#horses - #Colleague may have undone the work we've been doing with Fitzgibbons.

Colleague may have undone the work we've been doing with Fitzgibbons.

Just need to complain about this to horsey people. tl;dr at the bottom.

7 months ago, Fitzgibbons (a handsome Clydesdale x Thoroughbred equine-assisted learning partner) was left alone in the paddocks. There was some mix up, and all the surrounding horses were brought home but not him. When we got to him, he was covered in sweat, pacing, generally freaking out. He was unwilling to go to the paddocks thereafter. We slowly brought him up for short periods of time until he was able to go to the paddocks for about 1.5 hours max, as long as he is surrounded by herd members.

Some horses were brought to the paddocks again - Fitzgibbons and three other horses (two polos, an Irish Sport). About an hour later, we returned to find only three horses. The Irish Sport was missing, but his paddock was very neatly opened and his head collar was gone (so we knew he hadn't escaped). Fitzgibbons was freaking out even more this time. He was drenched and sweat was literally dripping off his abdomen and muzzle. His body had heated up. I was unable to calm Fitzgibbons down and had to call the stable manager to help. When we were washing Fitzgibbons up, he was super snappy and kept pinning his ears back.

Apparently, my colleague (who has been here longer than me) found it appropriate to bring the Irish Sport down on his own because he had things to do. I keep trying to think about how the responsibility of this mishap could be shared but I cannot. He didn't even have to bring down the horse - he could've come down, like the rest of us did, and asked someone else to bring the horse down. It's even SOP to never go up or down the paddocks alone - either take all the horses or none of the horses. Simple.

I am hoping for the best when I see Smacka at work tomorrow. I'll be staying in the paddocks the next time we go up, just to see how he's doing, probably gonna sit further away to observe.

tl;dr Colleague decided to bring one horse down from the paddocks, leaving three others behind, one of which is known to have anxiety issues we have been working to overcome.

[edit] Even the polos were slightly anxious when we got to them.

[edit] Fitzgibbons when we saw him, sweating, tense, and pacing.

Submitted May 22, 2018 at 06:53AM by d_w_s
via reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/Horses/comments/8l9r24/colleague_may_have_undone_the_work_weve_been/?utm_source=ifttt