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Discussion on Mare is pawing with her forehand (right or left one)
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New Member:
anabell
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Posted on Friday, Jun 24, 2011 - 12:48 am:
My mare Anabell is a 7 year old Haflinger mare. There is a certain area in the stable for horse grooming. Whenever she is there, only after a couple of minutes grooming her, she start so paw with her forehand. Any advise how to solve this? I do think she just wants to attract my attention or she still needs to get used to having more horses around her.
Additional information: Before I bought her a month ago, she was alone in a stable for about 2 months. In the stable she is now, there are a lot of mares and geldings (32 horses as a total). When she is out on the paddock, she is with a German Riding Pony, a Shetland Pony and an Islandic Pony.
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Member:
judyhens
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Posted on Friday, Jun 24, 2011 - 10:03 am:
Welcome! We own Andalusians, but have one Haflinger mare who is truly our pride and joy. We have found the Haflinger to be an incredibly smart breed, comical, and craving human attention. But they can be somewhat impatient... :-) I suspect that might be what you are dealing with. Our particular mare, Starz, plays the guitar, piano, plays ball, and adds, subtracts, multiplies,divides and does square roots (as long as my husband knows the answer). :-) She also "smiles" on command. She does her math by pawing. Initially we found that she would paw indiscriminately, since she got a tiny piece of carrot when the clicker clicked and we got the correct answer. So her first response was "oh! pawing leads to treats!" We were able to extinguish the over exuberant behavior to exactly when and the no. of times we wanted by ignoring random "paws" and immediately rewarding appropriate "paws". I don't know how that would readily apply to your situation since you aren't training her to do this, but it should give you some hope of abolishing the behavior. Our Haflinger loves to be busy. I truly believe she has a sense of humor. My guess is your girl is bored. - I think you will be very, very happy with Anabell! What an amazing breed!
Blessings,
Judy
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New Member:
anabell
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Posted on Friday, Jun 24, 2011 - 10:39 am:
Thanks, Judy. It sounds like you hit the nail! A friend of mine worried me in saying Anabell might have ADHS. I don't think so, because otherwise she wouldn't be able to be concentrated on me, when I'm working with her. I think the issue is that I underestimate her and did too less with her. Later I will go to see her and I will work with her longer than usually. You write what I thought when I first set me eyes on her. What a lovely and intelligent horse. When I have a photo for her, I will add it to my profile. Then you can see her.
Best wishes
Isabel
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Member:
tdiana
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Posted on Friday, Jun 24, 2011 - 4:04 pm:
HI Anabell,
it sounds like your horse is just being impatient. I think it would be good if you could go and play/work with her before you do any grooming or anything else for that matter that requires standing still. Then after you have played and she had activity go to the grooming area just for a few minutes (less minutes than it normally takes her to start pawing) an then leave that area again. If you have time that day, go and play some more and come back to the grooming area again for a couple of minutes. Just slowly build her tolerance for "boring stuff" like standing in the grooming area. You will find that she will get more and more patient over time. The last thing we want to do with horses who LOVE activity is shut them down by for example starting to struggle with the horse or punish the impatient behavior. It is great that you have a horse that loves activity. By listening to her and giving her lots of active time, she will build a stronger bond with you and then start to also enjoy the quiet non-active grooming time with you. Pics of this beauty please 
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New Member:
anabell
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Posted on Saturday, Jun 25, 2011 - 2:47 am:
Thanks, Diana. I have never punished her for pawing for I thought there is a reason why she is doing it. She is very intelligent and it would be not fair to punish her when I'm the one who's not listening carefully enough. Whatever she has done before, always had reason. Today, I will try not to think too much, but listen more carefully to her what she prefers to do at that very moment. As you said, perhaps she just wants to tell me that she wants more working / playing and had not enough exercise or needs more time out on the paddock.
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Member:
helenw
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Posted on Friday, Jul 1, 2011 - 9:03 am:
From everything I've heard about Haffies, they have a low boredom threshold and like to be on the go as much as possible(and can be a bit bossy with humans!) Its also possible that she is a bit ticklish, mares often are. Try using really soft brushes and cactus cloths and build up the time you groom her. My mare doesn't like grooming simply because she loves to be thoroughly filthy but being scratched, now that's totally different 
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Member:
divamare
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Posted on Friday, Jul 1, 2011 - 9:40 pm:
My two Hafie geldings, 12 and 13, are comical clowns. They play all the time. Can't keep their mouths off things...anything. Very busy. Very sweet. They love love attention.
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