KBR Horse Net
Training Case Study:
"Sheba"
Part Four
Day 4:
Sheba was in a pretty good mood. She wasn't difficult to catch
and after a little muzzle massage, she took her wormer without
so much as a twitch of an ear. I spent a long time grooming,
but she still had a problem letting me on her off side. We coaxed
her into the chute and Sharon brushed her off side from there.
Day 5:
Sheba has settled down pretty well to being approached with the pole.
She'll also let me pick up the drag line with a minimum of
song and dance but I'm having a tough time getting to her off
side. She simply won't let me pass from her on side to her off side.
We can approach her in the chute from that side without any adverse
reaction but she blows it when I try to step across in front of her and
I prevent her from swinging her head ahead of me to keep me in her left
eye. We thought she might have some eye trouble but after setting up a
few experiments, we've pretty much discounted that idea. She may have a
really lazy eye and we're just going to have to tough our way through
it.
This is an unfortunate setback as I can handle all four feet from the "on" side
and if I could just get to her off side without a struggle, we could get
the big girl trimmed. Tomorrow we may try it with Sharon holding the
head and I'll approach obliquely from the right, making first contact
with the pole. It did take a great deal of introduction to get onto her
left side originally so perhaps we're going to have to start from
scratch on the right as soon as we can keep her head facing forward.
We could resolve this problem in the round pen but this is a large, stocky
mare, her feet are very overgrown and uneven and we don't want to risk
laming her having her switch directions in the round pen.
Day 6:
We resolved the issue of Sheba not being able to hand people
over from her "on side" to her "off side." It took a
combination of approaches to resolve the problem, but
resolve it we did!
While I was working with Cheryl and Annie, Sharon went in
with Sheba and really tuned her up on targeting using the
clicker. This was an essential foundation piece to resolving
the problem.
Next I entered the pen, took the lead and targeted Sheba playing
the "Touch it!" game. Sheba would touch a brush with her
nose on command. The concept was simple. I'd target Sheba on
the brush and focus her onto her "on side" while Sharon
worked with her on her "off side." We reasoned that if
we did this, Sheba couldn't follow Sharon with her left eye
and would have to learn to process what was going on with
her right.
This was a little too much for her at first, even with targeting,
so Sharon simply milled around on Sheba's off side while I
targeted. After a short while Sharon picked up a bamboo pole
and started poling Sheba on her off side. At first Sheba's eyes
would dart back and forth as she switched from focusing on the
target to watching Sharon. After a little bit Sheba could handle
both things at once, following Sharon on her right while still
targeting the brush on her left.
Sharon would still advance occasionally and Sheba's reactions were
no longer blind panic, but more on the order of "I really don't
want you up close on that side." This was a behavior we could deal
with. Eventually Sheba would tolerate Sharon working with a short
pole, then laying a hand on her shoulder while approaching from the right.
To accomplish the close up tolerance, I went heavy into muzzle massage
and Sharon would advance when Sheba's eyes relaxed and her head dropped.
Sheba could now handle someone not too close and personal on her off
side but still wouldn't hand us off from left to right. I worked that
issue out with Frank's muzzle work. I started out dead in front
of her and got the old muzzle massage going. When her lips
would relax, I'd push her muzzle to my right (her left), still massaging
until she couldn't see me from her left eye and her right eye picked me up. We just stayed there, off lead, by the way, until her head dropped. At that point I'd work my way down her cheek to her neck.
I also remembered that this mare was pretty resistant on her "on side" at
first and TTOUCH circles were what worked best in order to get
her to accept me moving over her body. I tried them on the
right and lo and behold, she didn't walk off when I got past her
shoulder. Then I repeated the muzzle massage / hand-off a few times until
she wasn't struggling with "putting" me on her off side. We
quit on a good note.
It was feeding time but Roger Hubbard was putting EDSS on a laminitic mare.
I didn't want to disturb his work by pitching down hay bales so
I went back to Sheba's pen. She was standing against the south fence looking
to the west when I entered. I was coming in directly on her
forbidden "off side!" She turned her head to look at me
for a couple of seconds, then looked straight ahead again. I walked straight
up to her right shoulder and gave her some good scratches,
rubs and TTOUCH circles all the way to the back of her rib
cage. She lazily stomped a front foot a couple of times to scare
off flies and just stood there relaxed as I rubbed her.
Tomorrow we should start cementing everything into place.
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