Training (Horses)

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We just purchased a new filly. two to three months old and has had no hands on training. We need to get the halter on her and a lead line without hurting her in any way. We also have her mother with her. We would welcome any help that anyone can give us. thank you.

-- Kenneth R. Franz (jazzie10@earthlink.net), August 14, 2001

Answers

Response to Training

Kenneth - your best bet at this point is to work thru the mother. Hopefully, she is people friendly. Work in the stall - grooming, petting, talking to the mom. Take a bucket and just sit in there, talking. Foals are curious - before you know it, that filly will be sniffing you. Take it slow - a few more days at this point won't make that much difference. Before you try to slip that halter on her, she should be letting you rub her, especially on her neck and around her head. Don't be too anxious with the leadrope - don't ever put her or yourself in the fight or flight position. Just take it slow - patience always wins out with horses. And enjoy that baby - before you know it, she'll be a rowdy teenager!

-- Dianne (willow@config.com), August 14, 2001.

Response to Training

Having worked for half an hour on an inclusive answer, this site dumped it all. I'll have to try and find time to try to reconstruct it all again later. In the meantime, try some of these sites for horse info --

http://www.horsekeeping.com/horse-training-care-info.htm

http://www.parelli.com/quickref.htm

http://www.johnlyons.com/

http://www.horse-sense.org/index.phtml

http://store.horsezone.com/cgi- bin/horsezone.storefront/3b79b489040a75822741c0a80101066c/UserTemplate /46

http://www.clipclop.com/

http://www.equine-world.co.uk/horses_care/

http://www.animalnetwork.com/horses/reference/

-- julie f. (rumplefrogskin@excite.com), August 14, 2001.


Response to Training

Julie - everyone - anytime any post starts getting to where it would be painful to lose it, I highlight it and do a Control-C (for Copy to the scratchpad). If it starts getting much bigger than that, I'll open up Notepad and do Control-V to paste it there, then if I'm feeling uneasy I'll just save it to a workfile somewhere. Means if necessary I can either re-post and just Control-V to paste into it, or even after a complete crash or lockup I can open the workfile, and copy its contents into a new post.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), August 15, 2001.

Response to Training

Okay, here's a shorter reconstruction. (this time I'm saving it before I post!!)

Is the mare handleable by you? does she come to you easily, or do you have to catch her ? As Dianne noted, if the mare is working with you, it's a lot easier than having to either train her first, or gain her trust. Does she keep putting her body between you and her baby, or presenting her butt instead of head when you enter the stall? If she is doing either of these, she doesn't trust you as yet. You will need to work on showing her that you ARE trustworthy by not trying to get her foal away from her, or by stalking it (trying to get around her at the foal with an intent stare. This says 'predator' to a prey animal like a horse.)

Work either in a large foaling stall or a round pen if possible. It cuts down on how much chasing you have to do with them. A two month old foal can outrun a 2 year old horse, so it can outrun you if it wants to. Also, if you have accidents in the process, it is safer to be here than with a soft surface underfoot than out in a concrete or wood barn aisle.

If she hasn't been haltered before, do not try to corner her and manhandle one on, it will defeat your purpose of gaining trust. Since you said that you didn't want to hurt her in any way, it seems that you want to gain her trust rather than 'cowboy' her, which is a very good outlook in my opinion.

Books that will be helpful to you --

The Formative Years -- Raising and Training the Young Horse from Birth to Two Years, by Cherry Hill (Breakthrough Press) This has helpful photos of processes if you have trouble picturing from the printed word.

Making NOT Breaking -- The First Year Under Saddle, by Cherry Hill (Breaktrough Press)

Imprint Training of the Newborn Foal, by Robert M. Miller DVM (Western Horseman Books) Lots of photos and working specifically with the young horse in ground manners.

Natural Horse-Man-Ship, by Pat Parelli (Western Horseman Books) More on good ground manners as your horse grows, and how to gain control of your horse through cooperation.

