This post is my horse-related update for August. The Poetess and I have been getting to know each other, slowly, in the last month or so. She arrived in Michigan, at her temporary home until DH and I finish fencing and at least two stalls at this little place here, in late June. I went to see her three times between then and when I was gone for a good solid week in early July. Some things I learned in those three visits:
1. She's a mare. I mean, I knew her gender, but after having/working with geldings since 2015, the lack of cuddliness really hit me like a sledgehammer. Oh yeah, mare viewpoint. Most mares don't really need people, not the way geldings are like puppy dogs falling all over themselves for human attention. This made me hurt over the loss of Camaro even more. Big huge ouch.
2. She has no clue what treats are. Tried feeding her a carrot. Nope, not interested. Tried feeding her a sugar cube. Again, no thanks. Tried feeding her a peppermint. Poetess: "No, I'm not interested. Why are you trying to stick things against my lips?!?" This was new for me. In almost 39 years of horses, I've never once run into one that had no idea what a treat was. As treats were going to be my main training method in getting to know her and win her to my side, not having the bribery power of a treat threw me for a loop.
3. She is pretty aloof (great, not just mare, but aloof mare *sigh*) and if she isn't interested in what you're doing, you're not going to catch her out in the field. She would come in at night when the rest of the horses came in, but on her own, if she didn't come to me out of curiosity I wasn't going to get a hand on her that day. Since I don't believe in chasing down horses (sets a bad precedent of playing tag) there have been a number of days I left the barn empty handed without working her rather than bring all the horses in (and mess up their nice clean stalls) just so I could get ahold of Poetess.
In July, I had to buckle down and really think through my goals and tactics with the Poetess. She didn't know me, didn't feel that she needed me, and too often wasn't willing to be caught. She didn't care for treats, so I couldn't bribe her to come to me with that sweet tidbit like you can the vast majority of horses. And I really was pushed into a funk on the days that she wanted nothing to do with me. I missed Camaro's animated greetings whenever he'd see me approach the pasture gate. Poetess, on the other hand, more than not looked at me coming, turned her back, and put her head down. And once I was through the gate, she would keep just out of arm's reach, even if her pasture mate (who is supposedly also hard to catch) came right to me for scratches and pats. Ouch. Thanks, mare. Not just mare, but aloof mare. Great.
Luckily, my previous mare had been an aloof mare too, although easily won with treats. Over time that mare came to know me, trust me, and if not meet me at the gate at least not walk in the other direction when she saw me. So, I'm positive that Poetess will too. In time. Especially once we get her moved to this little place here and I become THE FOOD LADY who feeds her morning and night and brings her in from turnout to the dinner grain awaiting in her stall each evening. Until then, I was going to need to pull out a tool from my horse training toolbox.
Tool of choice--Get to her in the mornings before she is turned out for the day. While she's still in her stall I can easily get her. In fact, she comes right to me when the stall door opens. Unfortunately, the barn owner where she's at (very small private barn) turns horses out by 6:45 a.m. Oh, getting up at to the barn that early is proving to be killer. Some mornings, my gut doesn't cooperate and I'm unable to leave home (and the vicinity of the bathroom) until it's too late to get to Poetess before turnout time. Other mornings, our air quality has been too bad and I can't breathe well enough to go work her. And, a few mornings, especially after working outside on fencing until nearly 10:00 p.m. the night before, I just cannot get up; I feel like I've been hit by a truck and just can't get out of bed.
We are slowly coming along though. Poetess is learning to be led from both the left and right sides. She's learning to longe; left side is coming along great, right side suffers from the not-being-used-to-being-handled/worked-with-a-person-on-her-right syndrome, but we're making slow progress there. She's also learning to hand graze; something else she had no clue about when she arrived.
She would just stand with her head up in the air when I would take her out to hand graze the first couple of weeks. Then, she began to dart her head down, yank a mouthful of grass, and return to her on alert head-up position. Recently she has figured out that hand grazing time is eating time; I don't want anything else from her but to stand next to her while she munches grass. She will eat about four or five mouthfuls before putting her head up for a quick look around, then dive back into eating again.
Recently we've had a couple of breakthroughs:
- We found her treat of choice: Nicker Makers (thanks to one of the other boarders who gives them to every horse each evening when she's there to see her own horse). They seem to be working as I have been able to catch Tess each of the last four times I've tried with a Nicker Maker in my hand.
- She is learning to let me brush her ears, and, if in the right mood, actually rub them with my hand. She came to me with pretty clear signs of headshyness-slash-phobia to having her ears touched, so I've been slowly working with her on rubs and scratches on her forehead, poll, and right behind her ears.
- Today she longed both to the left and to the right! Hooray! Prior to today the right side was very inconsistent, if I stepped too far away from her side, she would just stop. It wasn't longeing in circles as much as leading a circle then slowly stepping away while still walking and she would stop about half- to two-thirds of the way around the next circle. Back to leading in a circle, slowly step away, try to encourage her to keep walking a whole circle--unsuccessfully-- go back to her head, lead her in a circle. . . Today she kept on walking the circle without me right at her head. Not only did she walk several entire circles, she trotted and cantered a couple too (her idea, not mine, but hey, it's actual longeing on a circle!) Hopefully she doesn't suddenly 'forget' this skill and we can make progress in leaps and bounds from here. Longeing is how I plan to instill voice commands before even thinking about sitting on her back and taking up the reins.
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