We've got another pony, a 8hh shetland mainly for field company, but also we'd like to give mini rides to toddlers.
The trip back from where we collected Barney was with a friends horse trailer, sad to say we didn't know how noisey it was inside. I followed behind in my car to see Barney rearing inside the tralier, so we pulled over to find he'd completely turned around and broken free of his head collar. He was really stressed so I decided to ride with him and my friend took over in my car.
He had no balance bless him and was all over the place especially on roundabouts. Whilst in the trailer we bonded in that he realised I was trying to help him. The noise though was hurrendous the axel was making the most awful noise that alone would have paniced any horse. Trying to keep Barney balanced more, he burried his head and ears into my chest as I held his head collar to keep his balance. Never again borrowing a trailer! We made it safely to our field, he was nervous as expected, but I took steps to introduce him to BamBam, which worked quite well and I was able to leave them safely with no kicking etc..
Next morning the mare from the next field had managed to get into our field and had Barney with her and kept pushing BamBam away so he couldn't get near him. I waited for the owner and asked that I could join up with the mare, she agreed but wasn't sure what I was going to do. Not idea space as there was 3 acres of it and I can't walk very well let alone run lol.. Eye contact and away we went.... initially Barney stayed with her as I pushed her away, then when she started to lock on with her ear, I was able to seperate Barney from her and foucs on the mare fully, amazing form in the gallop as she had me going up and down the field. then I saw the next sign the head dropping and the licking of the lips. Her running space became smaller and I let her rest and graze, slowly going closer to her and keeping eye contact, if she turned her butt, then i pushed her on again until I had the lowered head and licking. Finally she stopped and I was able to move in towards her in what I call the grazing position, she let me graze right up to her nose, but then as soon as I went to put my hand to her face she'd shiver and go to move away, but I'd take up the grazing position and she'd stay with me. From this point it took about 5 mins to be able to touch her all over, but she was still worried about the head collar in my hand, each time that went near her she'd shiver and go to move, but if I took it away she'd stop. Incirmentally I gradually got the head collar to touch her face and her neck. She then let me put the rope around her neck, then stood still and accepted the head collar.
The owner was amazed, as the mare won't let anyone near her. The owner sold her when she was 3 to be 'broken' then brought her back again being told she was ridable, but she wasn't and ended up unconscious and hospitalised. Since then she's had this pony, doensn't know how to train her, can't ride her as she's scared she'll get thrown again.
I felt confident that the mare would accept someone getting on her back again, so my daughter came and did a couple of pretent getting on the back and the mare stood perfectly.
I suggest the owner try, but not to jump up. We got a log and the mare lined up nicely, the owner leaned across the back, quite stifley :D and I told her to drop her head down and relax. The mare stood still. She got off again, then this time we added reigns and I got her to lay across the back and gently swing her leg over, sit up but in the crouched position, then slowing raising up. The smile on the owners face said it all. She'd not riden the mare for 2 years since the accident.
We left it at that for now, it had taken 2 hours in all to do, too much field and running space slowed down any form of join up. But we got there.
Next day, today, lol, our Barney has broken through to the mare's field!!
Barney's history is that the last owners brough him as 'broken' to find out he wasn't. The'd wanted him for their young children. Barney is now 5 and still never riden and difficult to catch and handle.
Lessons started today :D I knew that catching him was out of the question, so I wanted to make him feel this mad woman stops chasing me if I'm in that field. So we walked and galloped not only through the mares fields, but the next ones aswell lol.. A couple came over and asked me if I wanted help catching him, the look of surprise when I said I'm not trying to chatch him was amusing :D. One hour passes of the chase and he finally goes back into our field. We have wire and he just slips under it, so I took the pressure off and went about doing something else. Off he went again and so did I, this time 15 minutes and he decided to go back into our field. I took off the pressure. He tried this about another 5 times, each time he returned and I took off the pressure. Each time the pursuit got less and less. The last time, I just stepped into the next field and he shot back into ours! :D
Interestingly, the mares 3 of them, one from the day before plus 2 fillies, joined me. With my keeping eye contact with Barney, the mare saw what I was doing and pushed Barney away from her, it was as if she's accepted that I was lead mare for Barney and she was respecting that of me. Shortly after the mare rejecting Barney so did the fillies, then there was a combination of me and 3 mares all putting pressure on Barney. If the fillies got a bit too close to me when chasing Barney, just a flash look at their eyes and they changed direction, then eye back on eyes with Barney.
