Gracie is an older grey mare who lives at the rescue. No one knows her exact age, but she’s probably around 18. Gracie was rescued in 2007 from a feed lot in Nevada where she was on her way to the slaughter house. When Gracie was rescued, she was absolutely terrified of people. She was probably mistreated and abused in the past, as her light grey coat shows plenty of signs of old injuries and scars.

Gracie Was Completely Untouchable.

I met Gracie in the early months of 2009 when I first started volunteering at the rescue. I was warned to be careful around her, as she was extremely afraid of people. She was known to kick if she felt threatened. Gracie was wearing a blue halter when I met her. A vet had put it on her while she been sedated for veterinary work, but no one had ever been able to get close enough afterwards to take off the halter.

First Tries at Friendship.

I first tried befriending Gracie and working with her in the spring and fall of 2009. She was interested in treats, but was usually too skeptical of me to come close enough to take them. I tried sitting with Gracie and letting her get comfortable with my presence. She never did.

The progress we made was one step forward, three steps back. I wrote several posts where it seemed like we were making headway. However, the next day she would revert back to her old ways and would be as skeptical and standoffish as ever.

Can Food Overcome Fear?

Gracie was still terrified of us. The treats tasted good, but she was still very fearful and cautious.

Food is usually a great training tool. However, for issues of severe fear or aggression, food can sometimes be a hindrance. The animal learns to approach to get the food, but is tense and still has little interest or curiosity in the human. Gracie wanted the food, but she could not get over her fear of people.

Constructional Aggression Treatment (CAT)

This past winter I started doing CAT with Gracie in short sessions. Constructional Aggression Treatment (CAT) is a procedure originally developed for aggressive dogs. However, it also works great for fear issues. CAT uses low levels of negative reinforcement (pressure/release) to build curiosity, interest, relaxation and engagement. The CAT procedure treats emotions as operant behavior and uses negative reinforcement and extinction to shape a new repertoire of positive emotions.

I would approach Gracie in the pasture, but stop at any sign of tension or unrest. I would would wait (sometimes awhile) for any signs of relaxation or curiosity and then retreat.

By February, she was showing A LOT more interest and was beginning to act like she wanted to engaged. This youtube clip shows her total shift in attitude. Instead of approaching to snatch a treat, she was approaching me because she was interested and curious.

Adding Treats

When I first added treats back into the mix, we made some progress, but ended up backsliding again. She was still too uncomfortable with me near her head and neck. So, we went back to CAT until she was more comfortable with me standing very close to her shoulder and head.

This summer, Gracie has finally gotten comfortable enough with me to allow me to pet her. I started in tiny amounts, scratching her once then giving her a treat and walking away. I made sure to always watch her body language for tension or stress. Sometimes I’d do to much and accidentally scare her or startle her.

Gracie Gets Her Halter Off

Just this past week or so, I’ve been able to touch her cheek. I also started touching and gently moving the buckle on the halter. She needed to be pretty comfortable with the halter moving, as the buckle was going to be hard to undo. After several days of this I was finally able get the halter off!

Looking Forward

Gracie has come a long way in the past year. She’s a lot more curious about people and is starting to accept being petted and scratched. We would love to get her confident enough that we could train her to cooperate with basic husbandry tasks such as vaccinations, blood draws or having her feet trimmed.

Gracie also needs to learn how to be comfortable around a variety of different people. We will have to be careful about doing this, as certain situations or movements can still startle her and scare her.

Recently, she let Dawn, who owns and runs the rescue, pet and scratch her for nearly 10 minutes. Gracie has been here three years it was the first time Dawn had been able to pet her while she stood still, calm and relaxed. Dawn was completely overjoyed and Gracie was more than happy to get some scratches and treats.

Related posts:

1. Gracie Update
2. Boomer’s First Session with Halter Training
3. Gracie and I become Friends (sort of)

The latest gossip on the internet is all about Pat Parelli’s recent demonstration with a stallion named Catwalk. If you haven’t heard, I’ll catch you up briefly.

