Ruger getting gelded tomorrow.

[stacy]

Well, Ruger is getting gelded tomorrow. He tried to mount me today. We went for a ride, and I was trying to go from one old logging road to another. I was not on any trail and was off of him. It was so full of deer brush and manzanita, it was amazing he could get thru the crap I was taking him thru. I don’t usually let him follow that close, but I had to. I was lifting branches so he could scoot under them. Well after almost an hour we get into this teeny clearing and up he goes. He wasn’t erect, and he wasn’t being aggressive...just being a BOY. I didn’t even have room to beat the crap out of him, there wasn’t room for him to move around and I couldn’t get on him so severely to make him want to jerk the lead rope out of my hand, that would have been bad. So I really got on his case and we continued on. I decided at that point to geld him because if I had gotten hurt up there, there is no way anybody could have found me that night. I showed Mike what I was doing on google earth the night before, so he new the general direction...but I was so deep in deer brush, I don’t think people would have looked for me there.

So I decided to geld him and when coming back home (I found the logging road!) I think he tried it again. He could have just been trying not to slip in the mud going down hill, but it was come right at me. I REALLY laid into him, had a good area to do it, he almost fell over a log- and right there I made the call.
He isn’t being aggressive, it is the same behavior that he and Levi (my Arab gelding) DO TO EACH OTHER in the pasture when they are together. Levi mounts him, Ruger mounts Levi...yes Levi is gay. Anyway, but I can’t get it thru his head he can’t do that to ME. I figure he took quite a beating from studs for the right to mount...getting hit with a lead rope is NOTHING.
I love taking him out exploring like we did today. He is amazing what he can scoot under and negotiate around. I want to be able to keep riding him like that. We now have over 300 trail miles together. If he is gelded I can get him certified for Search and Rescue (eventually), have the nieces ride him, and if he gets loose at an endurance ride-people won’t freak because there is a loose stallion. I am very happy w/ my decision.

Wish him luck. I am nervous about getting him gelded at his age.
-s

[kimk]

oh, that makes me so sad.....

[stacy]

It makes me VERY sad. I am not sure why. I just love his presence. He enjoys going out so much that it motivates me to go saddle him up and go down the trail. I hope he doesn't lose that. What I didn't mention is that this is the second time he has done this. He did this when I first started hand walking him. He LOVED getting out and would just motor down the road. Well, we were going for a walk and a neighbor dog came along. I was watching the dog to make sure he didn't get too close to Ruger when I feel something on my shoulder. It was Ruger's CHEST. I squealed (probably very mare like), he immediately got out of my space, and I beat the crap out of him. It amazes me he is so balanced, he barely touched me. I wondered if he would try it again, but it has been so long, that I let my guard down. Also, like I said, I had to let him come right into my space for almost an hour while we tried to get through the thick brush.
I just love this horse, and I love exploring with him, I want to be able to continue without having to constantly keep him in check.

[Michelle Clarke]

I am glad you are gelding him but what it sounds like to me in more dominance games than wanting to breed you. Regardless, it is dangerous and gelding him will help. I just gelded three boys here - a four year old and two three year olds. I know he is older and I've done older boys in the past, one was 10. We have never had any complications, the vets have all been great and done stellar jobs. I just make sure I get a vet that is very experienced with surgeries, not just a random mobile vet.

It sounds like you spend so much time with Ruger - you will enjoy him so much more as a gelding. At his age, he won't loose his presence.

[DianneC]

Igelded Chinook at 9 and the only thing I noticed was that it took a while for him to adjust to the new hormone level. So a lack of energy for 3 - 4 weeks. He wasn't quite as bold either, but that was the only long term effect.

[ctxkiger]

My personal opinion is that you made the right decision. I see no reason to have a Stud as a riding horse. A gelding is so much better regardless of the amount of training a stud/Stallion has received... Just my opinion though....

[kimk]

oh, Jason, Jason, Jason........ I sorely disagree. 3 of my stallions are my riding horses both in the show ring and on trails. My senior stallion is my main riding horse, and the one I pull out of the pasture to give kids pony rides on. They are absolutely my most reliable and predictable mounts I own. I think there is no real reason, other than unsoundness, to not make your stallion your riding horse. I also must disagree with Michelle.... gelding Ruger won't make this behavior go away. Won't even help with it. It , as Michelle said, is a dominance issue, which can also be quite prevalent in mares and geldings. The key to solving it is training training training, making yourself the dominant partner. JMO

[stacy]