The last couple of times that Barney went into the mares field the owner had turned up and she watch. When Barney went back to our field she came over to me and said 'I can't belive it, look the girls they're herding together they've never done that!' :D
So an all round good weekend. BamBam through all of this did his bit in herding Barney back into the mares field, but also when I got Barney back into our field, BamBam took over and herded Barney further up our field to grase.
Good bit of team work,I'm sure not perfect but seemed to achieve quite a bit.
:D
Wow! That is AWSOME lucky you! You seem to have very good body language, patience and belief in those horses, they are lucky to have you. Believe me, you did an excellent job with horses and what is more, you got the other owners thinking! I reckon that they will be more interested in Monty's work after this.
Best wishes, stay safe
Mirna, Croatia
Lets hope so!!! & thank you and more to come hopefully, Monty has opened a window that I thought, before I heard of Monty I had to learn the horse language quietly without others seeing, but now I inow we've Monty on our side I dont care that others might think I'm mad :D
A update on the horses today, the girls are still herding together it seems to have bonded them more and Barney seems to be accepting that BamBam is boss over him, but I'm lead mare. Barney still needs a lot more work, but thats fine and there is plenty of time. He's not made any attempt to go into any other field now, he's a quick learner. :D
Mel
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WOW mel! Thats fascinating and your really talented! you must have very VERY happy horses! Good luck with your new addition!
Charlotte :)
Thanks guys and sorry for the delay in replying. Combination of new medication for my lupus having side effects and hardly being able to stay awake because of it, lifes been over the xmas period, sleep, feed and care for the horses, work, sleep and my daughter bless has been patient with me. I nearly crashed the car one morning purely from the way this medication was affecting me, so have weaned myself off them and nearly feel back to my old self lol.
Barney and BamBam are still doing really well, Barney still enjoys escaping from the field into other fields to meet new friends even through electric fences, he's learning though that if he does the pressure is on until he listens. He'a tried going futher afield now he's realised the electric fencing can be slipped under and has made a few new friends in the other fields, dont worry the outside fencing to the roads is safe and he cant get out into the roads, but each time I go and apply pressure to round him up in the fields, once the other horses observe for a few minutes what I'm doing, they join in blocking him or applying pressure they move him away from them. One of the horses taught me something new in their understanding, he'd been protecting Barney from one of the other horses really chasing after this horse and making it squeal as it bit it, wastching them gallop was quite amazing then I realised they were galloping towards me, I looked the mare who was trying to get away in the eye and she altered direction just meters away from me. That monents eye contact was all that was needed. The gellding that became very protective of Barney arter chasing off this mare started moving Barney away from me, so I started applying pressure to both untuil I saw the gelding was limping, I changed focus to seperate Barney from the gelding but the gelding seemed insistent that he was not going to leave Barney. Change of tatic again, I faced the gelding, eyes on eyes, both his ears were on me, then I did a sharp nod at his position, raised my hand in a halt sign, still eyes on eyes, then turned away abruptly to switch my focus back to Barney. The gelding didnt move until Barney had joined up with me about 10 mins later. then followed us to the gate. I checked the geldings leg, he's got laminitus which the owner is aware. :( It amazed me how from just seeing this gelding now and then as we walked pass his field, the communication there when the 'taking ' began was fantastic.The eye contact also seems to be very strong in the horses, so I am going to explore that more.
One to make you laugh, Barney had gone 2 fields down tonight by the time we got there, it was dark and the field he'd gone into was so boggy he'd realised I kept getting stuck in the mud so kept going to the center. I used the long lunge line as my extended hand to move him on and kept saying 'Barney go home' over and over all the time I was applying pressure, then each time he went to the fence to go back towards our field, i took off the pressure called hima good boy and slowed the pace,. I'm not sure if I've mentioned it yet, but I'm disabled and cant walk far or fast, so instead of trying to follow fast for the pressure I'd follow his movements and keep calling Barney go home all the time the pressure was on, it took him about 15 mins to then realise if he went the wrong way, I've be calling over and over, if he want where I wanted him to, I'd be quiet :D
so Barney is learning the words 'go home' and I've learnt that eye contact with the horses is essential, it's looking for and learning the different expressions they do.
:D
How many horses do you have guys?
Mel
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Must really use the pc and not the ipad for this, just reread through and seen all the typos :D, hope you can still make aense of it?
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Hi Mel - sorry to hear your lupus has been so bad and over Xmas too! Love your stories here. My 9 hands hihg Chester thought it would be fun to escape under his electric fence to the neighbours so I just added another strand of electic tope along the centreof the fence. That was an easy solution for me.
