Well, as Star enters her "teenagish" behavior years as a  yearling, she is starting to test the waters as well as her herd behavior.  I think she is fixing to be an Alpha Mare!

Anyway, she has gotten rather nasty when I have been feeding her.  She comes quickly with pinned ears and mean eyes!  I have been working with her by sending her away with a crop and waiting for her to stop.  Then I set down her bucket.  This has taught her to keep away while I put down the food, but today I talked to my trainer about changing the behavior.

He believes that Star is dominating over anyone she can including people!  He instructed me to stand by the bucket or even hold the bucket and only let her approach in a submissive way.  He tried it with her and within 5 minutes she was approaching with her head low and her ears soft. (her eyes still looked mad, but she was submissing!)

So I have some work to do with her.  She even gets pushy when my in-laws come and bring carrots.  I will work with her and the treats too!

Any one else out there with this issue?

What do you do?

good luck!!!!

definately not a behavior you will want

Well....I kinda do.  Our little Cookie, he is right on the line of being a horse by about half a hand, tries to make sure he is the first one to the barn to eat and sometimes in the process he runs the other 2 out if they get there first.  The past couple of times when he would bully like that, I would put him in the stall and feed him last.  He doesn't really puch me around, but I don't want him being that way to Chocolate & Ginger.  I'm not sure if he's getting the message and I am probably handling it the wrong way, but at least there is a little peace at dinner time.  He has another funny quirk that I have never heard of...while he is eating, he will lift his right leg up like he is trying to get into the little feed trough.  If he is fed out of a bucket on the fence, he will lift his leg up and knock it down.  At the other barn, they would put his grain on top of his square of hay on the ground and that worked pretty well.  It is real puzzling behavior to me.  Any ideas why he does this????

Well, it has been only a few days, and Star is getting better with the food feeding behavior!  Today, she stood at the end of her stall, while I put the food down.  She came towards me slowly and at the last moment, pinned her ears.  I yelled "NO" and she moved away and waited for me to ask her to come.  She lowered her head, softened her face and came nicely!

we'll see what dinner's like!