Catwalk is a show jumping horse who is extremely difficult to bridle. Over the course of the weekend Pat Parelli worked with Catwalk until he could be bridled. However, from eyewitness accounts, the demonstration got a bit too rodeo at times, with ropes used as lip twitches, legs tied up, Catwalk rearing and struggling to get away and spectators walking out in disgust.

I wasn’t there.

I didn’t see the horse or the demonstration. I don’t know how “extreme” the horse’s problems were or if simpler methods were tried first. I don’t know if the results will last or if other problems were created.

However, the incident with Pat Parelli and Catwalk does bring up many questions about how “extreme” behavior issues should be handled when training horses. Here are 5 important lessons that we should be reminded of after the fiasco with Parelli and Catwalk.

1) There are no problem horses

There are no problem horses or extreme horses. Just horses that have problems with people and a few who have extreme problems with people. Most horses are perfectly happy in the pasture. It’s when people get involved that the problems start.

When a horse acts up or misbehaves he is acting with his safety and comfort in mind. His actions don’t seem extreme to him.

Horsemanship is about seeking partnership. We have to try to find ways to work with the horse, rather than fighting against him. We need to find training methods that help the horse to look to us for guidance, rather than seeing us as part of the problem.

2) Choose Conditions that are Ideal for Learning

Setting, location, distractions, structure of the lesson, these can all make or break a training session.

Now imagine putting a horse in a new location, without other horses around, with bright lights, strange loud noises and a cheering crowd. This would put most horses on edge and not in a learning frame of mind.

When we train, we need to consider the best conditions and environment that will help the horse learn and progress. If conditions aren’t ideal, sometimes we might need to help the horse be comfortable in those conditions, before we start training something new.

Also, we must consider session length and structure. Many times progress will be much quicker if we work in short sessions or intersperse training something new with working on behaviors that have already been established.

3) Is horse or human safety at risk?

Will the horse or human will be in danger if the problem is not fixed right now? Sometimes it is appropriate to use “extreme” or “harsh” methods in order to get something done, such as providing medical treatment to an injured but uncooperative horse.

There is no reason to use excessive force to “get it done now” for issues such as bridling. The time frame to conquer Catwalk’s issues in a weekend was arbitrarily set by Pat Parelli.

Most of the time, there are thousands of ways to address a problem. We need to be open to a variety of solutions and techniques and start with the ones that will be the safest and the most easy for the horse to understand.

If we are constantly fighting with the horse or not making progress, it’s time to try something new. Or, it might be time to take a break, let horse and human cool off and then start again from a more calm and relaxed state. If we act like we have all the time in the world, training actually often progresses faster.

4) Any Piece of Equipment can be Abusive

Any piece of equipment in the wrong hands can become a torture device. Much of the buzz about the incident with Catwalk is about the specific techniques and pieces of equipment that Parelli used. Lip chains, hobbles, tying up a horse’s leg, laying down a horse, gag bits, spade bits, whips…many pieces of horse tack resemble medieval torturing devices.

We are quick to blame the piece of equipment and fault the trainer for using such a device or tactic.

However, in unskilled hands, even a snaffle bit or a halter can become a torture device. So, rather than debating whether certain techniques or pieces of equipment should ever be used, I think it is more important to see how that equipment is being used and the skill or technique of the person using it.

A highly trained bridle horse is probably much more comfortable wearing a spade bit than a lesson pony in a snaffle who is being popped in the mouth over every jump by a beginner rider.

Was Pat Parelli wrong to use the equipment or techniques he used? I wasn’t there, I don’t know. However, the incident with Catwalk is a good reminder that we should strive to find the most humane techniques and equipment available. Then, we must become skilled in our mechanics and timing so we can be gentle and humane in applying the techniques and methods we choose.

5) Are we Focused on Results or the Training Process?