If you don't have a burning need to get the baby haltered immediately (such as for doctoring), it is better if you can approach her slowly. You can force a haltering if you have two or three experienced people, but it is still risky, as a panicking horse can try to leap over a fence or stall wall, or even you, with injury to all involved possible.

I try to get a hand onto the baby. She may shiver her skin and move away from you. The object is to get her used to letting you touch her, working your way slowly around the mare. If possible, use your finger knuckles as the mare would use her upper lip, rubbing it back and forth on her spine to get used to your touch. This sort of communication tells the foal that you are not a danger, you are a friend who wants to groom her. It is a reassurement that mares use with their foals, as well as friendly 'aunties' in the herd.

Your object is to win her trust, so that you can slowly work up to petting her more. If you make forward progress towards her neck and head, then back off and return to a less 'threatened' area for a while rather than just pushing straight ahead. You want to give her time to think about how this feels good instead of how she feels uneasy. Working this way, and employing her curiosity (some breeds are more curious than others, so be patient again), you can work up to petting her around the ears, and face, which will get her ready to try on a halter.

When you finally do ease a halter onto her, let her wear it for a half hour or so, then remove it. Do not turn her out with it on, or keep it on her, many horses and especially foals get into trouble with halters left on and it can result in fatality.

At her age, working for 15 minute session a day are about all the attention span that the foal will be up for. 'The Formative Years' has a pictoral on how to train foals for leading, implementing a butt rope. I usually try to teach the foal this following the mare who is being lead by another person so that the foal is less stressed than trying to take her away from her mother, and gets used to the idea that you make forward progress while doing this strange thing. The soft cotton butt rope looped around her back end, above the hocks so it doesn't tangle the legs applies just enough pressure so that the filly moves away from it, and then you guide on the front end, rather than trying to pull on her head via the halter. The foal's natural instinct is to move away from pressure -- forward in the case of the butt rope, away from you if you pull on the halter.

If you find yourself getting frustrated or angry during the training, just walk away, revamp your approach, and try again later.

Miller's book on imprint training works mostly with younger foals, however, you don't have that option, and the lesson plan (illustrated) makes a good guide in how to approach sensitizing and desensitizing the foal to various things that we want them to do as adult horses and will make a sound basis to training a saddle or harness horse later on.

-- julie f. (rumplefrogskin@excite.com), August 15, 2001.


Oh yes - one more thing about losing posts - unless the system has totally crashed or locked up, you can always use the "Back" button on your browser - even if your line connection has dropped out you can "work offline" - to get back to where your post was on screen. Then copy, paste and save as I said above. If you have doubts about whether it has accepted your post, go "Back" to the thread, and "Refresh" - if your post is there, fine. If not, wait a while and refresh again. If still not, forward to the screen making the post, and submit.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), August 18, 2001.


And take your time, don't ever be in a hurry. Remember, you've got years before you climb on... days and days of just sitting with her, gaining her confidence in you. Handle her... handle, handle, handle. All that groundwork will pay off in gold later on, for you and anyone else who buys her! Good luck to you. How I miss horses. dh in nm

-- debra in nm (dhaden@nmtr.unm.edu), August 20, 2001.

If the mare is gentle and you don't have to worry about her try kneeling near the fillie below the her eyes. Horses & foals don't tend to view anything below there eyes as a threat so they tend to come over and check them out faster. Also if the filly dosen't come over right away try crawling over to her on your hands and knees staying below her eyes most likely she will let you touch her and as long as you don't get to aggresive or talk loudly she will friendly up to you quickly.

Also, I never halter break or even gentle any of my foals until they are yearlings unless of course something needs to be done with them like treating a wound, ect... They are not even semi useful until then anyways.

Just my two cents :-) Good Luck Mt Storm

-- Montana Storm (storm@rconnect.com), August 25, 2001.


The best thing you can do at this point is to hold him.You can place one hand around his chest and one around his but and just hold him there until he is standing there by himself. and if you can get the halter on him you can leave it on with a long rope so that when he steps on it he will learn to give in. good luck

-- lauren reznicek (lreznicek@hotmail.com), September 11, 2001.

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