Mustang cross

Question
Hi, I have a 10 year old mustang cross mare. She is mostly lazy, but on her guard all the time and is aware of every little change in her world. She is an excellent trail horse, since she is very particular about where her feet go, she does however, at times spook at little things like a leaf moving or a limb that wasn't there before. She also has this terrible fear of some cows that are inconveniently on our way to our trails. They live in a pasture that is half field and half woods, so she doesn't know if they'll be there or not, and sometimes the will pop into the open while we are passing. She starts prancing, spinning (not knowing to stay or run), and she snorts so hard she gets a bloody nose. I now just dis-mount and have her to where she will quickly walk past with me, she has never bolted or run with me, she uses her brain and you can see her trying to reason it through, but after 3 years she still hates that spot. Is there something I can do to help her with this? I know getting upset with her doesn't help, but I've done ground work with her, including just walking down there on a lead line and trying to get her focus on me and not the "monsters from the black lagoon" but she always is looking at that field. Is there anything I can do, or is she just a High-alert horse that will always be like that?

Answer
Brandy,

She has a phobia to the cows much the same as people have phobias about things like snakes, mice or spiders/bugs.  She's doing really well by not giving into her fear completely.  You are so right when you say she has a brain.  Most Mustangs do.

About the only thing I can suggest at this point would be to get her exposed to cows.  Put her in a pen with a couple of cows and just let her figure it out.  It would probably take a couple of days of constant exposure to get her over this phobia.  Any way you can arrange to get her in close,personal cotact with a couple of these cows?  You don't want it to be a large area, a small paddock/pen will work, a round pen with 1 cow would be terrific.  You don't want her to be able to get really far away from the cow(s); that will defeat the purpose.  You could start by putting her in a pen next to a pen with a couple of cows in it.  Let her get to know them through the bars.  I would sort of guess that she's never seen cows before this, her reaction sort of indicates that.  I had a Mustang mare that freaked out the first time she saw pigs.  Fortunately I was with another horse, on a competitive trail ride actually, and we were able to get by the pen where they were but it wasn't easy.  The other horse could have cared less about the hogs and she did observe that rather closely.  We never ran into hogs again but I feel she would have remembered.  Riding through the area where the cows are with several other horses who will not react would also help her a lot.  Mustangs are very attuned to the reactions of the other horses when they ride in company.  

I've tried to give you as many suggestions as I could think of.  Bottom line, you need to expose her to the cows enough that she will decide that they are harmless.  You know her so you'll have a better idea which, if any, of these ideas will help you.  You can get her over this and the only way to do that is to get her to figure out that the cows really aren't horse-killing dragons!  

Let me know how this comes out, please.

Lyn