Horse Accepting of a Blanket

Dana wrote to ask a couple of questions of a horse in her care and blanketing. "Hello, I am taking care of my sister's 10 or 11 year old mare while she is recovering from back surgery. The nightly temperatures are dropping into the low 20's so I went to put a blanket on her horse but the horse won't have anything to do with the blanket. I'm sure she has had a blanket on before so I don't know what the problem is. Is it possible that she is trying to let me know she doesn't want or need her blanket on? Thanks, Dana"

I would ask your sister is the horse has worn a blanket before.  Doesn't make much difference now, but let's assume she has worn a blanket before then it would stand to reason it's your approach with the blanket. Walking straight towards her carrying or half dragging a blanket with the usual fabric noise may just be too much for her to stand still for right now, especially if she is unused to you. Maybe you can ensure your approach is less threatening ,...try approaching her indirectly and don't stare her down.

If the horse is showing anxiety or avoidance behavior when exposed to the blanket, maybe you can fold the blanket up into a small package and get her used to accepting that close to her, let her smell it, then slowly rub her with it on the neck then her barrel. Retreat, pause then try again and as she accepts that, unfold the blanket and make it just a little bigger.  Progress from there.

I think it's important to give her a little break in between increasing the size of the blanket as this is her release...plus it helps the horse think as opposed to reacting from instinct.   If you advance slow and only ask her as much as she can accept then soon you'll be ready to put the blanket on her. If the blanket has a buckle up chest piece then you may do well to unhook it so the blanket can be placed over her like a saddle blanket rather than slipping it over her head.

If you make a big production out of taking the blanket off then that could can undo some of the good.  You may have to unbuckle the chest strap the first few times before you take it off her.   If you pull the blanket off over her head then I'd try to bunch the blanket up on her neck to make it easy to pull off smoothly and quickly.   

As far as your sister's mare telling you she doesn't want or need the blanket,.... well, I don't know about that. A horse doesn't necessarily want or need a saddle and a rider as well, but they get to accepting that as long as we're fair about it. And as far as whether a horse needs a blanket or not,....ask 10 horse people and you'll get 11 opinions on blanketing horses.

My wife has a QH mare who seems to ask for her blanket. When my wife goes to grab the blanket off the stall door, the horse will walk towards her and drop her head. Asking for her blanket or just readily accepting what she knows is expected of her,....who knows for sure.

Here in West Texas we recently had a 20+degree change (drop) in nightly low temperatures and the weather front that brought those low temps also brought in some much higher humidity than normal and a pretty steady 20 mph wind brining in a wind chill factor, so I thought it prudent to put light weight blankets on my horses. 

My reasoning was during the big change to colder temps the horses would drink less water and have less blood to work the gut as they would need more blood for their extremities.   It wasn't just the cold low temps, it was the drastic change that I was mostly concerned about.

But like I said about there being many different opinions, I read this interesting article on thermoregulation in horses from Academia Liberti. While I believe both my intent and the intent from this article are to consider the horse and provide fair treatment, we obviously have different opinions.....and not just on blanketing.  Good luck to your sister, hope she recovers well and good luck to your blanketing efforts for her mare. If for nothing more, getting her to accept a blanket would be good for her.