The demonstration with Catwalk was all about getting the bridle on the horse. This was the final goal. And, from the clips I saw, it was achieved.

But at what cost?

Will Catwalk regress back to old behavior patterns in the future?
Does Catwalk trust Pat Parelli and view him as a friend?
Were principles and the horse’s welfare sacrificed during the training?

Often, when we focus on single problems or goals, we miss the bigger holes. We can make it all about the bridle, like Parelli did with Catwalk. Often, though, we might need to go pretty far back in a horse’s foundation to find the real problem.

From the clips I saw, the horse wanted nothing to do with having his ears or face touched. How about working through that first until the horse enjoys having his face touched? It might take more than a weekend.

It’s harder to teach a horse to like something when you have an “I’m going to MAKE you do it attitude.” The problem is, we often get our horses to tolerate things, but don’t go far enough to teaching them to like it.

Rather than focusing on the bridle, start with ground work and the basics. Instead of starting with the scary and uncomfortable, start by establishing communication and understanding with the horse. Get the horse calm and relaxed and thinking of you as a friend.

Only return to the bridle when you are working with the horse, rather than against him.

Readers, I would be interested to hear your comments and input on this incident and thoughts in general on trainers working with extreme behavioral issues.

Related posts:

1. Teaching the Parelli Friendly Game with Clicker Training (video)
2. Trixie and the Parelli Figure-Eight Pattern

Rosie and I have been doing a lot of bareback riding recently. One handy trick when riding bareback is to be able to climb up on a fence or bench and then have your horse line herself up perfectly so you can slide right on. This can be hard to teach some horses because if the horse does not want to be ridden she will back up or turn her hindquarters away to prevent the rider from getting on.

Rosie has had trouble in the past with standing still. She likes to move her feet and has still not learned a whole lot of self control in this area. We’ve been working recently on standing by the mounting block for mounting bareback and she’s gotten a whole lot better at this. So, I thought we ought to take a stab at mounting from the fence.

I was astonished at how fast she picked this up using clicker training, plus small amounts of rein pressure.

I started by sitting on the fence with her nearly perpendicular to the fence. Rosie is great at leading and following the feel of the lead rope. So, I picked up what would become the inside rein (the left rein) and took up some contact while pulling forward slightly. At the same time, I held the right rein with my other hand, gently pulling towards me and back slightly. The outside rein was more to offer support and direction, although I was not putting much pressure at all on either rein.

Then I waited.

The first couple of times I did this she offered a step forward, and I clicked and treated. Then I started waiting for a step forward, plus some sort of movement of her hindquarters towards the fence. Click and Treat. The first attempt probably took 8 clicks or so until she had moved her hindquarters enough to be parallel to the fence. I mounted, we took a lap around the yard, and then we tried again.

The next few mounting attempts were faster. Just a bit of pressure, and she’d take a step towards the fence with her hind end. Sometimes she ended up parallel to the fence, but too far away, so we’d start again.

After about half a dozen tries, I could climb onto the fence, put a bit of pressure on the inside left rein and she’d slide right on up to the fence and stand perfectly still waiting for me to mount. Wonderful! It was definitely one of those times where afterwards I wished I had the video camera on.

Why did this work so well?

A handful of factors meant that Rosie was able to learn this behavior really quickly.

Rosie enjoys being ridden. She knows how to stand for mounting in other settings and isn’t afraid of people or things above her. So, I wasn’t asking her to do anything scary.

Rosie has a solid understanding of lead rope and rein pressure. Even though she didn’t know what I wanted at first, she understood that the pressure from the reins meant she was suppose to move her body in some way. Since she’s a clicker savvy horse, she began experimenting to figure out the correct answer.

Rosie and I built the behavior in small steps. At first, I rewarded her for offering anything, even if it was just a step forward. I wanted to reward any movement so that she would continue to try and experiment and so that I could build toward what I wanted. Later I rewarded even a tiny bit of movement toward me. Each small try on her part was recognized and reinforced.

