odd behavior

[insaneponybrain]

Hello , trying to make this short and to the point.

"Sinner our new two year old is acting strange. When we are in the barn and if we are in front of him and not giving him (or any of the other minis ) attention he will stand still and back up, straight perfect slow, until his tail touches the back wall he stops waits 3 seconds then goes forward and then back to normal behavior.

he was bred and then had started learning to pull carts for show and driving.

the question is : is this odd, and should be worry about it and stop the behavior? Is he trying to practice what he learned? Is he showing off for attention? Is he board because of winter/rain.

our worry is if in show lineup he will start to randomly back up and loss points.

soon he will be off to the trainer for the last part of his cart training then 6 weeks later he is off to Kentucky for his first show.

he is quiet nice gentle really a great boy other than this Michael Jackson moon walking.

thank-you.

pictures of "Sinner, last year nice and then last week in his winter coat.

 

[Silver City Heritage Farmstead]

Let me begin by saying:

Welcome to the forum!! I see that this is your 1st post, and figure that means you're new to us. Looks like your boy has quite a bit of knee and hock action. He appears to have a nice balanced way of going from just the one picture. How long have you owned him? And where are you from?

As to your question, I'm not quite sure I'm understanding what he's doing. What I understand is that y'all are in the barn, he stops, backs up to the back wall, waits and then moves forward..is that correct? Is he a gelding?

If that's all that he is doing, I'd guess that he is bored. If he's only two, and is being trained to the cart, being kept stalled for extended periods of time (due to the weather, as you mentioned) can lead to many different types of aberrant behavior. If the backing up is repetitive, it could be a way of expressing stress or boredom at being stalled. Do you know if he did this while at the trainer's? Do you have a different schedule than what he had there?

Again, welcome to the forum. By the way, I really like your forum name....Insaneponybrain!! Hahahahahahhahahahaaaa!!!

Julie in NC

 

[Ryan Johnson]

Welcome to the forum Insaneponybrain.

What amazing markings your boy has.

So I can get a better understanding, what training did he undertake when he went off to the trainer ?

Hoping someone has an answer for you.

Cheers Ryan

 

[candycar]

Can you talk with the previous owners? It sounds to me like he's performing a learned behavior or trick. Maybe they taught him to back up out of their way so they could enter the stall. (big horse trainers do this) Or it could be backing training for shows while in lineup.

Mine will do random tricks to get my attention when I'm not paying attention to them.

He is a handsome boy! I want to see the other side!

 

[Cayuse]

Boy is he CUTE!

If the backing up does not seem to be a reaction to stress, or a trained response, maybe it is just a quirk. I agree with candycar though that maybe he was taught to back up when someone enters the stall.

 

[insaneponybrain]

Hello and thank-you all for your comments , we are located in Mid-Michigan!
I am going to talk more to the trainer but thank-you for I had not yet had the idea he might have been trained to back into stalls *smacks forehead*

here are some more pictures of him, so strange how he grays out when summer is here and he has short hair and goes full brown in winter

Yes he is only just turning 3 in a few months but he is sure handsome! I cannot wait to see how he does soon in Kentucky! His father named "Satan did well, (not certain how anyone could name such sweet creatures sinner and Satan????????)

also a picture of "roo , sinners sister who is going through training as a therapy hose and I will be trainer to also do other things for the show ring she has a very wonderful calm and sweet nature !

(here is a face and other side view for you who wondered how he looked from the opposite side

( I also added a crappy sketch I did of roo's face after taking that pic we love her 'tippy little ears and big soft muzzle

 

[secuono]

He is clipped in the two pictures, it's normal for their hair to be a different shade from the tips and clipping them shows this change of hue in the hair shaft.

 

[paintponylvr]

Welcome to the Forum.

Sinner is one BEAUTIFUL boy!! Very balanced mover. I'm letting the others answer your backing in the stall issue, I'll tackle the color...

He appears to be a bay roan, overo paint pattern (frame, I believe) with some chimera patterning on his legs (where it's mixed red down into his black points on the right fore and rear). He hasn't "greyed out" - he's roaned out and then body clipped for showing. I do have to admit, I'm used to the winter hair around the head showing more roan characteristics - I'm thinking that's a mini/shetland thing, as I have a yearling filly that doesn't show much roan around her head either - during the winter. The QH I grew up with were very different... Their heads were dark during the summer and then w/ winter hair got "varnish marks" around their heads - which the "normal" or standard colors did not.

Here's some pics of our filly (sorry, when Google changed my albums from Picasa to Google, they changed the extensions. I can add the proper extensions that Google says works & they do - on all my other forums but Lil Beginnings). So I will just link words -

The day she was born - 26 December 2015 -

K-La (chestnut roan sabino overo mare) & Blitzen (bay roan tobiano-may have other paint patterns)

Easier to send you out to the album. Blitzen - you can see the color changes as she shed out her baby coat. If she were to have been clipped out in July, after shedding to the almost overall roan pattern, she'd look almost identical to Sinner's color. All of her would be much lighter and her white patches would shade towards pink due to having pink skin there. I won't be able to take daylight pics of her now until Friday. I'll try to remember to do that ... She looks more roan this winter than she did in her baby coat, but still much darker than during the summer... Nothing like your boy's winter coat!