Sue McDonnell, PhD, Certified AAB

Sue M. McDonnell, PhD, is a certified applied animal behaviorist and the founding head of the equine behavior program at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Veterinary Medicine. She is also the author of numerous books and articles about horse behavior and management.

Articles by: Sue McDonnell, PhD, Certified AAB

Can Horses Be Carnivorous? (Book Excerpt)

My horse has become carnivorous! She eats roadkill such as dead birds, and now I’ve discovered her stomping on a live rabbit in her stable. She picked it up in her mouth, bashed it against the stable wall, and ate it.

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Horse Learning

In a web site advice column written by a veterinarian, he claimed that if a blacksmith trims or shoes a horse incorrectly so that the horse becomes lame within a couple of weeks of work, the horse will make the connection that the blacksmith was

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Superstition

I have a BS in animal science and am now taking graduate courses in animal behavior while working to save up for vet school. A topic we are discussing in class is comparative cognition in a psychology and neurobiology program. This has to do wit

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Sexual Misbehavior Vaccine?

I am looking into ways to settle down a colt that is showing full-blown sexual interest already at a 1 1/2 years of age. He’s just too much for us to handle, but we are not ready to geld him. If you try to correct him when he’s all excited, he

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Cribbing Weanling

I have a client with a foal that was weaned a few days ago, and it has started cribbing. Within only a few hours after it was separated from the mare, it was seen doing something funny that the owners now appreciate was cribbing. Once they

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Pony Girthing/Mounting Issues

My 11-year-old daughter is having trouble with her pony nipping at her when she is girthing him, and when she goes to mount without an assistant. He also smacks his tail and pins his ears, almost looking like he might cow-kick at her sometimes.

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Semen Collecting from a Blind Stallion

We have a Standardbred stallion that had a minor neurologic episode a few months ago that was never really figured out. He has recovered slowly back to normal, except that he has gone completely blind. He does well at pasture and you would hardl

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Licking/Chewing=Learning?

I’m studying for an MSc in Equine Science and am researching equine behavior. Having studied scientific literature, including your catalog of horse behavior (The Equid Ethogram, A Practical Field Guide to Horse Behavior), I cannot find any

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Kicking Problems

My horse constantly kicks his stall, and in the pasture he’s very rough with other horses, biting and kicking them.

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Deliberate Abuse?

I hope you remember me from psychology graduate school back in the early ’80s. Time flies. Anyway, I still have horses and enjoy your contributions on behavior to The Horse magazine and web site. Sometimes I wish I had gone into horse or dog

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Transportation Trio: Loading Trick

I found an amateur video clip in our tack room and nobody knows where it came from. It shows an amazing demonstration of loading two horses on a trailer. The horses, without a lead or halter, went right into the trailer, one after the other, whe

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Eating Poop

Our first foal is 10 days old and has already been spotted eating manure. We have accepted the fact that eating manure is normal foal behavior and are trying to ignore it. A quick question: When should he get over this behavior? via e-mail

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Barn Aversion

 Our elderly Connemara gelding was unfortunately exposed in his stable to multiple bee stings on more than one occasion over a period of two weeks before the problem was figured out and fixed. He used to be very calm and content in the stable,

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