I tried later on to show a friend how I had used the rein cues to teach her to move over. It was nearly impossible, because she would line herself up perfectly as soon as I hopped on the fence! A good exercise for next time to really make Rosie think will be to train the behavior for mounting from the right side as well.

(The picture above is from earlier this year, by the way. It hasn’t been cold enough to wear a jacket in months!!)

Related posts:

1. Riding Rosie for the first time
2. Rosie Meets the Bareback Pad
3. Should You Use A Mounting Block to Get On Your Horse?

He warmed up to us pretty quickly and enjoyed being brushed and scratched, especially on his belly!! However, was was extremely wary about anybody or anything coming anywhere near his face or ears.

I got where I could rub the front of his face and he figured out he really liked having his cheeks scratched!! My friend Dionne (the one in the photos working with Boomer with the fly mask) worked with him quite a bit while she was here. Once he got to know her, he loved having her scratch his face and cheeks too.

Haltering progress went in fits and starts, but it was often one step forward, three steps back. This was because he was still terrified of having his ears touched and to put the halter on, I had to get close to his ears. Get close to his ears and he’d back up, throwing and tossing his head and generally work himself into a state of panic.

So, we had to forget about the halter for awhile and just work on the ears. We worked in bits and pieces, slowly going from the bottom of the ear all the way up. I’d touch as far as I could, wait for him to relax, and then remove my hand. He gradually realized that I did not, in fact, want to kill him. Then, pretty soon, he realized he actually kind of liked to have his ears rubbed.

Here’s a recently clip of haltering him and rubbing his face. Much better now, which is a relief to both of us! The next step is to see how well this will generalize to other people and then to begin working on fly mask training. Stay tuned!

Related posts:

1. Training Your Horse to Wear a Fly Mask
2. Boomer’s First Session with Halter Training
3. Halter Training Success with Daisy and Gatsby

Trixie is friendly, smart and quite food motivated, but can also be pushy and mischievous. We’ve been doing a lot of ground work and she’s been doing great. She is a very quick learner!

We’ve been working some recently on circles, change of direction on a circle, and figure-eights. Figure-eights are a GREAT exercise to do on the ground with your horse.

The figure-8 pattern combines several ground work exercises including being able to:
–send your horse way from you
–draw your horse back towards you
–yield your horse’s hind quarters
–ask your horse to change directions
–go between two objects, Parelli squeeze game style

If your horse has trouble doing a figure-eight, go back and check that she’s really good at the elements above.

Trixie and I played today with doing a figure-eight pattern over a fallen tree. She’s done figure-8s before around two buckets, but never over an obstacle. She had no problem and did the pattern like a pro! Check out the youtube clip below.

Watch Trixie do the Parelli Figure-Eight Pattern

Related posts:

1. Rosie practices her figure-eights
2. Teaching the Parelli Friendly Game with Clicker Training (video)
3. Lessons from Pat Parelli and Catwalk

There are wood shavings in it now!

To Boomer, who still has not had a whole lot of training, they look and smell pretty weird. They also make a dangerous noise when you walk on them.

Horses are always playing the “What’s different?” game. As a prey animal, it’s to the horse’s advantage to be constantly scanning his environment, identifying what has changed since the last time he was here.

When something changes in the environment, the horse has to decide in a split second if this new thing is a potential threat. Is it going to eat me?

Horses are often stubborn or spooky because something has changed and they no longer know if they are safe. Often, we aren’t even aware of what the new threat is! When a horse is stubborn or upset about something he “should” know how to do, it is often because he’s concerned about his safety.

This is particularly true for young horses like Boomer who have not had a whole lot of training and have not been exposed to as many things as a more seasoned horse. This is also why it is important to expose and desensitize your horse to as many things as you can.

