I shouldn’t laugh, but I couldn’t help myself. But how quickly could this have gone horribly wrong? Like…in a split second, and yet, I’m still laughing because I’ve owned that horse.
http://www.edisproduction.de/2013/10/01/horse-trolls-cameraman-during-a-tv-interview/
Hooves 
Oh, this is very funny. And not funny at all. And very funny. Pretty sure all my coworkers heard my sudden intake of breath when horsie had cameraman’s ear in her mouth. Thank you, horsie, for just being a goofball and not chomping that ear right off, I wouldn’t want to watch *that* video.
I know, right?! I was torn between laughter and cringing with one eye tightly closed and looking sideways out of the other.
My gelding would have shoved the cameraman several feet forward if he had been stalled there. So glad that guy still has an ear!
It stops being funny when the horse uses teeth. Of course, the whole group was invading ‘horse space’, so it isn’t suprising the other horses were trying to get a nose in. The episode shows the progression of what the horse thought it could do, get close, start nuzzling, then open mouth, then finally bite. Each time the other person out of frame kept petting it and the camera man didn’t say no. It was escalating and nobody did anything about it, maybe didn’t even recognize it for what it was. “And then all of the sudden, the horse just attacked!” Could easily have been the outcome.
Most horses are nice, they will indulge in gelding games with no ill intent, just as they would with a horse buddy. But humans aren’t horses and a gentle nibble to a horse could have taken that guy’s ear off.
I play with my horses, I let them nuzzle, hug, etc. But they’ve been through lots of ‘no teeth, not ever’ lessons as part of their training before I let them start to have access to my body.
This horse is a spitting image of my gelding doing exactly what he loves to do, be a pest. He knows just how to breathe on my friend’s neck to give her chills. He has never used teeth but not to say he never would. We keep his antics in check with voice if he gets too close or too pushy about giving affection and sniffover. But could he bite? Absolutely! He does know, however, that he shouldn’t bite.
The comments made about the video are driving me nuts!
People are saying the horse is ‘cute’, ‘precious’ and ‘just loving on the photographer.’ Obviously, they have no clue about horses and how nipping can quickly turn to bitting if the the problem isn’t corrected….
Mercedes, you gotta straighten these people out! They aren’t listening to me. lol
I read some of those comments. Those are the same people who’d allow their child to pull a dog’s tail and then act all up-in-arms and cry foul when the dog bit the child in the face. But what are you gonna do? People often don’t think until after the fact, but even then many times ‘it’s not their fault’.
I had a great video I was going post, until the owner took it down after receiving a bunch of negative comments. Some parents were letting their child mill around in the a group of ‘wild’ (not sure how wild they were, but they were not ‘trained’) horses and the little girl was running amongst the herd, squealing, waving her arms, carrying on in excitement, running right up the rear ends of several. A number of the horses moved away from her and she got several ‘warnings’ from a couple of the other horses to ‘stay away’. Well, you guessed it. She got nailed, big time.
But Mercedes, the dog bit or the horse kicked ‘completely out of nowhere’!
This topic reminds me, does anyone remember the old G.I. Joe “Knowing is Half the Battle” PSAs, little cartoons about various safety topics? I could swear there is one where GI Joe explains that you shouldn’t walk behind a horse because it might kick you. My youtube skills are failing to find it but I have a vague memory of it being on TV. Anyway, they ought to re-run those (and perhaps expand the horse one to include biting not just kicking!)
Goofy horse, and yeah, I thought it was funny but then it really started to make me cringe when the cameraman refused to react to the horse invading his space.
I thought it was a “so what” video. It’s precisely what I know all of my own horses would do.
The cameraman stands in front of what is obviously a well behaved and sociable horse in it’s pen and someone else stands at the side and pats and strokes the horse’s neck as the horse makes friends and indulges in grooming the cameraman.
I’ve got horses that will do precisely the same and yes I’ve had my ear in my horses’ mouths and I don’t subscribe at all to the idea that this sort of behaviour can very quickly and easily turn to a nibble or a bite.
If you don’t want a horse to do that then get out of it’s space and set the boundaries you want to set.
However got to just say that whilst I’d trust my own horses implicitly and from what I’ve seen of that video, that horse is pretty darned reliable and sociable, I’d not make any presumptions about other peoples’.
In my world horses don’t EVER kick, bite, barge or push people about.
And of course I know that some do… heck I train horses. And over the decades have done many ill-mannered ones who haven’t been properly and effectively trained and socialised in the first place and so they don’t know how to behave and think it’s perfectly acceptable to do the likes of warning children away if they’re being noisy.
Personally I think it’s utterly and wholly inacceptable to own an animal that’s a danger to be around and neither do I have any inclination whatsoever to take as excuses things like “well the small child got bitten because she pulled the dog’s tail” or “well she got nailed because she ran behind the horse shouting”.
When those things happen it’s simple:
Badly behaved, badly trained animal kept by irresponsible stupid person
and
Ineffective management and supervision
Thankfully you added in that very last of ineffective management and supervision, otherwise I was going to have words with you. Because even the most well behaved and best trained animal has ever right (and should be expected) to defend itself, its space etc… when tormented repeatedly – such as a dog having its tail pulled by that bratty little next door neighbor.
The horse in this video, imo, does get the teeth out a bit more than is acceptable, but then he’s encouraged to do so, so if the ear had gone missing I’d have felt badly for the man since the more knowledgeable horse person (the guy being interviewed) didn’t stop it.
Oldredhorse says:
October 2, 2013 at 12:14 am
“My gelding would have shoved the cameraman several feet forward if he had been stalled there. So glad that guy still has an ear!”
Reads to me like you’re proud of this or find this sort of behaviour acceptable or the norm.
Seems to me like your horse is bad mannered and quite simply needs to be trained and until then you need to ensure it’s kept away from people whether they “get” horses or not.