~HORSE FOLKS~I Need Some Advice On A Yearling I Have

[gaited horse]

I would suggsut trying some of Pat Parelli's methods.

 

[welsummerchicks]

Parelli don't look like he's ever handled any really rough horses. He positions himself wrong and makes a lot of dangerous mistakes. His body language and methods look like he's handled a few slightly spoiled, small, well broke family pets - he has no ability to read and adjust to any other kind of animal. With anything really challenging he comes up empty. I've seen him dumped and defeated way too many times. He positions himself wrong and makes a lot of very dangerous mistakes. If he can't do any better than that himself he can't teach people to be any better than that. But he's famous and people think he's god almighty. That's marketing and the media for you. I know people around the corner and down the road who do better. My horse dentist is 10 times better than Parelli. He gets more done with less effort and keeps himself and everyone else safer.

A recipe is just is not the answer in every situation.

There just is no one method out there that always works. The key is reading the horse and having a great big toolbox one can reach into with ALL sorts of different approaches. Firmness doesn't always work, gentleness doesn't always work, NOTHING....'always' works.

To the OP - it's natural for you to get defensive when someone tells you you're over your head and need to dial back and get some in person help.

And it's natural to shut out the warnings and ignore them too. We all have easily bruised egoes - we all are guilty of that now and again.

However, it's important to listen too. I've been working with horses for over fifty years now...Pat has a good many years under her belt too. Yet if I need help I always know there are people out there with SIXTY and SEVENTY years worth of experience and more. Some people have crammed an awful lot of experience into their years. It depends on what they've done and who they've learned from.

We're not trying to make you feel bad - we're trying to help you look out for your and the horse's safety and future.

Sorry, but you're over your head with this one. Get some in-present help, and next time, pick a gentler horse that has substantially more basic training. It won't do the horse no good if someone comes to look at her in a couple months and she's kicking out every time they try to touch her hind quarters or back legs.

There are thousands, hundreds of thousands out there that you could turn around. Those horses need help too. It's not something most people can make money off of, but people do it because they feel something should be done for these horses.

But caution is needed too. There are an awful lot of bad, dangerous horses going to the kill auctions too - always have, always will. These can be horses that a half a dozen professionals have tried their hand at and given up. And no, not all those trainers are stupid or mean, folks. There are very good trainers out there and I have seen horses go from one to the other again and again and nobody can do anything with them. Let the buyer beware...let the buyer beware.

There are always some horses out there that just cannot be turned around and sold. The people who do turnaround sales for a living, they are actually, very, very careful what they pick, they only pick horses they know are going to respond to training and be able to be SAFELY given to someone else. You gotta think about the next owner too. If you turnaround sell a horse that winds up hurting someone, that s not right either. It is sad but there are always going to be horses that no one can help.

It is a hard business. But you sure don't want to be the person that sells a horse that winds up hurting or killing some inexperienced, naive owner.

You can't even put a dangerous horse out in a field - someone has got to go out in that field, the horse is going to need medical care, the farrier...there are horses that are just dangerous, and as sad as it is they are better off being put down humanely and quickly.

Anyone on the internet tries to tell you exactly how to handle this horse ('be firm!', 'be gentle!', 'use this!', 'use that!') - well - that kind of 'recipe' thinking can get you hurt or killed. The best thing is to have someone there in person who is far more experienced.

The old saying is, 'There ain't a rider can't be throwed, there ain't a horse that can't be rode'.

That applies to handling horses too - doctoring them, etc. A humbling business, and not easy work, horses.

 

[Rusty Hills Farm]

I've had a few "squirrelly" ones over the years and what has always worked best for me it to keep repeating the maneuver every day until it doesn't bother them anymore. So for giving shots, for instance, I would do the slap-slap-slap-pop routine every day, several times a day without the shot until they were ignoring it. Then I'd add holding an empty syringe in my hand while doing it until they are oblivious to the whole thing. Or with spray bottles as another for instance, I start off by opening the stall door with the bottle in my hand, talk to them a bit, show them the bottle, then spray the air as far away from them as possible. Really spooky horses will freak out but I do this every day until they ignore me. Usually takes a week at which point I start spraying closer and closer. It may take me a month all told, but they become desensitized and stop expecting the sprayer to kill them. Generally they just go right on eating their supper.

For picking up hind feet, I basically do a similar routine. However, I stand so close to the animal that I can feel him bunch his muscles when he decides he wants to move. I start up high just stroking. When he tightens muscles to move, I am prepared because I can feel the start of his movement. If he lifts the foot to kick, I give him a shove with my shoulder, which throws him off-balance. Once he settles, I start all over. If the process takes weeks, so be it. But in the end I have a horse who readily gives his feet and doesn't try to kick.