So, Boomer and I are slowly working through trailer loading again. Yesterday he put both front feet in several times and today he walked all the way in once. He’s not very confident about the shavings yet and I let him back out as soon as he gets in. It helps build his confidence if he knows he can escape.

Interestingly, when one horse is uncomfortable with a change in the environment, another horse might not care at all. I led Moody, one of our yearlings, in and out of the trailer several times today. It was his first day seeing shavings and he couldn’t have cared less!

Related posts:

1. Shimmer Learns to Trailer Load
2. Boomer’s First Session with Halter Training

Does Your horse know how to wear a fly mask?

We have several young horses at the rescue who need to wear fly masks this summer. These horses are all two year olds who are halter broke but have not had a lot of exposure to strange objects and materials touching and rubbing their faces.

A fly mask can seem pretty scary to a horse at first– it looks funny, it feels strange and it makes weird sounds. However, if we go slowly and take small steps, it doesn’t take long until the horse becomes comfortable with the mask. This is a great way to desensitize your horse to things around his face and ears, something that will be important later for further training and for veterinary care.

My friend Dionne was visiting recently and she spent quite a bit of time playing with Boomer, one of our 2 year old geldings at the rescue. Below is a series of photos and descriptions explaining how she taught him to wear a fly mask. She did a great job with him and he is accepting his fly mask like a pro now.

Step One: Let Your Horse Get Comfortable with the Mask

Before we even think about putting the mask on the horse, we want the horse to be comfortable with having the mask near him and in his space. Depending on how comfortable your horse is with strange objects, this step could take a lot of time or no time at all.

As you can see in the two photos below, Dionne starts by letting Boomer approach her and smell the mask. She also moves it around his face and body letting him get comfortable with how it looks and sounds.

Notice that throughout this process she is working completely at liberty. The horse can back off, turn away or leave at any time if he chooses. We don’t want to trap, force or trick the horse into wearing the mask. Instead, we want him to willingly choose to let us put the fly mask on him. Working at liberty builds confidence because the horse has control and knows he can escape. New things become a lot scarier if the animal thinks he can’t escape. (Note: If you horse is constantly trying to leave or walk away, slow down! You’re probably trying to introduce things too fast.)

Dionne uses treats throughout the fly mask training to reward Boomer when he’s doing well. Every time he does something right, allows Dionne to move on to the next step or offers relaxed or curious behavior, he gets a treat. This keeps it interesting for him and teaches him that fly masks are fun!

Note: Make sure at this stage that your horse is completely comfortable with the sound of the Velcro opening and closing. Some horses won’t be bothered at all, but some will be terrified! Start softly and at at distance and gradually build, until you can stand beside the horse and make sounds with the velco without him being bothered. Be sure to reward the horse when he offers relaxed or curious behavior!

Step Two: Rub the Fly Mask All Over Your Horse’s Face

Next, we want the horse to be comfortable with us rubbing the fly mask all over his face. He needs to be comfortable with the way the mask feels and with the way it flaps and moves over his face.

Depending on how concerned your horse is about the fly mask, you might need to start this step of the training by rubbing the mask on his shoulder or neck. Once he is comfortable with this, move slowly up to his cheeks and the sides of his face.

Next, make sure you can touch him with the fly mask on his nose and the center of his face. Also practice rubbing him with the mask around his forelock, ears and poll. Make sure to reward your horse with treats, scratches and kind words throughout the training process. Let him know that he’s doing a great job! Giving him short breaks or quitting when he does really well will also help you make progress faster. Look at Boomer’s body language in the two photos above–he is calm and relaxed in both of them. Dionne is watching how he reacts to everything she does and working at his speed.

Step Three: Hang the Fly Mask on an Ear

After your horse is comfortable with the mask being rubbed all around his face and ears, the next step should be easy. Rub the mask up and down the horse’s face as before, but leave it hanging over one of the horse’s ears.

