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Post by wabuska on Jan 2, 2009 10:20:15 GMT 1
Hi Nina, this is a standard de-spooking excercise and I saw Monty do it with a very spooky horse afraid of umbrellas. Flynn did very well and by the second day is pretty much ignoring the object on the stick as he sees that (unlike a predator) it moves away. I would have to video the exercise to explain how it's done fully. Yes, he's a trembling wreck when hacking depending on the day, and this groundwork has a great impact. I'm laid back about his spooking in the saddle, but we need to work on his fears.
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Post by rifleman on Jan 2, 2009 11:06:20 GMT 1
A bit of mud, and a healthy growth of mane makes Flynn feral, Kanga? Pleeeeease!! You only have to look at how healthy his coat looks (apart from the titchy bit hidden by the mud!) to see he's in fine shape. One drying breezy day, a quick shake, and most of it will fall off, anyway. And his mane? Coo - be thankful you don't live up 'ere at Cold Springs Farm. We have our own local micro-climate generating wind tunnel - well, the Ordnance Survey chaps say it's a natural glaciated feature called the Goyt Valley, but they can't fool me. When the wind is blowing in from the West off the Irish Sea, and bringing in heavy rain, it's a bit like a cross between a pressure washer and a firehose; I haven't washed my Land Rover in two and a half years, and she's still shiny! If I was a horse, up here, I'd want every bit of hair on me that I could hang on to . . . Your photos, by the way, remind me of a bit of film I saw years ago of Police horses doing their de-spooking. Apparently the cops didn't just expose them to things they might expect to see, like shouting crowds, heavy traffic, waving banners, etc - but anything and everything they could think of. In the end, the horse got the idea that it didn't really matter what came up - as long as it trusted the rider, everything would be okay. Great team-building stuff. Best regards, Jack
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Post by wabuska on Jan 2, 2009 11:17:29 GMT 1
Thanks Jack. What you can't see is me whipping the stick from the ground to his back, legs etc in gentle repeats. Clean Landrover... Lol. Why does all the bad weather come from Ireland? There's always a 'depression coming from Ireland' on the BBC news!!
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Post by rifleman on Jan 2, 2009 11:42:56 GMT 1
Clean Landrover... Lol. Why does all the bad weather come from Ireland? There's always a 'depression coming from Ireland' on the BBC news!! Well, it doesn't actually come from Ireland - it comes from the Atlantic - Ireland just being a sort of whistle stop on the way! But the mountains in Ireland being so old and worn down, they only catch a smidgin of the rain - just enough for what the Irish call "a fine, soft day" - whereas the Peak District goes up like a cliff at the Eastern edge of the Cheshire Plain - so we get the horizontal Niagara! Or blazing hot sunshine in December . . . But, to revert to your original point, i.e., the plastic bag on a stick - of course, a huge advantage of this is that, if the horse kicks out at it, you're well out of range - and the whole thing is light and responsive enough that you can keep it on him even when he hops about. That way, he learns that kicking at it and hopping doesn't make it go away - it only does that when he stands still. Having dealt with horses, when I was a farrier's mate, whose owners said "Oh, but surely, teaching him to pick his feet up is your job, isn't it?" (honestly!), I only wish that bag on a stick was more widely used. That I never got cow-kicked in the head was down to luck and fast reactions more than anything else. Best wishes, Jack
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Post by Susan on Jan 2, 2009 12:33:05 GMT 1
He could well be 5 but that is still young and even 7 or as Louise has 13 year old it is their life experiences that make them the horse they are. I have the opposite Flynn to you and Louise C. My Flynn is did so much de-sensitizing work to little makes him even consider spooking and then it is nothing to be concerned about. He was like that at 3 years when I bought him and easy to continue that work with. But I think you will get more out of him the more work you do of this kind.. keep it up.
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Post by nikki on Jan 2, 2009 14:38:08 GMT 1
I think thats a great de-spooking exercise and if you keep at it, it'll soon increase Flynn's trust in you. I'm doing lots of desensitising work with my little man at the minute and it won't be long until my schooling whip and plastic bag come out too!! We can compare pics afterwards.
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