Hi guys
Tried updating an old post for Pye, but it's not brought the thread to the top of the list so have done a new thread for it.
Thread was Pye a willing partner....
http://www.montyrobertsuniversity.com/forum/post/pye-a-willing-partner
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Pye has taken a step backwards in his training, part of being leader of the bigger herd, part new field since June, that has scary trees around it and part clown sightings, well in Darrell's (my daughters) mind, she alert for clown sightings and has become nervous at the field thinking they'll be out to get her. Not that we've seen any but Social Media has a big influence on a young mind.
Taking Pye into the carrel area to do one on one work, he's become very alter to the point of stressed that something is in the trees. Although we have herd exercise I've only just started getting back to individual exercise to be more specific in what they do. Pye has become nicely desensitized to the lunge whip out in the fields, will even come up and touch it after I've been spinning it around to increase energy as they run around together. Taking the lunge whip in the carrel to guide him like I do in the open spaces completely turned him and he went straight back into a defensive horse ready to attack. My response was throw the whip on the floor and stamp on it, then step back and let him take it in what I'd done. I got licking and chewing, but as soon as I picked the lunge whip up again it was straight back to fight mode and his stress levels were enormous . I threw the whip on the ground again but closer to him, stepped over it and became submissive and calm before him, he touched my head to acknowledge I'm not going to hurt him and we walked side by side to the gate and I let him back to the field.
My plan is to take it slowly, he knows I'm not going to hurt him, he's let me spin the lunge over his head when on the dually as part of desensatising, but he's been badly hurt with a lunge whip in the past so any input from the forum would be appreciated please. Has anyone come across a horse that knows how to attack humans. He needs one on one exercise as his back is becoming lazy and dropping even with herd exercises it's not enough. Reminder I'm too heavy to ride him and I won't let anyone else ride him as he know how to buck with intent to remove the rider.
My thought was my action of holding the lunge whip in the smaller space brought back bad memories for him.
Mel
x
Tried updating an old post for Pye, but it's not brought the thread to the top of the list so have done a new thread for it.
Thread was Pye a willing partner....
http://www.montyrobertsuniversity.com/forum/post/pye-a-willing-partner
.
Pye has taken a step backwards in his training, part of being leader of the bigger herd, part new field since June, that has scary trees around it and part clown sightings, well in Darrell's (my daughters) mind, she alert for clown sightings and has become nervous at the field thinking they'll be out to get her. Not that we've seen any but Social Media has a big influence on a young mind.
Taking Pye into the carrel area to do one on one work, he's become very alter to the point of stressed that something is in the trees. Although we have herd exercise I've only just started getting back to individual exercise to be more specific in what they do. Pye has become nicely desensitized to the lunge whip out in the fields, will even come up and touch it after I've been spinning it around to increase energy as they run around together. Taking the lunge whip in the carrel to guide him like I do in the open spaces completely turned him and he went straight back into a defensive horse ready to attack. My response was throw the whip on the floor and stamp on it, then step back and let him take it in what I'd done. I got licking and chewing, but as soon as I picked the lunge whip up again it was straight back to fight mode and his stress levels were enormous . I threw the whip on the ground again but closer to him, stepped over it and became submissive and calm before him, he touched my head to acknowledge I'm not going to hurt him and we walked side by side to the gate and I let him back to the field.
My plan is to take it slowly, he knows I'm not going to hurt him, he's let me spin the lunge over his head when on the dually as part of desensatising, but he's been badly hurt with a lunge whip in the past so any input from the forum would be appreciated please. Has anyone come across a horse that knows how to attack humans. He needs one on one exercise as his back is becoming lazy and dropping even with herd exercises it's not enough. Reminder I'm too heavy to ride him and I won't let anyone else ride him as he know how to buck with intent to remove the rider.
My thought was my action of holding the lunge whip in the smaller space brought back bad memories for him.
Mel
x
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.If Pye was here, on this farm, I would try a series of relaxation exercises with him [UBERSTREICHEN] or messaging feel-good parts of his body interspersed with picking up the whip so he could see me and then laying it back down followed with a rub. We would probably see good responses on some days and not so good on others.. I would enter into this training with an open mind knowing that my love, the glue to repair the brokenness,, might take years before trust can form with Pye..This sounds like an extreme situation and sometimes maybe we need to walk away from trying to intervene.
