How to tell it is time to find a new barn

 Six years, three stables.

Sounds like the start of a bad porno. Or another chapter in my upcoming memoir, "This S*** is Too Stupid to Make Up."

Alas, it is simply another way to describe my young horse's life. 

The first two stable relationships we had ended in dysfunction and dramatic breakups. In hindsight though, I see a couple of common things that should have been warning signs a lot earlier:

1. You get an unpleasant feeling in the pit of your stomach when you are going to the barn. This may or may not be connected to something specific, in other words, you may think "Oh man, I hope _______ isn't there," or you may simply think "I don't really want to go, and I don't know why."

2. The horses are either listless and depressed, or aggressive and misbehaving.

3. The facilities (fencing, barn, outbuildings, equipment) are in disrepair and no one bothers to fix them.

4. Repairs that are made are done in such a haphazard way as to be dangerous.

5. You don't want to invite people to come see the stable because you don't feel like explaining why things look or run the way they do.

6. The drama amongst the boarders is increasing, misunderstandings and fights are occurring more and more often.

7. Your concerns, feelings, and needs are minimized or dismissed entirely.

8. People are getting more and more impatient with their horses more and more often.

9. Your horse's physical and/or mental health seem to be deteriorating.

10. Basic, routine care of horses is starting to be neglected.

In hindsight, each of these signs was present for a long time before I actually moved my horse to another stable. At the end, each exist was negatively dramatic and toxic, perhaps unnecessarily so. Fortunately, this is not the case with our newest stabling place, at least for now. I deeply hope it does not come to this, but I know that I learned a lot of valuable lessons these past five years. The most important one being that I need to be on my horse's side first and foremost, as well as in the end. No one else will care about his well-being as much as I do, and between the two of us, I am the one with a voice.