Post by Deleted on Sept 29, 2010 10:59:46 GMT 1
Some of you may remember Zorelle from a couple of years ago. For those who don't, she was one of the ponies bought from a French meat farm. She's Spanish, originally feral, brought up through France and intended for the Italian slaughterhouse.
We can't be certain but my belief is that she is from Galicia and has been through the delightful "rapa das bestas" festival, probably more than once. If you've a strong enough disposition, there are videos on YouTube. She has a metal tag in one ear, a part of the other has been cut off, she has a microchip. All of these would have been done to her by force. She would have been forced onto cattle trucks and I know it took 4 hefty farmers to load her to bring her here. Strangely enough, she was terrified of people. Odd, that.
To cut a long story short, she was orginally owned by someone else but her previous owner decided she was not able to keep her, so she was gifted to me - quite honestly, I'm not sure anyone else would have wanted her.
She's taken a huge amount of patience and has tested my brain to the absolute limit. And that's the reason I've decided to put her up here, because I've learned so much from her that I can maybe pass on to others thinking of taking on a severely abused and terrified pony, or any rescue who may be more challenging that you're used to.
The main thing to bear in mind is that you need infinite patience and a training toolkit to match. Especially with horses who have had rough or abusive handling, they learn how to cope with humans very quickly, and in that case coping usually means keeping you at arms length at all costs. Their ability to learn to anticipate can be astonishing. It's all about survival, after all.
This can lead to great frustration for us trainers. A tool seems to work but then no longer does, because the pony didn't really accept it in the first place. Then the pony starts to anticipate so things get worse, and you have to start all over again, changing things completely. Things you think should work don't, things you think shouldn't work do. You have good days but you have awful ones, and sometimes those awful ones make you wonder why you are doing all this.
There have been times, I'll confess, that I've wondered if Zorelle wouldn't have been better off going straight to Italy. She's hated me, that I know, and sometimes for practical reasons I've had to put more pressure on her that I would ever have wanted to.
Since she's been back here, though, (about 17 months), we've taken our time. The only complete disaster we've had was with clicker training - that scared the heebies out of her. Even after desensitising her to a kiss noise (an actual click of any sort freaked her completely), she still panicked when the kiss was associated with any sort of touch, and led to me not being able to touch her for 2 weeks.
The basis, then, has been to put only enough pressure on her to keep asking little questions, but not going further than that until she said it was ok. If she wasn't happy with it, then we didn't do it. It can sort of go against the grain a little to let a pony release themselves from pressure with no follow up, but in the end that was what she needed. She needed to be able to say "no, I'm not happy with that" and for me to listen.
The result, so far, is that I now have a pony I can catch and put a headcollar on normally (that took a year), and who doesn't flinch when I touch her (unless it's windy!). And, for the last 2 weeks, I have a pony who will allow me to pick out her feet. Not under sufferance, no nasty faces, not even tied up.
The biggest breakthrough for me came a week or so ago when I decided to test her with the rasp, hoping that she might have her feet trimmed in the next couple of months. She didn't bat an eyelid. I took off about 1/4 cm without her even being tied up. We did another session with me too, and then this morning....
Helen came. Helen said hello. Zorelle ate hay...
Helen trimmed Zorelle's feet. Zorelle ate hay (and lots of it!).
Yes, the line is on the floor, safely in front of her so she can't step on it. There is no reason for her to stand still other than that it's ok.
So, 17 months to train a pony to be happy having her feet trimmed - sounds a lot, doesn't it? Well yes, it is a lot. But if that's what your pony needs, then that's what you have to give.
Not all rescues at as demanding of your patience, but many are. Some are even more so. At the risk of causing offence or sounding patronising, the lesson for me has to be that if you can't give the time, patience and everything else that a rescue pony needs, then don't do it. It is simply not fair to put already scared ponies through even more undue fear and stress, sometimes making matters worse, or have them passed from pillar to post when you find you've taken on more than you can handle. Don't forget there is more to a pony's wellbeing that the physical, and months of mental distress might sometimes be a price that is not worth paying.