Hi Maggie
Thanks, loving the experience the pomies are giving us :D
We now have 4levels of electric fencing around 1 acres, just 2 more acres to do lol. First one is about an inch away from the ground then works up, if he gets through this we'll have to consider wooden fencing, but not in a position to do that. We're only renting land also so that could be a waste of money if we move on. We've been giving Barney his feed inside the pen I've built ovet the weekend, I've connected the pen to the shelter so it's given him both shelter and a secure area for the night. BamBam from seeing where the droppings are seems to stay close by overnight so they've both got company.
I'd heard Shetlands can be cheeky, I'm curious though if there is more behind that.
We've come to the conclusion that he has been hit around the head by a right handed person, he's extremely headshy, but Darrell has been noticing this week that he is more so on his left.
Shame we cant post images on here :D
Mel x
Hi Mel, wow this is really amazing stuff! I am jealous of you ;) you really seem to know exactly what you're doing! Unfortunately I don't have any horses, nor do i have many opportunities to take care of other people's horses either so i haven't been able to try things out and learn for myself how to use my body language better around horses to such a large extent. I have had the opportunity to do join up and long lining with a rather special pony called Charly though who belongs to a friend, which i am extremely happy about! I hope that one day i can learn to control my own as well as read the horses' body language as successfully and quickly as you have! Great work! :D
Hi Linda, really good you've had a chance to do join up, if your frielnd will let you again with Charly you'll most probably notice things you didnt before, it will help you for when you get yours too. :)
quite interestinly I made a mistake last week with my body language, we've not got a secure area yet to store feed,I'll be building someing when the weather gets warmer, so we take measured out wbag of feed with us when we go to the field leaving the feed bowls in a set area. BamBam knows to walk in the sweet spot next to me, not 100% but most of the time. When I put the feed in his bowl I then add the water, by this time bamBam has already had a mouthful but when I say 'water' he lifts his head to add the water. I made a mistake of not having the water in front of me and Instead of backing to get the water I turned giving my bottom to Bambam, I felt 2 thumps on my legs as BamBam reacted by kicking out, didnt hurt, but very quickly made me change position. Just shows how much they interpretate from our body language, to him I was turning to kick out as he had food, which is what they do with each other. I wonder what other things we say to them without realising.
You know if you have fields with horses near by, if you go and watch them and see the movements they make with each other you'll start to put this into pratice the more horses you meet.
For many years before I knew of Monty and his methods I felt there was a way to communicate with horses and other animals if we just took the time to learn their language. It's an ever learning curve :D
Hope you get your own horse soon. xx
sorry for all the typos, am on the ipad and it seems to have a mind of it's own somethimes. lol
sorry for all the typos, am on the ipad and it seems to have a mind of it's own somethimes. lol
Hi Mel - hopefully the four stands of electric tape should do the trick. Barney sounds like a real litte houdini. Chester is my first shetland but it seems that they are little horses with big egos. Chester is very good - doesn't nip or kick humans but he does know how to assert himself. Occasionaly he gets out with my two 15 hands high horses but he seems to hold his own - very quick to turn his butt on them and kick out if he disapproves of how he is being treated. Tricka loves him and will stand chewing at his mane and body for hours over the fence while if he escapes Uggs sees his rump as the perfect head rest! It is fun to watch them together but I do not trust the bigger ones to always look after him so keep him by himself unless he escapes.
Hi Maggie
Interesting keeping Chester alone, with Barney now in His own enclosure there isnt the bundling going on that was before when they were together, I think they've tried over the electric fence, they shifted one of the posts between them but no escapees :D
I wonder if it's because of the Shetlands big ego's that makes other horses not take to them as much.
Had an interesting lesson with BamBam today, lessons take any form in order for them to learn, today it was over the new delivery of hay. not an ideal situation as we have to take the hay through the field area where bamBam is, so he has a graze whilst we take them around the back of the shelter for storage, all was fine until Darrell my daughter must have moved around him wrong as he straight away turned his bottom towards her making her back off. He then became posessive over the last 2 bales so I took over, I could see him watching me, so marched in my hobbly way directly towards one of the bales, he turned his bottom towards me, but I marched on putting my hand against his rump genlty, he let me pass. Last bale, his ears were back and I did a large circle around him, his bottom following me around in the circle lol, it took him about 10 seconds to realise that I was moving his feet, not him moving mine, he just turned and faced me, head and ears up, I moved in and took the bale :D you could see him thinking about what had just happened.
Do you have Chester for riding for children?
