Striking at my son

Question
I purchased a 4 year old stud colt about 8 months ago.  I have since gelded him and gentled him.  I have noticed he has aggression toward my four year old son, Jacob.  Twice he has ran at him striking with his front feet narrowly missing Jacob.  He also picked him up by the leg once and threw him at me..mostly just scaring my son with very little bruising.  He seems most irritated when my son runs around and is loud (even if he is not in the corral). Wrangler also does not like dogs and strikes at them too. My mustang, Wrangler, is a very affectionate and loving horse to me.  He is calm and allows me to pet him and walk around him and actually comes when I call his name. He has such a wonderful, playful personality. I am the only one that has ever ridden him and nobody else cares for him but me. I have no fear of him ever hurting me but I do worry about my son.  How can I stop this behavior without getting rid of my wonderful mustang?  What do you think is causing it?

Answer
Katheryn,

OK.  You explained a lot when you told me he is a Mustang.  He's being very disrespectful of your son. What I suspect has happened is he has bonded to you and more or less is treating you as he would a mare.  Your son is not his son and he finds him annoying.  You are going to have to put your foot down and let him know in no uncertain terms that you will not accept this behavior from him.  If he ran at my kid I would turn into his worst nightmare and chase him all around the paddock or whatever, yelling and, if I had something like a broom or a rake I would throw that at him too.  Scare him!  You want him to think twice before he does it again.  That is your child and you will tolerate no disrespect from him towards your son.  Period.  

Also make sure you introduce your son and him.  Let him help you with the horse (once you have made it clear to him that you will accept no disrespect), he can help you clean him up, maybe you could put him up for a little ride with you leading him around.  He has to accept that your son comes with you, it's a package deal.  Remember, he was 4 when  you gelded him so he has to learn to repress the stallion behavior.  I suspect your son's yelling and playing around annoy him.  Little kids can be annoying to some people too.  Let him know that is unacceptable.  He'll just have to suck it up and deal with it.  You may also want to caution your son about being loud and running around horses.  He's old enough to understand now that such actions might scare some horses.  He's still just 4 yrs. old, so he'll forget lots of times, but they're never too young to learn how to behave around animals.  That behavior around a dog could get him bitten.

A little discipline will not make him not love you.  Horses aren't that shallow.  I get after mine regularly as needed.  I have a couple of real brats, one is a 25 yr. old pony and the other is my Mustang gelding.  They get yelled at at least once a day for being jerks.  Just like kids they need to know when they've crossed the line.  Usually voice is enough, but a swat on the shoulder doesn't hurt either once in a while.  

I just adopted a Mustang mare, 7 yrs. old.  My 2 and a half year old filly, who was born here and has been the "baby" all her life, is insanely jealous of Faith, the new horse.  She has gotten reprimanded, smacked a couple of times, and scolded repeatedly for her rude behavior towards Faith.  She's at least learned to not do much of it around me, other than ugly faces when she thinks I'm not looking, but every once in a while she still charges Faith and snaps her teeth at her.  Dream and I are going to start some serious training this year, and Faith will get saddle trained, so she's gonna have to learn to share.  She's fine with me handling the rest of the horses that were here when she was born.  It's just the new horse.  Similar to your problem except it's another horse, not a child.  

So you've go 2 personalities you have to deal with here: Wrangler's and your son.  I'm sure he's a perfectly normal 4 yr. old and Wrangler is smart.  They are both the same age.  So, encourage them to grow up together.  Love them both to death, but set boundaries for the horse and the boy.

Good luck.  This will be an interesting time for you but Wrangler will come around.  

Lyn