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Pigs make my fjord horse spook. At least they did last fall. She may be used to them somewhat now. Our neighbors had a couple of pigs a short distance from the road. They had always been sleeping when we went by and my horse never noticed them, but one day I decided my horse had better see them when I wasn't riding, so I oinked at them and woke them up. My horse first spooked at the oink, then she saw the pigs and really spooked and almost got away from me. After looking at them for awhile she calmed somewhat and the next time we went by she was mostly curious about them. Unfortunately the pigs have sadly been barbecued by now so I can't test to see if she would still spook at them. I think they remind her of bears. My horses have seen bears and are very frightened by them. They go to the far end of the pasture and won't even come back to eat.

When my fjord was a yearling, I led her down the dirt road next to a piece of Forest Service property. There was a Forest Service horse there and he saw this strange looking fjord like nothing he had ever seen before. He thought "perhaps this is a bear". After a bit of running around, he gave a fear snort and ran off. My fjord decided there must be someting really scary around and ran the other direction. I couldn't hold on to her and she took the wrong way home. Then she decided I was scary and wouldn't let me approach her for a long time. Finally she got over her fear and we went home.