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

A Stallion as a Problem Breeder

We purchased a stallion for breeding at nine years of age. He had bred before, but curiously had very few offspring for his impeccable credentials. He was a lovely stallion, very well-behaved, and a perfect gentleman to work around. When we

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Finding a Stallion Handler

We have expanded our semen collection/shipping facility, so we can now keep up to eight stallions in residence and accommodate local stallions trailering in just for semen collection as needed through the season. In the past we have depended upo

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Is My Horse Psychotic?

I bought my gelding as a stallion from a local sulky racetrack a year ago (where he never got out of his stall except for training). He had just turned three and was very excitable, so we had him gelded. After several months, he seemed to calm

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Foals of Non-Milking Mares

I have a gorgeous palomino Quarter Horse mare that I would like to breed, but I have a problem. She ran into barbed wire as a yearling and she cannot produce milk as a result of that accident. The man who owned her before bred her twice, and he

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History of the Horse

There are many scientists who have studied and theorized about how man and horses came to be together, but modern science has changed some of what we thought was fact.

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Stallion Washing Aversion

My husband and I run a business of shipping semen from a few stallions that we board. We have some started ourselves, and some have started elsewhere. Most of them do really well with our simple collection routine. We bring them to the breeding barn, tease a little, wash them, tease a little more, then mount a dummy. Over the years, we have had a couple of stallions that we have had difficult

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Breeding Your Stallion On Cue

Our stallion has a great pedigree, and we have kept him intact hoping he could eventually become a breeding stallion. We?ve put a lot of effort into getting him to show well enough to be worth breeding. He has always done really well except for

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Men vs. Women Handlers

Your answer to the question about the fellow with the peculiar method of “dominating stallions” (December 2003, www.TheHorse.com/ViewArticle.aspx?id=4749) led to a very long discussion where I work. We all agreed that the guy’s method sounded weird and disgusting. But then our discussion drifted into a little war of the sexes. We

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Sleeping Patterns

I think my 11-year-old mare isn’t getting enough sleep. What should I do so that she’ll sleep more?

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Using the Twitch Properly

Can you explain in your column how a twitch works and your recommendations for how to use it most effectively?

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Breaking A Young Horse

My husband and I recently broke my 3-year-old mare to ride. The first few times she rode like a dream, then she caught on to the idea that when we catch her, she has to work, and she has gotten a bad attitude. Her new antics include bucking. I’v

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Spooking on the Trail

I have a 17-year-old Arabian mare. When trail riding, she looks for every opportunity to jump, spook, or take off, especially now that my other horse, her companion, no longer accompanies her. Is there a safe daily supplement just to take the edge off while riding?

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Water Crossing

Water Crossing

How can I get my horse to cross through water when I’m riding him on trail? He refuses to even get his feet wet.

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Taming an Aggressive Foal

We recently were blessed with a healthy filly. However, the breeder we bought the mare from had her due date wrong. She came five weeks before we were expecting her. She was born in the pasture with another mare present. Th

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Sleep-Crashing

In any of the equine behavior literature that I have read, I am unable to find any description of the sleeping behavior we see in our retired broodmare (17 years old). She has functioned as the watch horse in the small herd she was from, and she now is retired at our two-horse farm and continues to maintain that role. She is rarely seen lying down, nor shows evidence of that–no surface dirt

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