Zorelle is lucky that she is now coming out the other end and she will have a home with me for life. Would I put her through it again if we could roll back the clock? Good question...
We can't be certain but my belief is that she is from Galicia and has been through the delightful "rapa das bestas" festival, probably more than once. If you've a strong enough disposition, there are videos on YouTube. She has a metal tag in one ear, a part of the other has been cut off, she has a microchip. All of these would have been done to her by force. She would have been forced onto cattle trucks and I know it took 4 hefty farmers to load her to bring her here. Strangely enough, she was terrified of people. Odd, that.
To cut a long story short, she was orginally owned by someone else but her previous owner decided she was not able to keep her, so she was gifted to me - quite honestly, I'm not sure anyone else would have wanted her.
She's taken a huge amount of patience and has tested my brain to the absolute limit. And that's the reason I've decided to put her up here, because I've learned so much from her that I can maybe pass on to others thinking of taking on a severely abused and terrified pony, or any rescue who may be more challenging that you're used to.
The main thing to bear in mind is that you need infinite patience and a training toolkit to match. Especially with horses who have had rough or abusive handling, they learn how to cope with humans very quickly, and in that case coping usually means keeping you at arms length at all costs. Their ability to learn to anticipate can be astonishing. It's all about survival, after all.
This can lead to great frustration for us trainers. A tool seems to work but then no longer does, because the pony didn't really accept it in the first place. Then the pony starts to anticipate so things get worse, and you have to start all over again, changing things completely. Things you think should work don't, things you think shouldn't work do. You have good days but you have awful ones, and sometimes those awful ones make you wonder why you are doing all this.
There have been times, I'll confess, that I've wondered if Zorelle wouldn't have been better off going straight to Italy. She's hated me, that I know, and sometimes for practical reasons I've had to put more pressure on her that I would ever have wanted to.
Since she's been back here, though, (about 17 months), we've taken our time. The only complete disaster we've had was with clicker training - that scared the heebies out of her. Even after desensitising her to a kiss noise (an actual click of any sort freaked her completely), she still panicked when the kiss was associated with any sort of touch, and led to me not being able to touch her for 2 weeks.
The basis, then, has been to put only enough pressure on her to keep asking little questions, but not going further than that until she said it was ok. If she wasn't happy with it, then we didn't do it. It can sort of go against the grain a little to let a pony release themselves from pressure with no follow up, but in the end that was what she needed. She needed to be able to say "no, I'm not happy with that" and for me to listen.
The result, so far, is that I now have a pony I can catch and put a headcollar on normally (that took a year), and who doesn't flinch when I touch her (unless it's windy!). And, for the last 2 weeks, I have a pony who will allow me to pick out her feet. Not under sufferance, no nasty faces, not even tied up.
The biggest breakthrough for me came a week or so ago when I decided to test her with the rasp, hoping that she might have her feet trimmed in the next couple of months. She didn't bat an eyelid. I took off about 1/4 cm without her even being tied up. We did another session with me too, and then this morning....
Helen came. Helen said hello. Zorelle ate hay...
Helen trimmed Zorelle's feet. Zorelle ate hay (and lots of it!).
Yes, the line is on the floor, safely in front of her so she can't step on it. There is no reason for her to stand still other than that it's ok.
So, 17 months to train a pony to be happy having her feet trimmed - sounds a lot, doesn't it? Well yes, it is a lot. But if that's what your pony needs, then that's what you have to give.
Not all rescues at as demanding of your patience, but many are. Some are even more so. At the risk of causing offence or sounding patronising, the lesson for me has to be that if you can't give the time, patience and everything else that a rescue pony needs, then don't do it. It is simply not fair to put already scared ponies through even more undue fear and stress, sometimes making matters worse, or have them passed from pillar to post when you find you've taken on more than you can handle. Don't forget there is more to a pony's wellbeing that the physical, and months of mental distress might sometimes be a price that is not worth paying.
Zorelle is lucky that she is now coming out the other end and she will have a home with me for life. Would I put her through it again if we could roll back the clock? Good question...