Why did my daughter freak out?

[Sarah Garza]

Our family went to go ride horses yesterday, But for some reason my 6 year old daughter didn’t want to be anywhere near them.

why is this? she adores animals,, we have a border collie dog and they get along and play together just fine, even on day one when I first brought the dog home. of course I respect my daughter and I make sure she feels safe. But why is she like this?

She has had no bad experience with horses. Why is she acting so scared of them? Like I said we have a border collie at home and they play together.

Now my daughter does have dwarfism, she is 6 years old but only comes in at 1‘6“and 17 pounds, I was thinking maybe that had something to do with it, but I don’t really think so because we have an average sized border collie, My daughter is so small that she has to physically look up at the border collie, and she has to stand on her tippy toes to pet the top of his head. when they stand side-by-side, she is eye level with his lower chest. And she can stand on her tippy toes and she still isn’t close to able to see eye to eye with him. he weighs in at around 40 pounds and is way stronger than my daughter. He could easily knock her around or pin her down with his body weight alone and no actual muscle/strength behind it. (He would never ever do this though, but just to give you a size comparison) but even from day one, she didn’t let the height strength and weight of the border collie get to her. So why would she with the horse?

 

[Frances144]

Self preservation?

 

[Nierva]

Our family went to go ride horses yesterday, But for some reason my 6 year old daughter didn’t want to be anywhere near them.

why is this? she adores animals,, we have a border collie dog and they get along and play together just fine, even on day one when I first brought the dog home. of course I respect my daughter and I make sure she feels safe. But why is she like this?

She has had no bad experience with horses. Why is she acting so scared of them? Like I said we have a border collie at home and they play together.

Now my daughter does have dwarfism, she is 6 years old but only comes in at 1‘6“and 17 pounds, I was thinking maybe that had something to do with it, but I don’t really think so because we have an average sized border collie, My daughter is so small that she has to physically look up at the border collie, and she has to stand on her tippy toes to pet the top of his head. when they stand side-by-side, she is eye level with his lower chest. And she can stand on her tippy toes and she still isn’t close to able to see eye to eye with him. he weighs in at around 40 pounds and is way stronger than my daughter. He could easily knock her around or pin her down with his body weight alone and no actual muscle/strength behind it. (He would never ever do this though, but just to give you a size comparison) but even from day one, she didn’t let the height strength and weight of the border collie get to her. So why would she with the horse?

Horses can be daunting animals for any size of person, so for a child with dwarfism, of course what seems like a big animal could be scary. I’m guessing she’s grown up around your dog, so may view the dog completely differently - a trusted known being instead of a big unknown creature she’s never seen before.

 

[Skib]

This is an old thread. One of my local grand daughters took to riding and the other (the sporty one) didnt.

There used to be many horses around in the streets when I was a child, pulling milk carts and coal delivery wagons. This meant that a child's first encounter with a horse was never to ride the horse.

Small children met horses and were given advice on what to do and what not to do. How to offer a horse the treat of a windfall apple or carrot.

And ones first ride might only be 50 -100 metres (yards).
In the early post war years, there were donkeys on many UK beaches offering rides for small children. Some of them wore felt saddles with a handle for the child to hold.

Our local stables offers lead out rides much the same with someone leading the pony and another adult walking alongside to make sure the child stays central and stable in the saddle.

 

[Nierva]

This is an old thread. One of my local grand daughters took to riding and the other (the sporty one) didnt.

There used to be many horses around in the streets when I was a child, pulling milk carts and coal delivery wagons. This meant that a child's first encounter with a horse was never to ride the horse.

Small children met horses and were given advice on what to do and what not to do. How to offer a horse the treat of a windfall apple or carrot.

And ones first ride might only be 50 -100 metres (yards).
In the early post war years, there were donkeys on many UK beaches offering rides for small children. Some of them wore felt saddles with a handle for the child to hold.

Our local stables offers lead out rides much the same with someone leading the pony and another adult walking alongside to make sure the child stays central and stable in the saddle.

Good points. I don’t know about everyone else but, even as an adult who has been riding regularly for the past year, I still get rather intimidated/worried about riding horses I haven’t ridden before, especially if I don’t get to help with them at all on the ground first. Even if a child has encountered horses in general before, they may be nervous about meeting new ones. Does that make sense?

 

[carthorse]

This thread, and another she started that was almost the same, were clearly the work of a troll.