Many young horses can be sensitive about having their ears touched. This is a great time to make sure your horse is super comfortable about having his ears handled. If your horse is really skeptical about having his ears touched, you might need to work with your hand or a soft rag before attempting to hang the fly mask on him or rub his ears with the mask.

Make sure you work on this step from both sides. The horse needs to be comfortable with the mask touching, rubbing and pressing on both of his ears. Getting your horse to accept strange things on his ears will help you later on. He should be more tolerant about headstalls, bridles or other things that need to go up and around his ears.

Step Four: Pull the Fly Mask Around the Front of the Horse’s Face

Next, once you have one ear in, practice swinging the mask around the front of the horse’s face. Make sure you go slowly at first so that the horse knows what you are doing. However, if you spent enough time rubbing the mask all over the horse’s face, this step should go smoothly. If the horse is hesitant or uncomfortable with this, go back to step two and make sure that your horse is calm and relaxed when you rub the fly mask all over his face.

As in the photo above, you can practice holding the mask on underneath while you just have one ear in. This lets the horse become accustomed to what it will feel like to have the mask fastened.

Finally, practice slipping the mask up and over the second ear. Now the mask should be all the way on the horse, but not fastened. We’re almost done!

Step Five: Fasten the Fly Mask

For the last step, spend some time practicing fastening the mask. Start by opening and closing the Velcro without fastening the mask to the horse–this is to double check that your horse is okay with the sound of the Velcro. Next you can actually fasten the Velcro, securing the mask to the horse. Hooray! Your horse is now wearing a fly mask!

At first, let your horse wear the fly mask for short periods of time. Let the horse get accustom to what it feels like. Keep a close eye on your horse the first handful of times you let him wear his fly mask. Make sure that he is not trying to rub the mask off and that his pasture mates are not trying to bite at the mask or tear it off.

Dionne did an excellent job teaching Boomer to wear his fly mask. Boomer has not had a whole lot of handling or experience being touched around his face and now he is great about having his fly mask put on and off. If we break tasks down into small steps, the horse can be successful at each step. This makes the learning process faster and more fun for both human and horse.

Related posts:

1. Halter Training with a Head Shy Horse
2. Boomer’s First Session with Halter Training
3. Teaching the Parelli Friendly Game with Clicker Training (video)

Rosie is a very green little quarter horse mare who we have at the rescue. (Well, actually, for the non-horsey folks she’s what’s called a red roan; green just means she hasn’t had a whole lot of riding yet.) I rode her 3 times in March and a foster family put a handful of first rides on her this past winter. But, she still doesn’t know a whole lot.

I’ve been working with her quite a bit the past couple of weeks as I have more time now that school is out. We went for three short rides this week, two in the round pen and one out and about through the front yard. She did excellently!! Rosie was calm and relaxed the whole time and acted like she had been doing this her whole life.

A lot of the exercises we’ve been doing on the ground recently have transfered really well to under saddle. Particularly, on the ground we’ve been working on verbal cues for woah and walk on, as well as standing patiently at the halt. Under saddle she was very light both for halting and for moving off of my leg cues.

She is a bit stiff with her steering still. While riding we’ve been doing a lot of figure-eights, circles and changes of direction to work on this. On the ground I’ll probably start doing some more ground driving exercises to help make her lighter and more responsive to rein cues. Right now we’re riding only at the walk–I’d like her walk to trot and trot to walk transitions to be solid on the ground before we attempt them under saddle!

Check out the video clip below. Rosie is calm and quiet throughout the clip. When you do the proper ground work and preparations on the ground, the transition to riding is often smooth and simple. (By the way, Rosie is currently available for adoption if anyone is interested!)

Watch Rosie on youtube.

Related posts:

1. Riding Rosie for the first time
2. Rosie Meets the Bareback Pad
3. Introducing Sebastian to a Saddle Pad (video)

Sheriff the donkey was recently rescued and already has a new home! However, he is staying at the rescue for a short while until he can go to his new home. He is curious and interested in people, but can still be a bit shy and skeptical, especially when being approached.