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.In Arabian halter presentation, the horses are trained to the sting of the whip by young trainers who have no idea of the harm they are creating with every strike of the whip. They do this to create focus and a look.
Unfortunately, I came into this world before I knew much about horses and my mentor was one of the more heavy-handed trainers. My wife and I were left in a state of question and our world, or at least what we thought our world was at the time exploded right before our eyes. What a wake up call. That happened many years ago, but still very vivid in our minds. The only reason that I mention any of this is because some of the stallions trained this way would go after the trainers instead of taking any more abuse.
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.Mel, I don`t know if this helps you with Pye in terms of the conditioning that you would like to bring in to his life, but KNOW there is a way to get him to move out in a round pen. [you might try the styrofoam pipe insulators as an extended-reach device instead of a whip. They are about 5 feet long]
Best wishes
your friend Bud
Yours is a serious situation with Pye and there's no quick remedy, I guess.
My thoughts go into the direction of using a horsemans rope, about 1,5 or 2 meters long with one end sewn back into a small loop, like a needle's eye. Further you would need a bamboo stick, about the same length. We use this with rescue foals. The procedure needs to be intrinsic, like all desensitizing.
You start to handgroom the horse, then you put the rope in your closed hand, so he feels the grooming but doesn't see the rope dangling. You do this intrinsicly, so continue until he accepts every stage of the procedure. When he's fine with grooming with the rope, start to let a little part of it dangle and touch his skin. Next stage is to rub his body with the whole length of the rope. Then put it around his neck and invite him to follow the rope, like a neckyield. When he's OK with following the rope, you start to introduce a short bamboo stick (or like I use a short ridingcrop) and desensitize him with that, using the same technique of it becoming longer in your hand. So start with handgroming him with only a very small part of the bamboo looking out of your hand and make it longer as you sense his acceptance. When you can groom him with the length of the stick, use the needle-end of your rope and tie it to the end of your stick. Keep the rope along the stick and start grooming again, slowly showing more rope and distance to the stick. Now you can start touching him with something that looks like a whip, but has proven to not harm him. You can let the rope dangle at the offside of his neck, pick up the end of it and start inviting him to follow it, one step at a time. Slowly take more distance and keep rubbing his withers with the stick/rope. Now remove it a little from his body and come back to his sweetspot right away. There'll come a moment when he sees a whip, but realizes it's what felt comfortable just a second ago. Now you start making the distance between his body and the stick/rope bigger. At the end of the procedure you should be able to let the stick/rope go to the ground and come back to his withers in a rythmical movement, letting it travel further and still not be a threat. In my experience it's best to stay close to the horse, it's safer than being too far away. You know your Pye best, so see what works for him.
I've really seen traumatized weanlings come around with this technique.
Hope this helps, warm regards,
Miriam
I understand where you are both coming from. He has been desensitized with the lunge whip Miriam which has taken time for him to build the trust of me holding it near him and touching him and stoke his back with it. It was literally the scenario of being in a schooling area and asking to work with the whip that changed things. I will have to do that again now though to reiterate it won't hurt him.
Bud I'm looking at that technique it's very similar to what I do with hands on with the horses at first glance and Pye responds very well to it. Tonight I was sitting with them when fireworks started going off a few miles away, but enough to put Pye into alert stations and herd everyone out of the carrel as fast as he could. To calm him I invited him to me for a itch and went to his safe spot, my right hand on his lumbar area and my left hand under his back leg between the gracilis and semitendionsis, this puts my heart in line with his second heart energy spot and itched away and breathed, within seconds he breath out and relaxed. So I'll use your suggestion re the whip and then to safe spot without whip, that feels comfortable to safely implement . Plus more reading up on UBERSTREICHEN. I think prior to that just making the carrel with the gate closed a safe place with just him and me.
All to be done with love and glue ;)
Thank you for the input both of you!!
Mel
xx
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I have had really good success training young horses to lunge through play. I simply tie a piece of electrical fence tape 3" wide 4` long to the end of the whip string and get them to focus on the tape dragging on the ground out in front of them and get them to chase it around. In no time, they are having fun with the chase while jumping this way and that way. It lightens-up the whole aspect of training a horse to lunge. Horses, as a rule, can mitigate their fears if we can entice them into a pursuit mode. They seem to forget that part of their personality that leads them toward flight. I have had great success with moving horses through exercises with the use of play that usually becomes a dance.
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.Mel, I hope that these ideas gives you some thoughts to help your boy.
Bud
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Mel
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