven by their hormones than others, and we don't have a super developed understanding of what exactly this 'feels like' for the domestic horse (a lot of medications and treatments focus on preventing the season altogether) but we guess it's something similar to PMT in humans which frankly does make any female pretty moody! And like I said, (some) mares do naturally tend to want to dominate anyway as that's how it would work in a natural herd so they probably are slightly more likely to show 'moody' behaviours than geldings. With all horses it can be very tricky to tell what's a 'normal' level of grumpiness and just part of a horse's personality and what's a sign of pain or something being wrong. Hope that makes some sort of sense, interested in others' opinions!

Thank you! That does make sense 🥰