Tips for Splitting Up Inseparable Horse Buddies
Friends are a good thing for a horse to have.
Who wouldn’t want a partner for swatting flies head-to-tail in the field, a fellow scratcher for that itchy spot just behind the withers and a cohort in raising mealtime rackets? And from an owner’s point of view, it’s comforting to know that your horses aren’t lonely when you’re not around.
But firm friendships between stable- and herdmates can have a downside. When two horses become so attached that any form of separation leads to stress verging on panic, the virtues of companionship are outweighed by the complications it brings. Trail riding or training just one of the pair becomes difficult, if not impossible. Showing can be pointless and embarrassing when the horse in the ring screams incessantly for his partner back in the trailer. In the worst cases, a bonded pair cannot be out of sight of each other without one or both of the buddies becoming unruly and even dangerously unmanageable in their efforts to be reunited.
Separation anxiety is rooted in the lifestyle of wild horses, whose social attachments are literally a matter of life and death. But domesticated horses can form bonds--sometimes with horses they’ve just met--that exceed the depth and strength of those in nature. Breaking these obsessive friendships is essential if the two parties are to be reliable, manageable, productive horses, but making the separation can be quite a challenge. You’ll need patience, creativity and the capacity to be the “bad guy” to break up the duo, but you’ll be well rewarded when you can finally go about your daily caretaking and enjoy outings without having them sabotaged by the inseparable pair.
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The Ties that Bind
Equine bonds in the natural state are strong but far from inalterable. In the wild, horses live in either harems or bachelor bands. Each harem is composed of several mature mares (often three or four, but sometimes as many as 12) and their young, protected by a mature stallion. When fillies reach maturity, they either leave on their own and move into different harems or are “stolen” by other mature stallions. When colts reach maturity and are driven out of the harem by their sires, they join bachelor bands made up of other young males and older stallions who have lost their harems.
Harems and bands offer their members companionship, access to critical resources and, most important, protection from predators. The lead stallion vigilantly watches over his harem as they graze, drink and sleep. He alerts his harem to threats, often with a loud whinny. He fights to drive other stallions away from his harem, and he herds his mares and offspring away from predators or other threats. The alpha mare often leads the harem to watering holes and grazing ground and away from other groups to prevent intermixing. Bachelor bands are not as well organized, but they still offer member stallions protection from predators as certain members act as sentinels while the others graze or rest. Individuals separated from their harems or bands are easy targets for predators.
Wild horses know the importance of sticking with the group at all costs, and even after thousands of years under human management, domesticated horses have retained this valuable lesson. However, the bonds between individual horses within free-roaming bands and harems aren’t necessarily tight, particularly when judged by human social values. Daughters and sons leave their mothers every year with nary a whinny or backward glance by either party. If a bachelor stallion steals a mare from a harem, she follows willingly, and her former harem mates don’t pine for her. Bachelor bands are particularly unstable, with members constantly coming and going with little stress or strife. To the wild horse, companionship is crucial to survival, but the specific companions are irrelevant.
Why, then, do some domestic horses form implacably tight bonds with select associates? The personalities of the horses involved, their social setup and the level of stress in their lives all come into play, but there is no standard profile of the buddy-bound horse. The most common separation-anxiety situation I see occurs between two horses who have had only each other as company for many, many years. That said, I’ve seen lifelong stablemates who could care less when separated from each other. Some horses aren’t particular about their attachments and bond with any horses stabled next to them in a matter of hours. In general, highly strung, emotionally needy horses are more prone to forming unhealthy attachments, but very secure horses can form immediate and tight bonds when they’re in sufficiently stressful situations.
Two domestic horses who spend the majority of their days in close proximity to each other are quite likely to bond deeply. My own two horses, for example, were never particularly attached to each other until I moved across the country with them. After two 14-hour trailer rides and a new home, they suddenly can’t live apart. Turned-out horses may form a single large herd or break down into small, distinct groups. A horse can become agitated when asked to leave his group rather than any particular individual in it. Horses who are kept in small, adjacent paddocks or confined in stalls form bonds to the horses next to or across the aisle from them.
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