I received an update from the lady with the abused horse question this morning, along with a couple of follow-up questions. Thought I’d pass them along in case anyone is interested.
Hi Rachel,
The horse is finally at his new home
He is doing better every day though we have 2 main problems.1. going in to his stable, he is absolutely terrified to go in. Once he’s in he relaxes and starts to eat.
Dunno how I’m gonna fix that yet
2. leading him when he’s next to me.
He is easy to walk with but only when you’re in front of him, he doesn’t understand if you’re standing next to him.
With an abused horse ground training becomes even more important. Here is my response:
Thanks for the update! Sounds like your youngster is doing very well. I have a couple of thoughts regarding your current challenges:
1. It sounds like you are pushing him through a threshold at the stable door. Something about the stable entrance frightens him– it doesn’t really matter what. As you walk him toward the stable, his thought process is something like this… I’m okay… I’m okay… I’m okay… alright, I’m a bit nervous about this now… getting more nervous… getting REALLY nervous… OH MY GOD THIS IS TOO SCARY I CAN’T DO IT!!!
That’s a “threshold”. As a leader, you gain more respect from the horse by being aware of his thresholds and respecting them. Pretend you were afraid of heights, and you had to learn to skydive for some reason. Would you have more respect for a teacher who slapped your parachute on your back, said “okay, pull the cord when you get to 5,000 ft,” and shoved you out of the open door of the plane, or a teacher who went slowly, explained everything, and stopped whenever you got scared, until you regained control of your emotions? Personally, I’d rather have the second person as my leader… and so would your horse.
To get through a threshold, walk your horse toward the stable until his feet start to get sticky; about the time when he’s saying, “Hey, I’m nervous about this!”. Let him stop, and back him up a step or two. (Good time to practice backing up!) Stand there until his head comes down and he starts to lick and chew. If he is ready to move forward, you can lead him forward until he gets nervous and stops again– this is the new threshold, and may only be a couple of steps past the old threshold. If he doesn’t want to move, you can turn him and walk back the way you came, then re-approach the stable.
Either way, you stop every time your horse hits a new threshold, back up to where he’s comfortable, and wait. It might take 45 minutes to get into the stable the first day. But the next day, it will only take 20 minutes. And the day after that, five minutes. And before you know it, he walks right into the stable without giving it a second thought.
Over time, a horse becomes more trusting of your leadership if you have the patience to respect his thresholds. Because you have demonstrated to the horse that you will not force him into situations that he considers frightening and dangerous, he starts to assume that if you are asking him to do something, it must be safe because you are a good leader who takes care of him and would not put him in danger.
2. To get your horse to move up and walk next to you, you’ll need to teach him to move forward away from the tap of a stick or long whip on his hindquarters. This is easiest to do while walking next to a fence, so that he can’t move sideways to get away from you. If you are walking ahead of him on his left side, hold the lead line (with lots of slack) in your right hand, and a long training stick in your left hand, with the end of the stick trailing behind you as you walk. Make sure there are several feet between you and the fence, so that he has plenty of room to come up next to you without feeling claustrophobic. Cluck and put a bit of pressure on the lead to encourage him to walk up beside you. If he doesn’t walk up within four or five seconds, gently reach back with your left arm and tap the point of his hip with the stick. (You can also use a “flag”– a piece of plastic or cloth tied to the end of the stick, which you can wave around in the vicinity of his hindquarters to create a bit of commotion from which he will want to move away.)
It’s very likely that your colt will over-react and rush forward past you the first several times you tap him. That’s fine; don’t jerk on him and try to correct him… just let him go on by you. Then get organized again and repeat the process– ask him up beside you with a cluck and light pressure on the rope; reinforce with a tap or a wave of the flag if he doesn’t respond after a few seconds. Eventually, he will realize that the stick follows the cluck and the pull on the rope, and he’ll start responding to those cues in order to avoid the stick. When he does, reward him by stopping and relaxing for at least 30 seconds or a minute. Scratch him and let him think about what he’s learning.
Try to stop on a good note, and before long you’ll be able to position him wherever you want as you lead him. Once he understands the general concept, you can reinforce your requests by flicking the end of the lead rope toward his hindquarters if necessary. That way, you don’t have to carry a long stick with you everywhere!
It sounds like you’re doing a great job with him. Before long, he’ll be a model horsey citizen.
-Rachel