#horses - #How do you deal with people around the barn who treat horses poorly?

How do you deal with people around the barn who treat horses poorly?

Obviously, there's no one "right" way to care for a horse, but I think I reached the limit of my patience today.

So I'm at a stable with 45 horses (only 42 stalls, but three people now are doubling up on horses, keeping two in one pen). Of course, when you get that many people out there, you get people who clearly shouldn't own a horse or don't know how to properly care for them. We've had horses that had to be put down because the owner insisted on trimming their hooves himself, did them wrong, and messed up their knees to the point where the horses couldn't walk anymore. We've had underfed horses by the dozens. We have people who whip their horses to gallop in the (15 foot) round pen without warmup and put them away all lathered without a care. All of this comes with the territory of being at a large barn, I guess.

Between people who let their unleashed dogs run amok in other people's stalls, people who yank on their horses mouths and endlessly kick them at the same time, people who invite all their friends down to the barn to show off their amazing riding skills (I laughed at this one this morning, as the lady fell off after proclaiming she was the best trainer at the barn), people who feed their horses one flake of alfalfa a day and call it good, people who don't use fly spray... how do you do it? How can you hold your tongue and watch everything that happens without strangling someone?

Submitted July 22, 2017 at 03:00PM by LadyofRivendell
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