Post by Deleted on Jul 12, 2010 19:22:39 GMT 1
As someone has just asked how we'd go about tackling a bridling problem, I thought it might be good to tell you about young Sherbert.
Sherbert is a baby horse with a big past. We believe he may be an Irish import, already backed at 2, and then ignored. He's now 3, has scars on his nose from a badly fitting headcollar and has scars in his mind to match. He's good with his front feet but don't even THINK about touching my hinds, ok?
(Yes, I'm using a Dually on a horse with a scarred nose, but mainly to give me the lateral movement rather that to apply increased pressure.)
Sherbert is owned by the lovely Alice and her mum Lily. Alice is 15 and one of our IH Kids. She has the makings of a really good horsewoman, as this story will tell...
It's very early days in their partnership, Sherbert has not been with Alice long, but she has already done a good job in building trust. His leading is not too bad at all and although we tightened things up a bit, the basis is already fairly solid.
At the moment, though, he has to live with his headcollar on as he has a big problem with having it put on. My guess is that this is either due to the pain of the headcollar that caused the scarring or rough handling, or more likely a combination of both.
I did the initial work with Sherbert. Because a headcollar is such a big deal for him, I started with a glove. It was just big enough to worry him but not to the extent that he couldn't cope with it.
He tried to take his head away, and once or twice he got as far as thinking about moving his feet. By keeping his stress levels down, though, by encouraging him to come back to me and then releasing the pressure (in this case the presence of the glove) I was soon able to get the glove around his face, including onto that nose.
I then did the same with the headcollar. Starting at a place he could accept it, I simply used pressure and release to expand the area of acceptance. The whole time, the line was loose except if he tried to take his head too far away, in which case he was gently asked to come back, then got a release as a reward. When he tried really hard, he got a nice scratch on his withers (oooooooooh, that's nice!!!).
It was then Alice's turn. I'll let the pictures tell the story:
Isn't that nice? Quiet, relaxed and learning that this is not the dreadful experience he was expecting. Alice was brilliant, keeping a feeling of quiet confidence the whole time, with great feel and timing.
When we changed his headcollar back from the Dually at the end of the session, we did it slowly and quietly, and he was great. A quick fix? No, without care he could easily revert, but this was such a great positive learning experience for him, I'm hopeful he'll soon be able to put his headcollar fears behind him.
Ideally, I would have liked to leave Sherbert to think about this and not do anything else with him on that session. However, his hind feet are in a bad state and he will not let the EP near them.
So, leg handling next... and he was just fantastic! Having now built up some trust, I was able to introduce my hook to him with little problem and run it down his hind legs with barely a flinch. The first times I asked him to pick up his foot, by applying forwards pressure with the hook and at the same time gently rocking him back to encourage the foot to come up, he was uncertain. We had a few moments of his foot being super glued to the ground but he then did as he was asked and got a release of the pressure - the hook went away.
As we progressed and I was able to ask him to keep his foot off the ground and relax, we did have a few pulls but simply by waiting for relaxation and acceptance before releasing him, he very quickly learned that it was harder work to resist than relax.
He was then surprisingly good when I swapped stick for hand. Yes, he explored the option of kicking but it was mostly fairly half hearted and again I was able to stick with him until he relaxed, then release. For anyone thinking of doing this, the key is to stand well forwards, out of the kick zone, and also to keep yourself very loose so you can go with the motion. By holding the foot very lightly, balancing it on your fingers rather than gripping, not only do you make it feel nicer for the horse, you also prevent your arm from locking. It's when you go tight yourself that you either have to let go or risk getting injured, while worrying the horse.
After a couple of good lifts on both sides, I handed over to Alice and her mum. Understandably, both are still wary of Sherbert's hinds. Bearing in mind, then, that they too have to work not too far out of their comfort zone, we went back to the hook so that they can practice with that first, get Sherbert used to having his hinds lifted at all, used to feeling the balance change, and also start to dispell his anticipation that anything round that area means certain death.
He did extremely well, as did Alice. I have every hope that this will be a great partnership of trust and that it won't be too long before his hind feet look as smart as his fronts!
One last thing I want to say, looking back at those photos. It might be easy for someone to say "ah, but I bet he wasn't that difficult, look he's all relaxed and happy". Of course there are more difficult than Sherbert, but I promise you that if you'd put too much pressure on this little man he would have shown you he wasn't that easy really. Alice has a nice bruise on her leg where he has kicked her to prove it. By keeping the pressure at the level where he could just cope but still learn, though, it was easy. But that's what it's all about, isn't it? Make it easy and it all becomes possible...