Mel
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Hi Mel - fun to read about BamBam and his hay lesson. They are fun little horses to be around but they do need to be put in their place. Yes I bought Chester for my grandchildren and they love him especially my three year old granddaughter. He is very good with the children and hopefully someday soon they can ride him by themselves in my new round pen. Currently I am still leading them on him.
I thought I'd replied to this last night, but there's no message here this morning.
Bet you're the favorite grandparent :D
I must say I'm enjoying every bit of learning and implementing it on BamBam and Barney, Just did the new videos on the wild horse and I think there is much I can apply to both BamBam and Barney in there. Barney being really head shy, need something a bit different, time to start building again, need a chute that he can feel free to go in and out so I can get him more accustomed to being touched.
Hope you've been having a good week?
Mel
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Thought about trying to see if Barney was comfortable anywhere in his area that he might let me close to him, We're i his pen area and he has access to the shelter, so II applied a bit of pressure to move him on and he headed away from me, I turned his direction and he changed straight away, as he came up to the opening of the shelter he decided to pop in there. I've been in the shelter numerous times, but never apply pressure there so he feels safe. Now I stood at the entrance and tried the same process of the wild horse gengling, moving in, touching, moving away. First time he turned his butt to me, sort of panicy, but I moved back agqin releasing the pressure, next time he did the same, so I gently, but firmly put my hand on his butt, waited for his relax and moved away. It took about 5 mins for him to be able to let me touch up to his head, then he stood as I put the head collar on. Then he followed me out into his pen and I took him for a walk outside of the field. BamBam would have interfered if I'd stayed in the field for a walk, so it worked better to take him out. We didnt go far, then back to the pen a bit of backing up and head collar off. I was expecting him to legg it like he'd done on previous sessions, but he didn't. he stood next to me and nudged my hand. :D
BamBam had stood watching all the time we were out of the field, so after Barney's walk I took BamBam for one out of the field, as soon as we stepped out of the field Bambam's excitement at being out was as if he'd been taken into a whole new world, so we just did a circle and headed back in to our field. Amazes me how one side of the fence seems so different.
Today we, Darrell my daughter and I, took both the boyz down the field for a walk. Bambam knows Darrell to be weaker than him and she isn't strong enough to hold him fully if he is close to Barney, so with a good gap between us we went for a walk, interestingly though, each time I stopped with Barney, BamBam immediately stopped, so he was taking his lead from me. :D
Hooe you've had a goos weekend whoever reads
Mel
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These are the best stories ever. Thank you. I loved reading all of them it is so wonderful to read real life successes about horse communication. It seems that eye contact doesn't always mean go away. Sometimes you have to get the rest of the message. Very tricky but worth the time spent. Keep adding Mel it's good for all if us to read these happenings.
Paula
Thanks Paula
A little update on both our boyz
BamBam how accepts full riding kit, bridal, saddle even with stirups flapping against his side in hand trot. Next stages for him as he reaches 3 in June will be a rider. :D
Barney stood still without chase for the first time yesterday to put the dually on, be it that he stood with his bottom towards me so I could touch his rear end and work up towards his head doesn't matter, he's trusting me to touch without any restraints on him. A big leap forward for him. With head collar on, we can now stand infront of him and move our hands to his head quite fast to stroke him and although there is a slight reaction to his left side (my right hand) he's not panicking anymore as a hand moving fast in his direction. We believe that he has been hit by a right handed person not only with the hand, but also a head collar. Both these were extremely scary to him at first.
Tell me about your horse/s Paula???
Mel
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Well, I have 2. Ginger a retired show jumper, 24 and Lily an auction horse with an unknown history 5. Ginger is my daughter's horse who I get to love and we have had her 12 years now. Lily. I rescued from kill auction in January. I am working with Lily on ground manners but she won't take the "normal" eye contact cues so classic join up hasn't happened. But it's there and the follow up part is pretty solid. She actually acted up for the first time this week and tried to see who was in charge. I schooled her with the dually and made her move away from me when she wanted to come in worked quite well. She is seemingly re-sizing up her situation...not getting hit but there will still be discipline. She lets me groom and we are working on feet. She will willingly give me 3 the near front is the challenge and she seems wobbly when I do finally get her to pick ut up. Slow going but great progress. I'm learning greater patience than ever before, and I have a lot. Having them learn to trust us a great feeling isn't it?
Paula
Hi Paula, how's it going with your Lily? Is she trusting you with her feet yet?
I agree wholeheartedly about building that trust, it is an amazing feeling.
Mel
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