I recently received a question
regarding a mare that spooks at what appears to be nothing. She’s
been by the same old thing and spooks at it every day and she has
been by it many, many times.
I think a lot
of times spooking is a conditioned response. The horse has learned
to do this in a response and when we don’t do anything about it, in
other words, when we accept that behavior, it just seems to think
that this is what we want.
The first
thing I would do before I address this as a training issue is to
check the horse’s diet. If it is on any kind of alfalfa, I would
take the horse off the alfalfa. If I had the horse on a high
protein grain with a lot of molasses or any sugar in it, I would
take it off and put it on a really bland diet like oat hay, wheat
hay, or grass hay. I only takes about 8 to 12 hours for food to go
through a horse’s system. I’ve seen many horses like this that pay
attention to everything, are concerned about everything, and as
soon as we put them on a bland diet there is almost a 75 percent
change in the behavior. Then go ahead and follow through with the
exercise and that should help you get on your way. This is a very
good foundation exercise that is needed. What it does is keep the
horse’s attention on you, thinking about you and not the scary
object, and also it is teaching the horse that it is a lot better to
not be concerned about the object as it creates too much work for
it.
The way I
resolve these problems is by doing the change of direction exercise.
Working through foundation, what I usually like to do is as in many
of the articles you’ve probably read, I start by teaching my horse
to go forward and go forward consistently. Then, the next thing I
do is teach my horse to stop at a light command. In other words, I
just barely take the slack out of the lead line. This may take me
a couple of days or it could take two or three days-even weeks-
depending on how sensitive the horse is. Or, like some horses that
come in, stud chains have been used on them so they are used to
being jerked and pulled on. Me taking the slack out of the lead
line and stepping back to take the slack out and putting pressure on
the line doesn’t seem to make much difference to them at first. It
may take you two or three or even four or five lessons depending on
the horse. The reason I do this is so that eventually, if I am
taking the horse out of the barn, and of course if I’m in a safe
area, and I notice that the horse is coming toward me with her
shoulders because of fear as I’m leading her, I’m going to stop and
do what I call a change direction exercise Because I taught her to
go forward and around me and to stop her feet, this shouldn’t be too
difficult an exercise for her to do. If she steps into me like she
saw something for the first time, I’m going to step back away from
the horse to keep me safe and also to give me room to go ahead and
start teaching her to change direction. I’m going to stop the horse
from the furthest point of the scary object. In other words, if
twelve o’clock is the scary bush with the teeth, I’m going to stop
the horse at six o’clock and change direction. The reason is that
this is the least amount of pressure and at the same time it starts
showing our intentions. Our intentions are to show a visual of
where we want the horse to go to and to stand comfortably next to
the object. I’m going to keep doing this until finally the horse
just doesn’t care anymore. Now, I may have to repeat this exercise
several times throughout the week or two weeks but finely it is
going to get to a point where it is way too much work for the horse
to react to the fear situation rather than to just ignore it and
walk on by. You need to be consistent yourself and do the exercise
every time your horse reacts to the scary object
Thank you and
God Bless
Charles Wilhelm
It’s Never Ever the Horse’s Fault |