Interesting, Kim. Not sure what else to do to stop this. My training methods with Ruger have been very fair. I have only had to discipline him a few times, the two issues w/ trying to mount me, and a couple of times for nipping. When I disciplined for these I took the John Lyons approach-I can try to kill him for 3 seconds. Well, probably 5 seconds. In that 5 seconds I look like a crazed woman. I do whatever I can to scare him, intimidate him, and even hurt him. Then after 5 seconds it is over and we continue doing what we were doing. With the mounting, in both instances it was when I was distracted. After the first incident I either walk with him beside me where I can keep an eye on him, or I have him at the end of the lead where I can feel resistance. When he was walking beside me, he would bump me with his nose. I then took my crop and would whack his nose when he would try this. When I go out on rides, I get off a lot and walk him. I am sure we have walked over 150 miles together, this is how rare these incidences are. The traits he has that make correcting this behavior hard is One, he has very little fear of ANYTHING-there have been enough stories about him in the wild to confirm this. Two, he is tough and not much affects him physically. He jumped a log with me on him yesterday, I didn't expect it because he had walked over the last 5 or so. When he jumped, I gouged him in the belly with my heels, trying to rebalance myself. This would have shot my Arab half way to the moon, Ruger didn't even react.
He respects me (I think-tell me if you think differently...) When I am in his pasture and he sometimes will come trotting up to me, I can send him into a sliding stop 15 feet from me by a small gesture and sound. But he has no fear of me. He never has. From the day I brought him home he has never run away from me. When I am trying to kill him for 5 seconds, he has the look of a puppy being disciplined by it's mother. Contrite, but no fear. And he tries to get away from me, but not so much to pull the lead out of my hand (part of that may be me keeping his head toward me-so that he won't turn tail and run-hard to say).
BTW, he is getting a reprieve today, too rainy. The vet will call tomorrow.
Any training thoughts?

[kigercat]

I agree with Kim...it is a learned dominance behavior, not anything hormonal, just cutting him wont erase a learned bahavior. He needs to learn his place in the scheme of things thru training. To me it looks like he took advantage of the situation where your attention wasn't 100% on him to try to steal the leadership from you...or he had had enough of that brush and was letting you know it. That isn't going to change until he has learned to fully put his trust in you and that you are the leader. He's been so easy up till now (or sounds like it from the posts) that he may have reached a point where he's was feeling overloaded and that was how he delt with it...because it was a learned behavior.
Also, in the overall picture he is still just a "baby" to all these new rules. He had 7 years in the wild learning how to react to certain situations and interact with his herd...and just 6 months with you needing to learn a whole new set of rules.
If you watch herds interact the boys do a lot or rearing up and getting a neck or leg over the other in their dominance struggles. Mares tend to settle things with their hind legs....I have a couple that can move backwards kicking the tar out of another as fast as the other horse can RUN away!!!
Even so they know the rule that NONE of that goes on around me when I am in the field. It had to be taught that when I am out in the field with them that that kind of behavior was not acceptable. And it does have to be reenforced regularly if one or the other should try to test the rule (snapping at a herdmate..squealing or threatening to kick another that is getting my attention). It's just the nature of the herd to see if they can't move up the pecking order...be it mare, gelding or stud. Up to us to tech them what is and isn't acceptable.
If you have any wavering thoughts on gelding (after all you can always geld later, but you can't ungeld!) I'd give it more time and work on more ground lessons in a controlled environment where your attention won't be pulled away and establish the leader is you. He's had to learn a lot already and has done great, it's not unusul for any horse to test the boundaries, he may have hit a mental roadblock and is acting out in the only way he knows...your job is to teach him that particular behavior is not acceptable and then enforce it.

[kigercat]

Was his "mounting" a full up rear coming at you or just bumping you with his shoulder that you said in the follow up post?

[stacy]

It was full mounting. His chest was on top of my shoulder and his hooves were hooked around my thighs. While barely touching me. It took a yell and he retreated.

[Lee Williams]

no reason to keep him as stallion unless breeding, geld away and then he can be in a herd again which is more important than any reason to keep him a stud.

[stacy]

The reason I hadn't gelded him is that I wanted to see if I could use the testosterone for energy reserves for endurance. But that wasn't working out too well anyway, because he is very slow even with the testosterone. He just needs time to figure out he can speed up.
He isn't exactly by himself. He has a stall in a mare motel that the other three horses use-and that is separated by pipe-so visually he is with the rest and they play over the top rail. I can put Levi, the GayRab in with him, but Levi tends to boss him around, and so I like to be there when I put them in together. Plus I have slick ground right now, I don't want them ripping around together. I am not sure what I would do after gelding him, he does get picked on by the other horses.

I want to THANK EVERYONE for their input. I am so fortunate to have such a wealth of Kiger knowledge at my disposal. THANK YOU!!

[MustangsInNC]

While I am very sad to hear this, I completely understand. In my opinion, Ruger was THE nicest stallion there. But if you have no plans of breeding him, there is no reason to keep him a stallion. Plenty of geldings are competitive in endurance. And he's much to far away from me to consider breeding one of my girls to him!

[Michelle Clarke]

Stacy, testosterone won't give the horse endurance - in fact, stallions reserve their energies for other things. In racing, many studs are gelded in order to run better. You can get stallions that put out more or less because of their testosterone. If you have a stud that wants to breed or fight, they will want to stay with the pack and hold back. Many amatuer owners have problems with getting their stallions to move their feet - not stop them; but that gets back to the dominance factor. For Ruger to get as far as mounting you, you've missed 20 other things he has done to show his dominance and not corrected him first for that.

Don't forget, you are also dealing with a wild stallion that is a ninth degree black belt in dominance games; not a domestic raised one.