Horse hyper sensitive to body language - I think!

[hdonna]

Was hoping you could help as I am sure this is the right place. A horse who is in my care seems extremely reactive to body language. Great as I totally understand how this works (I think!) However others are struggling to catch her.

A bit of history.

This mare is 4 years old and came to our yard just 3-4 weeks ago. Up until January she was totally unhandled and living on the Welsh mountains. (she is a section D) Since January she has been humanized, handled, and ridden. She is going lovely when ridden, is good to groom and put on fly spray and tack etc. She does however come across as someone who is rather scared but at the same time brave as she takes on new challenges well.

She was initially very difficult to catch. I decided to join up with her in the field (1 acre in size) this join up seemed to not be working as after an hour and half I was considering giving up. She would show signs that she was ready to join me - licking and chewing, lowering head etc. But every time I turned away to offer her the join she just kept going. In the end I managed to join up. She stopped on the circle, I backed towards her - stroked her and she followed. I now presume from knowing her better that she was just probably reacting to my poor signals.

Anyway, after the join up I decided to leave her head collar on as the next part of the process. This was of little help as she seemed to take it off daily when i was not around.

Onto plan B – I decided to build her a pen in her favourite spot of the field. I kept her in this pen for about 5 days. This is where I learned more about her and got to know her. I would go in the pen and she would trot around me, not in any manic way just trot. If I moved or lifted even a finger her energy levels increased. I stood still waited for her to stop and I would reverse myself towards her. Interestingly this only worked if my left shoulder was closest to her. A lesson was learned here. I have had an injury to my right shoulder and I often carry this higher than my left. This horse is now teaching me to drop my right shoulder however I can still not approach from this lead!
Within the pen – I understood her. Could take the head collar on and off etc. So I then turned her back out in the larger paddock. (1 acre) when trying to catch her for about a week after she was such a cutie she would always pop herself in the pen. It was her comfort zone I think where she understood me! And catching became a 2 minute job. Although could not really walk up to her directly – always reversing!
On to now. She is now caught daily in the bigger paddock (1 acre) She has a friend with her she no longer pops herself in her pen and she does at times use her field friend as a barrier to avoid me! It does not ever take me longer than 5 mins to catch her. I do still need to reverse to get her with left shoulder leading. However others cannot get near her as timing is key. I try and explain about the body language but others do not seem to tune in and get the timing right.

So after all this waffle (sorry) My question is can I in anyway dampen this sensitivety down? How can I progress so one day I can walk up to her in a forward motion, or her walk to me or is it just a time thing.

I am totally honoured to have this horse in my life as she is teaching me so much, and as an equine facilitated learning environement she will in time I am sure teach others.

Any help greatly received.

Thanks for reading!

[VeronicaF]

Ahh hdonna, sounds like you have a lovely bond with her,well done

when you do catch her, what do you do with her then? do you bring her in for food, or reward her for coming with something yummy??

or is she only caught to work?

she has a friend with her and lovely grass to eat,so it would have to be something better than what she has already to want to come to you.

if that makes sense?

hope this might help? good luck and keep us posted with your prgress.

[clipclop]

I love this type of horse.

As you are finding, they teach you an awful lot about yourself and really make you think outside the box.

Essentially, whilst most horses trust you unless you give them a reason not to, these horses don't trust you until you give them a reason to do so. Once they do, you'll experience the greatest bond you've ever had with a horse. The downside though is that the trust is not universal - it is very specific to each person so just because you can happily catch her, she won't generalise that to anyone else catching her unless they also work to gain her trust.

My advice would be to find a low stress system for others to catch her, such as a pen in the field or a feed bucket or whatever works for her. Others chasing her round the field will only scare her and put her back in her progress. You then just continue as you are with her.

Edited to add, I appreciate that the horse in question is in your care as opposed to your ownership so I don't know how feasible the above is in terms of having numerous people interact with her. If she's truly hypersensitive then it may just not be the right environment for her unfortunately. These types of horses really thrive in one to one homes - mine even went to hoys!

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