Sherbert is a baby horse with a big past. We believe he may be an Irish import, already backed at 2, and then ignored. He's now 3, has scars on his nose from a badly fitting headcollar and has scars in his mind to match. He's good with his front feet but don't even THINK about touching my hinds, ok?
(Yes, I'm using a Dually on a horse with a scarred nose, but mainly to give me the lateral movement rather that to apply increased pressure.)
Sherbert is owned by the lovely Alice and her mum Lily. Alice is 15 and one of our IH Kids. She has the makings of a really good horsewoman, as this story will tell...
It's very early days in their partnership, Sherbert has not been with Alice long, but she has already done a good job in building trust. His leading is not too bad at all and although we tightened things up a bit, the basis is already fairly solid.
At the moment, though, he has to live with his headcollar on as he has a big problem with having it put on. My guess is that this is either due to the pain of the headcollar that caused the scarring or rough handling, or more likely a combination of both.
I did the initial work with Sherbert. Because a headcollar is such a big deal for him, I started with a glove. It was just big enough to worry him but not to the extent that he couldn't cope with it.
He tried to take his head away, and once or twice he got as far as thinking about moving his feet. By keeping his stress levels down, though, by encouraging him to come back to me and then releasing the pressure (in this case the presence of the glove) I was soon able to get the glove around his face, including onto that nose.
I then did the same with the headcollar. Starting at a place he could accept it, I simply used pressure and release to expand the area of acceptance. The whole time, the line was loose except if he tried to take his head too far away, in which case he was gently asked to come back, then got a release as a reward. When he tried really hard, he got a nice scratch on his withers (oooooooooh, that's nice!!!).
It was then Alice's turn. I'll let the pictures tell the story:
Isn't that nice? Quiet, relaxed and learning that this is not the dreadful experience he was expecting. Alice was brilliant, keeping a feeling of quiet confidence the whole time, with great feel and timing.
When we changed his headcollar back from the Dually at the end of the session, we did it slowly and quietly, and he was great. A quick fix? No, without care he could easily revert, but this was such a great positive learning experience for him, I'm hopeful he'll soon be able to put his headcollar fears behind him.
Ideally, I would have liked to leave Sherbert to think about this and not do anything else with him on that session. However, his hind feet are in a bad state and he will not let the EP near them.
So, leg handling next... and he was just fantastic! Having now built up some trust, I was able to introduce my hook to him with little problem and run it down his hind legs with barely a flinch. The first times I asked him to pick up his foot, by applying forwards pressure with the hook and at the same time gently rocking him back to encourage the foot to come up, he was uncertain. We had a few moments of his foot being super glued to the ground but he then did as he was asked and got a release of the pressure - the hook went away.
As we progressed and I was able to ask him to keep his foot off the ground and relax, we did have a few pulls but simply by waiting for relaxation and acceptance before releasing him, he very quickly learned that it was harder work to resist than relax.
He was then surprisingly good when I swapped stick for hand. Yes, he explored the option of kicking but it was mostly fairly half hearted and again I was able to stick with him until he relaxed, then release. For anyone thinking of doing this, the key is to stand well forwards, out of the kick zone, and also to keep yourself very loose so you can go with the motion. By holding the foot very lightly, balancing it on your fingers rather than gripping, not only do you make it feel nicer for the horse, you also prevent your arm from locking. It's when you go tight yourself that you either have to let go or risk getting injured, while worrying the horse.
After a couple of good lifts on both sides, I handed over to Alice and her mum. Understandably, both are still wary of Sherbert's hinds. Bearing in mind, then, that they too have to work not too far out of their comfort zone, we went back to the hook so that they can practice with that first, get Sherbert used to having his hinds lifted at all, used to feeling the balance change, and also start to dispell his anticipation that anything round that area means certain death.
He did extremely well, as did Alice. I have every hope that this will be a great partnership of trust and that it won't be too long before his hind feet look as smart as his fronts!
One last thing I want to say, looking back at those photos. It might be easy for someone to say "ah, but I bet he wasn't that difficult, look he's all relaxed and happy". Of course there are more difficult than Sherbert, but I promise you that if you'd put too much pressure on this little man he would have shown you he wasn't that easy really. Alice has a nice bruise on her leg where he has kicked her to prove it. By keeping the pressure at the level where he could just cope but still learn, though, it was easy. But that's what it's all about, isn't it? Make it easy and it all becomes possible...