KBR Horse Net
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On day 2 it rained nearly all day. I managed to get in a couple of short sessions when it wasn't pouring down. Pancho at first would snort and was stand-offish, but he settled down more easily. I could still walk up and stroke his nose but I couldn't touch his withers without first desensitizing him with the pole. We worked mainly on my coming up without hesitation to touch him without his feeling the need to leave. Leading and nose rubs continued to be his "security behaviors" and he reached a point where he would occasionally bump me lightly with his nose to ask if everything was OK, which I felt was a significant emotional development. By the second session I could swing the pole toward him fairly quickly, slowing just before making contact, and he no longer flinched. Grooming was not very productive because pretty much all I was accomplishing was getting his dry undercoat wet. Hopefully the weather would clear for our next work day. | |
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Our next work day was Thanksgiving Day. Earlier Pancho had gotten his drag lead tangled around him, probably while rolling in the sand. Sharon found him with his lead run from the halter, through his front legs, and over his back with the heavy knot at the end keeping him from being able to shake it off. Sharon used a bamboo pole to disentangle him. We decided it probably made sense at this point to remove the drag lead. He was pretty quiet, faced up well and if we had to, we could put a sliding neck loop on him if we needed to lead him. We started out the day leading and yielding. Then I rubbed his face until he was relaxed enough to allow me to slide my hand up the lead rope and release the snap from the halter. Now that he was free to move about we worked on simple longing, facing up and walking "off lead." If Pancho started acting anxious, I would ask him to "Walk up!" and he would approach me and touch my outstretched hand with his nose. We worked on cementing some basic response skills so he wouldn't feel the need to push humans around if he got stressed. Pancho still wasn't real thrilled with having humans up close and personal but he would allow me to rub his face, handle the halter a little bit and occasionally touch him on the shoulder. He wasn't quite relaxed enough, however to let me unbuckle the halter. Since our main concern with this horse was building his confidence, we concentrated on some focused learning activities such as holding a "carrot stick" in front of him to focus on while getting in real close and rubbing with a short pole and occasionally with a bare hand. We again broke the day up into short sessions. Pancho seemed to lose his learning edge after about 20 minutes. Our last encounter was at feeding time when I sat in a chair munching on Wheat Thins right next to the barrel he was eating out of. He maintained a polite demeanor and showed no aggressive tendencies about his food. |
"Leading" without a lead
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