I have a little mare, Ali, who is a strange little soul. I would think she has been treated fairly roughly in a past life. Sweet girl most of the time though and quite nicely put together.
Anyway she went to visit a stallion for a fair while last year and had a lovely time. But when we picked her up they said at the stud "have you noticed Ali's head shake" which I hadn't, but then when we went down to the paddock to see her she was flicking her head flat out. They said she had been doing it a lot. Very odd. So we took her home and she stopped just about immediately. So I shrugged and put it down to a change in local herbage or something.
On Sunday she was playing "I'm a little toerag" games. Yes she was delighted to see me, she would mug my pockets to see if I had anything to eat, let me touch her all over, huff down my neck, have cuddles, no problem. But when I tried to put the halter rope round her neck she cleared off and wouldn't come near me until I put the halter down again. So after half an hour of playing silly games I walked her into the yard, pinned her in the shelter and applied the halter. Then I made a fuss of her and let her go.
The next morning I look out the window and there is Ali headflicking like crazy. Now I'm confused... she was fine, what the hell is wrong with her? I'm busy writing an email to that effect to someone for comments and suddenly it hits me... it's the halter. She never wears a halter at home normally but she wore one a lot at stud for ease of handling. The same halter she is still wearing - it's got a tag on it with her name on it so the horse transport people didn't drop her off at the wrong place (okay I'm paranoid I know but I didn't want her going to the wrong stallion).
I'm guessing the tag swinging either amuses her or irritates her.
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