Well, this was not something I was expecting. I brought Nova inside after a few hours outside on Tuesday 11th July, and she was just as normal as anything. I put her down hin the pen and left to get Buttons.

Of course I had to brush Buttons before he came inside, because he was losing so much hair it’s like it’s snowing. I put him in a half of travel box with a towel, on the bin (because it’s a good height), and brush him there. While I was, I could hear my sister inside talking loudly, but I ignored it for a while because I had to finish with Buttons.

After a little while I picked Buttons up and carried him inside to see my sister all freaked out because Nova was going crazy in the pen. Nova was bouncing off the fence with all four feet, as scared as anything. She ran around like an imaginary dog was chasing her down. She was uncontrollable. She was scared for her life for no reason. There wasn’t anything in the pen to scare her. Just her litter box and water dish.

I quickly put the travel box together and left Buttons in there, I didn’t have time to put the door on so I rammed the box up against the cupboard so he couldn’t escape. He was such a good boy, he knew something was happening.

By that time Nova had rammed her way out of the pen like a wild bulldozer and ran into the study behind the door because it was the darkest place. She was stressed. Breathing fast. Sat still. I bent down and patted her. She crouched down. I spoke calmly to her and she sat down in a tight loaf. About 3 minutes later, I picked her up and she snuggled into me. She was very stressed and her breathing was incredibly fast.

I went over to sit in my armchair and let her climb onto her cushion and stroked her gently. After about an hour she started to calm down. I decided to play some relaxing Cello music, which helped her de-stress.

A family member had picked Buttons up in his travel box and popped it into the pen. Of course he climbed out and went exploring. Nothing changed, nothing new. He went and splooted in his usual corner.

After a long time, I put her back in the pen and she thumped and acted scared for about 15 seconds before she realised that nothing was there. She settled down and fell asleep.

After that, she was OK. She settled back into the night-time routine and it was like nothing happened.

Apparently, horses do that if they have been put under a lot of stress previously. They will be normal for ages, then one day they just break and go nuts. If they have a calming environment, they get over it really quickly, and don’t stay nuts. It’s like they have been so tightly wound up that one day the spring gets to its limit and has to unwind, and it does very quickly.

See, I have no idea what Nova came from. There will be certain things that trigger memories, and I’ll never be able to figure out what the memories are. I just have to work with her and learn her behaviours and what sets her off. Hopefully nothing like that happens again.

The one thing that was different in his situation was that there was a reversing truck outside with an awful beeping sound. I think it was that noise that set her off because she also doesn’t like the noise a clicker sounds when I’m trying to train her. She runs away and gives me a dirty look. I’m going to work out the noises she can hear.

We figured out later, that it was because of the fan on the ceiling. It must make a noise that she doesn’t like.

She doesn’t like noises that are like “clicks” – she also had a very mild reaction like this to the training clicker.