Hi,

We have never owned large animals, so we're starting out small.  We recently bought a young minature horse.  He's nearly a year old and completely adorable.  We don't want to encourage bad habits, but we don't know how to correct bad behaviours.  He's a bit nippy, which I expect is normal in a young horse, but I don't want that to develop into serious biting.  I push his neck and change where I'm standing in relation to him to avoid nips.  He loves being brushed and doesn't usually try to nip me when I'm brushing him.  When he does, I take it as a cue that he's had enough and leave his paddock.  The other day he reared up in front of me and smacked his front legs together.  I don't know if this is a dominance thing or what.  I didn't yell, but I spoke loudly to him to knock it off and pushed him away.  I don't feed him any treats.  My other half gives him the odd carrot.  We're wondering if he's lonely as he was from a farm where they bred miniature horses and now he's on his own.  He runs up and down the fence a bit with the dog on the other side, but the dog is too hyper to put in the paddock with him and has received a kick for being too enthusiastic  (The dog is a mixed breed working dog which has a strong herding instinct).  We spend some time with him in his paddock every day.  He comes up to you as soon as you approach his paddock without needing to be called or enticed.  He will walk on a lead, but we don't put it on him very often.  He seems quite happy to take off and go for runs around his paddock and come back to you.  When he starts doing this we go outside the paddock and pat him over the fence when he comes back, because he can come pelting back at a rate of knots!  The neighbours have a horse but the paddock we've got him in is not adjacent to that fence. He can only see their horse from a distance and only if it is at the fence.  The fence is across the top of a hill which slopes down into both properties.  Is there anything we can do to make him happier?  Or does he sound like he's perfectly happy and his behaviour is totally normal? Please advise.