Help with pawing, please

[Cupcake]

The thing I've noticed is that it is also learned behavior... Monkey see monkey do. Same with wood chewing. My big one started with it bc when I was only feeding my mini alfalfa and he didn't get any he would stand by the stall divider and paw all night. To the point of the front of his legs BLEEDING because of a ledge on the bottom of the divider. The day after I fixed the ledge so he couldn't Hirt himself anymore he came up to me in the morning both legs cut and bleeding from obviously pawing somewhere again at that specific height and I can't for the life of it figure out where he's doing this now! I have to either put sport boots or at least fly boots on him overnight so he's not injured in the morning. The alfalfa issue is no more as they both only get some at feeding time now.

The mini paws the same as yours, when bored, impatient and when wanting attention. She "built" herself a bed in her stall by pawing in the center of the stall (base is packed down crusher fines) so now she has this bowl shaped bed and sure enough that's where she sleeps every night with the bedding built up around her. Makes for an excellent human trap too when not paying attention... Ugh.

 

[rabbitsfizz]

There is NO cure, as Marty said- it is a cross between neurotic behaviour and attention seeking, so it is the worst of both worlds!

The rubber mat thing is the best, when the horse is tied, as you can then ignore it (best response) When in a stall loose make sure there are no feed bins or buckets they can fling around prior to feed time as, again, they will do this to get attention. The dog pawing at you is something you have taught it to do, it is not the same as a horse pawing the ground, although IMO teaching a horse to "shake" can be potentially dangerous, especially if the horse is attention seeking to start with.