It's all about desensitizing and earning their trust. Horses are born wild even when they are born in your stall. People tend to forget that. Some are more trusting than others, but if you are patient you can generally convince them you are not gonna kill them. You do this in some form or another every single day about one basic bit of routine handling, and do it day after day until they just accept that you are always doing SOMETHING and there is no point in getting spazzy over it.

And like Welsummer just said, no 2 horses handle alike. You have to read the animal and adapt your methods to his needs and his abilities to understand you. AND you have to know your own limits and not be too proud. Horses teach us ALL humility every darn day.

HTH


Rusty

 

[txredneckmedic]

Im sorry I know I am gonna make people upset by this but here it goes. What are you thinking? I am a horse person and very PRO killbuyers. There is a reason that the horse market is so down right now. I cant sell good kid broke horses around here for 1k, but people think that they need to save every horse and go to the auctions and buy these wild horses and save them. You need to save the good ones and let some go.

 

[Msbear]

I have to agree to a certain point. I had the same dream....though very short lived. hahahahaahahah Many of those horses in the feedlots are there for a reason. Either medical or behavioral. Some of them are quite dangerous and would need the best of the best as far as training to make them ridable... some will never be ridable. Broke horses with lots of life left in them can't be given away where I live. The horse market is way down so, it's time to get realistic.

#1 your venture is not going to be profitable.. so forget about the truck that needs fixin

One vet bill can wreck everything. These horses come with no history and come being exposed to everything under the sun. Add that they are stressed which makes them more susceptible.

#2 even if it's not profitable, you can still do some good if you have a place to keep the horses that is safe and cheap/free. The cost of feed/bedding/vet/farrier needs to be all considered. Even if the horse goes barefoot, it will still need a trim. No one takes excellent care of their horse just prior to handing it over to a KB so, it will probably need its teeth floated and vaccinations, etc.

Try and pick a horse that's worth saving. We'd love to save them all.. but, that's not realistic. But, if we save one that's already trained, young enough to have lots of life in him/her and is personable and not crazy, you have a real good chance of placing that horse so you can save again.

Good Luck. I HAD 2 "saves" from the feedlot. One is my trusty steed, a 10 year old appendix QH whom is such a gentleman, I am so thankful I found him every day. He is my boy! I found out he had sold for 3500 just 6 months before and was the result of a back board situation. The other was my nightmare. After trainers, a saddle fitter whom also tested for back pain, teeth floating, shoeing, 6 months worth of feed/hay and several near tragic accidents, we faced the reality that this horse was going to hurt someone. I gave her away with full disclosure to a gal who specialized in drafts (she was a perch cross) and I hope that all is well but, I have my doubts. I lost her number in my latest cell phone episode so I have no way of knowing... which is probably best. I probably should have "manned up" and had her euthanized but, I didn't have the man parts for it. She was "led thru" the auction and that was my first mistake...

Good Luck and ALWAYS stay safe

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
That's sort of what I meant by 'over your head with this one'.

You're in the kind of situation where it's a whole new ballpark from what you're used to handling; and at least in this case, I very sincerely believe it is not something that can be dealt with by some kind of little summarize-in-a-paragraph tip or trick. It's a whole approach/judgement/movement/tact thing, which at a given moment in time either a person has or doesn't have (edited to clarify: I mean, relative to a given horse's needs at the moment, not relative to how well you deal with OTHER horses). And this is NOT the type of situation in which to learn it UNLESS you can have a real live person there (who is capable of easily doing it himself) talking you thru your sessions with the horse for a while.

BTW Im willing to keep each horse as long as necessary for proper training & such. What I ment about the month thing was that that is the safest amount of quarantine & most horses I plan to rescue will take several months to work with. The only type of horse that I would sell after a single month would have to be extremely well trained already & just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Yeah, after I sent my last post I noticed that your 1 month was only a quarantine time... but even so, even if you were planning on keeping this horse six months or more, an unhandled untrusting rangebred yearling is really not a good choice IMO for a project like that. First, because yearlings are just not real saleable nowadays PERIOD because if someone's going to lay out money they want a horse they can RIDE. And second, because you are working against *both* upbringing *and* mental age, there. If you wanted a horse to keep and have fun with for A FEW YEARS before deciding whether to sell, and didn't require it to ride for a while, and knew you had someone handy to mentor you when you run into problems like this, then I'd say it's a real appropriate choice. But given that at least some, possibly all, of these things seem not to be the case, I'm sticking with "not great choice, best to think harder/differently about this for the NEXT one at least".

