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Excerpts
from The Power of Positive Horse
Training:
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Eckert, CO - May, 2005
Thank you to Jil Ludlum for the great photos -- and the use of her
lovely horse, Cadillac.
Cadillac, a 7-year-old quarter horse who's
still pretty green, is wary but attentive with the crinkly-paper
exercise. His owner explained that he was nervous and spooky with fly
spray, so we worked on touch rewards and becoming familiar with a
variety of items that cause funny noises. After 45-minutes with a
variety of trust-building exercises and reward touches, he stood
quietly for fly spray applications.
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Pool noodles are great horse toys, as long as
the horse doesn't shred them and ingest the pieces. Noodles can be used
to touch and stroke, or can be stepped over and on. It's a good way to
safely introduce squishy ground poles and "tangled legs" feelings.
Cadillac
wasn't happy at first with the noodle bending upward when he stepped on
it, so we used approach and retreat movements to encourage his
exploration of its texture and harmlessness.
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The terrible monster umbrella opens under his
nose, and he snorts and backs away. So I close the umbrella and
encourage him to sniff it while using a reward voice and scratching
his withers and forehead. I open it a second time and he stands
his ground, but remains concerned . . .
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. . . so I close it and show it to him, back
away and open it again, approach and close it . . . Eight quiet
repetitions of this caused him to relax, soften his eye, and accept
this as just one of those unexplainably silly but essentially harmless
things that humans like to do. Within a few minutes, I was able to open
the umbrella abruptly over his head, wave it around a bit, and
rest it on his rump while he remained unconcerned.
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© 2005
Sarah Blanchard. All rights
reserved.
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