Once you get close, he is more than happy to have you scratch his ears, face, shoulders and back. However, he’s a bit skeptical about being approached. I petted him some and spent some time with him yesterday when he arrived.

He wouldn’t let me get very close to him today, so I started with some CAT style approach and retreat. I would approach, wait for a sign of curiosity, interest or friendly behavior, and then back off. After about 20 minutes he was following me around the round pen and was definitely enjoying having his ears scratched.
Here’s a clip from towards the end, I’ll post some more clips from working with him today later on. By letting him repeatedly approach me, it helped build his confidence and curiosity. He knew he could leave at any time if he got scared or unsure. Sheriff really seems to enjoy getting his ears scratched and is quickly becoming friendlier and more confident.

I will keep you updated as we continue to work with him. I think he’s going to be a friendly little fellow before too much longer!

Watch this clip on youtube

Related posts:

1. Halter Training with a Head Shy Horse
2. Gracie Gets Her Halter Off
3. Boomer’s First Session with Halter Training

I spent part of the afternoon playing with some of the rescue horses at the rescue’s other property. These horses are turned out on a friend’s 60 acres as we just don’t have the space for them at the main property. They are fantastically happy there, and even more so now that the weather’s warming up and the grass is coming in. (See some recent pictures here, if you missed them.)

I had a new volunteer with me and we visited with all of the horses. These days, when I go over to the property, I’m trying to spend a few minutes with some of the younger horses, reviewing some of the work we did over the winter. Many of these horses were untouchable last fall and have come a LONG way since then. We spent the winter working on getting them friendly around people, as well as some of the basics like haltering, leading and trailer loading.

One thing that is essential for any good training program is to remember to plan for maintenance. For instance, just because I could do trigonometry in high school or shoot a basket ball in junior high does not mean I’m proficient at either of these things now!! Yet, very often, just because an animal did something really well at one point, we seem to expect the animal to remain perfect at this task. If the animal’s behavior is not up to par, it’s his fault, he’s being a brat, he should know better, etc., etc., etc.

Skills we teach our horses and dogs are just like skills we teach ourselves. If we don’t continue using the skill and practicing it, it’s going to deteriorate!! If a behavior that was taught does start to deteriorate, stop and think about why this might be.

How long has it been since this animal had to do this?
Try and take a bit of time every now and then and review old behaviors. You might be surprised about what has and hasn’t stuck!

Has the animal had any bad experiences with this task or skill?
If the last three times the horse has been in the trailer (or the dog in the car) has been for a ride to the vets…..well, no wonder she won’t get in this time!

Was the teaching process pleasant and did the animal originally enjoy the task?
People have a way of “forgetting” things that weren’t very pleasant to begin with. So do animals. If some task has been closely associated with fear, pain or frustration the animal isn’t going to willingly do it in the future.

Was the skill really as strong as you though it was?
If the behavior or skill wasn’t well developed and practiced to begin with, the animal’s going to have a lot harder time performing the behavior two months (or however long) later.

Most of our little ones that we checked on today did wonderful. Jester was perfect–he let Kirsten (who he had never met) halter him, lead him around a bit and pick up 3 of his feet. Blossom was a bit skeptical about being haltered, but she was never super wonderful about halters at any point. She did let me put one on and off of her half a dozen times, so we’ll just keep working on it. Most everyone else was pretty friendly and happy to see us.

We definitely got our exercise walking around the 60 acres, though! Marty the spotted donkey had wandered off on his own. So, we had to go wandering all around the property until we found him. It’s no good when your head count comes up short one donkey. He was happy to see us, though, and really enjoyed getting his ears scratched a bit.

After we left him he brayed after us a few times. He was quite put out that we weren’t going to stay and keep him company for the rest of the afternoon!

Related posts:

1. How long does it take to train a horse?
2. The Worming Adventure Continues