Good luck,

Pat​

 

[welsummerchicks]

What are you thinking? I am a horse person and very PRO killbuyers

What she's thinking is her own opinion which she is entitled to.

I've heard both the pro-and-against slaughter arguments. But what I think is that both are wrong and both are right.

What I look for is some sort of middle ground. We probably need more regulation, like England. I don't like regulation, I would like people to do the right thing on their own. But the fact is they don't. And the animals suffer.

Heavier penalties for abusing and neglecting horses (we need it for other companion animals too). The US is too lenient here.

All horse organizations, clubs, USEF, USDF, racing organizations, all, set aside a small % of their income to donate to horse rescue. I'd like to see rescues regulated and made to make some accountability and uniformity in care and resale policies. I'd like to see them inspected regularly and licensed and their books made public. I think that would help to improve some of the rescue problems we have.

I'd like to see horse slaughter returned to the US, because all that banning it did was mean those horses have to take a horrible long trip to Mexico - banning it did not make the downer horses disappear, they are still there and now their plight is worse. I think there will ALWAYS be some slaughter of horses, but, I would like to see it better regulated.

Extremely heavy penalties for the 'backyard slaughterhouses' that have become an obvious problem recently. And that means bigger budgets for animal control group within law enforcement (and better trainin for them).

But here again I'd like to see another change. We've lost a lot of rendering services. That used to not be such a bad thing, and it's more of a need now as people own horses where farm burial is not allowed. I'd like to see veterinarians receive a compensation from the organizations for humanely putting down disabled and dangerous horses - for free to the owner.

We've got another problem - irresponsible breeding, that causes a lot of unwanted horses. Colts not gelded and babies all over that people can't feed, let alone train, get a farrier for or get a vet for. As in other countries people will have to get a license and show financial ability to support breeding animals - with no one getting a license if ever convicted of animal abuse or neglect. Free to low cost gelding surgery supported by club and organizational % of income.

We have some awful big problems in the USA with large animal welfare. Some bad actors are making it hard on everyone else. It's not easy or simple or quick to solve, but I also think there is not one sngle thing we can do to improve horse welfare, there are actually a lot of different things we have to do.

 

[halo]

If you even get to the point where you can sell this horse and find a buyer, you will have an impossible time selling on a "strict contract". Once someone buys and takes a horse from you, there is little you can do to enforce contractual stipulations, unless you want to hire an expensive lawyer. Just can't be done. Ive seen too many people try.

 

[welsummerchicks]

Actually, even the most expensive lawyer there isn't can't make unenforceable contract conditions be enforceable.

A big example of that is right of first refusal. There just is no way anyone can get that enforced, even Big Joe Law with the rolex watch!

The Good Lord forgive me, but I am fascinated with contract law - how much nerdier can anyone possibly get - well maybe that book I bought - 'The History of English Grammar' is worse!!!!

Anyway, that's a part of contract law. You can't put just anything in a contract and get it enforced. Just because it's in a contract, signed, witnesses, the whole nine yards, that doesn't matter. It still has to be something the law considers 'contract-able'.

Each state defines what is legally 'contract-able' in every kind of legal contract. Some of it is obvious, you can't contract with a kid or a person who isn't competent to sign a contract, but that whole huge thing of what a contract can have in it thatis actually legally enforceable, that's huge, huge, huge...starting with right of first refusal.

Plain fact is, most people will look at a strict horse sale contract, and say, there is no way I am buying this horse. The average horse buyer always has at least some degree of suspicion of contracts, it's not traditional, and the stipulations people put in - that they have the right to inspect the buyer's conditions after the sale, first refusal, reposessing the horse. ANYTHING that gives the seller a role after the sale is completed.it's all seen as extremely invasive and insulting to the buyer. Just read some of the threads here about how insulted people are by dog rescue placement contracts. It's taken as a real severe personal insult, a risk, and a financial burden.

 

[The Wolf Queen]

Can we please stay on the subject? All I wanted were different peoples ideas on how I could work this filly through her fears. Also the cut is on her left front leg & she has only kicked once. She has never had any real problems with her legs being touched. The first time my farrier came out he did a lot of teaching & she wouldnt hold still because she wasnt used to having her leg up that long. The 2nd time around, a few days ago, he called her "a doll".

Im going to ignore the slaughter comments. The only reason I added that is to give you all a better idea of what im working with. Please stay on topic & if you dont have any training advice just please do not post.