KBR Horse Net
Training Case Study:

"Rusty"
Part Two
Making contact in the pasture
Problem #2 - Gentling Rusty

Rusty was now in a nice enclosure a bit larger than an acre with natural cover and a natural spring for water. The area was nice enough so that he shouldn't try to scale the fences. But it was a whole lot of space in which to try to gentle a horse.

A few days after moving him we went back over and this time we took a camera.

Rusty was curious but like most wild horses, he would prefer to leave if someone approached him. The strategy that worked was to simply wander around and explore the area. Once Rusty started showing some curiosity, I relaxed my posture and then shuffled kind of sideways to him, with my back pretty much to him. Pretty soon I could feel and hear him sniffing me and I could make contact.

It took several attempts before I could get down to rubbing on him. He was quiet but he was tense. When some horses in a pasture nearby made a sudden noise he flinched and had to walk off. But eventually he was pretty good about standing and being rubbed on the neck, shoulder and chest, and having his withers and back scratched.

I next tried rubbing him with a pole which he seemed to like in the chute, but he would have nothing to do with it out in the open. So I went back to a pattern of walking away and reinitiating "basic contact," and mixed things up by asking Carol to come in and interact with him.

Rusty was a little evasive with Carol but a lot of things were happening at this point and he never lost his composure.

Horse greeting
Down on flat land
enjoying scratches
"Yeah, that feels pretty good!"
Carol and Rusty
Making contact at another location in the pasture
Starting to become OK with it all
Our strategy at this point was to get Rusty comfortable with all kinds of people in all kinds of situations. To do that we would have to challenge him without generating a lot of fear, giving him frequent opportunities to "succeed" and be rewarded when he makde the right decisions. As he became more generally desensitized we could start working him again on the line and start handling his legs and feet.

Our next step was to introduce additional people and new situations.

Some work ahead of us with those hind feet

Continue to Upping the Ante

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