Horse Talk

[ChickenLover200]

Congratulations on your beautiful filly!  I think you're doing a great job with her training and your plans to take riding lessons and have a professional work with her under saddle.  I LOVE Missy Wryn and have her whole set of training DVDs!  She is an awesome teacher and person and I've followed her for years.  

I tend to agree with some of the other posters that adoption is preferable to breeding, though I understand the excitement and anticipation of raising a new baby.  You already know from your own research how many horses are in need of homes.  I have 5 PMU foundation Quarter Horses, 3 that were adopted as foals from Canada 14 years ago on their way to the slaughterhouse.  I also looked into adopting a nurse mare foal but live too far from the race horse industry to have made it feasible.

Pat on the back to you young lady, and have fun with your horsie adventures!

I either want to adopt a young mustang or OTTB thoroughbred for barrel racing since my mare is a bit older. But my parents don't think I need another horse

same here, but we wouldn't be able to afford another horse...

 

[I Love Layers]

We could afford another horse, I live on a ranch though, and we use our horses a lot.
I really want to adopt one though, especially one that has a good personality

 

[ChickenLover200]

We could afford another horse, I live on a ranch though, and we use our horses a lot.
I really want to adopt one though, especially one that has a good personality

I'm writing a bunch of books in hoping I can have that as a little source of income. Maybe that way someday I'll be able to afford to adopt a mustang from the BLM

 

[abigalerose]

It's always the parents.. It was a real pain talking my parents and grandparents into letting me adopt a horse so June would have a companion! And I pay for the horse, feed, farrier, and vet bills. I just keep them at my grandpas house. They have 60 acres and only my horses, 4 cows, and a llama live on it. You would think that talking the family into a second horse would've been an easy task!

 

[abigalerose]

Any advice on spooky horses? Phoenix is super spooky. Him and June are complete opposites, June is easy to catch, does everything I ask, and is really hard to spook, Phoenix is hard to catch, does the opposite of what I ask and spooks at every little thing. I was on him bareback in the round pen yesterday and when I hopped off of him he spooked when my feet hit the ground. It makes me nervous to be on him becuase I never know when somethings gonna make a little noise and scare him. I think it must be from being in a holding facility, and then staying with a herd of wild mustangs on someone's property and then being in a kill pen that's made him so spooky. But how do I calm him down? Is it just going to take a lot of desensitizing like with plastic bags, tarps, streamers, pool noodles, balloons, etc.?

 

[ChickenLover200]

Any advice on spooky horses? Phoenix is super spooky. Him and June are complete opposites, June is easy to catch, does everything I ask, and is really hard to spook, Phoenix is hard to catch, does the opposite of what I ask and spooks at every little thing. I was on him bareback in the round pen yesterday and when I hopped off of him he spooked when my feet hit the ground. It makes me nervous to be on him becuase I never know when somethings gonna make a little noise and scare him. I think it must be from being in a holding facility, and then staying with a herd of wild mustangs on someone's property and then being in a kill pen that's made him so spooky. But how do I calm him down? Is it just going to take a lot of desensitizing like with plastic bags, tarps, streamers, pool noodles, balloons, etc.?

A lot of desensitizing is what I plan to do with my mini. Don't know about what else to do.

 

[I Love Layers]

Any advice on spooky horses? Phoenix is super spooky. Him and June are complete opposites, June is easy to catch, does everything I ask, and is really hard to spook, Phoenix is hard to catch, does the opposite of what I ask and spooks at every little thing. I was on him bareback in the round pen yesterday and when I hopped off of him he spooked when my feet hit the ground. It makes me nervous to be on him becuase I never know when somethings gonna make a little noise and scare him. I think it must be from being in a holding facility, and then staying with a herd of wild mustangs on someone's property and then being in a kill pen that's made him so spooky. But how do I calm him down? Is it just going to take a lot of desensitizing like with plastic bags, tarps, streamers, pool noodles, balloons, etc.?

It's going to take a lot of desensitizing.

 

[abigalerose]

Yippee. Out of all the stuff you have to do while training, I hate desensitizing the most lol. I didn't really have to do any with June because nothing spooks her

 

[Bunnylady]

Any advice on spooky horses? Phoenix is super spooky. Him and June are complete opposites, June is easy to catch, does everything I ask, and is really hard to spook, Phoenix is hard to catch, does the opposite of what I ask and spooks at every little thing. I was on him bareback in the round pen yesterday and when I hopped off of him he spooked when my feet hit the ground. It makes me nervous to be on him becuase I never know when somethings gonna make a little noise and scare him. I think it must be from being in a holding facility, and then staying with a herd of wild mustangs on someone's property and then being in a kill pen that's made him so spooky. But how do I calm him down? Is it just going to take a lot of desensitizing like with plastic bags, tarps, streamers, pool noodles, balloons, etc.?

I don't think this really has anything to do with where Phoenix has been confined or what he's been confined with; I think he's just naturally more high-strung than June. There's nothing like domestication to dull the senses . . . . June was born to a world of people and pastures, and I'm betting that is true for quite a few generations of her ancestors. Phoenix's parents were feral; a lack of vigilance on their part would have gotten them killed. The fact that they lived long enough to produce him suggests that they were pretty good at living by their wits; a certain amount of that sharpness would get passed down to their offspring. If you are going to work with an animal like that, you'll need to "speak horse" very well, while June's laid back "oh, yeah, people do that stuff" attitude allows you to be a lot more casual about how you act around her.

You know Rick Gore:

Another thought - have you ever done clicker training with a horse? One particular command, "target." can be particularly good for desensitizing. Basically, you teach the horse to touch whatever you indicate as the "target." It can make despooking a game - you go around, trying to find new and different things for him to touch. If he'll touch it, it can't be but so scary, can it?
Quote:
It makes me nervous to be on him becuase I never know when somethings gonna make a little noise and scare him.

BINGO.

You get nervous, he sees your nervousness, he thinks there is something to be nervous about - it becomes a vicious cycle. You need to break this cycle by being calm and in control yourself, and not get sucked into his drama. Yeah, I know, easier said than done, but it's particularly important with these really smart, really in-tune horses.

 

[chicken19]

Quote:

It makes me nervous to be on him becuase I never know when somethings gonna make a little noise and scare him.

BINGO.

You get nervous, he sees your nervousness, he thinks there is something to be nervous about - it becomes a vicious cycle. You need to break this cycle by being calm and in control yourself, and not get sucked into his drama. Yeah, I know, easier said than done, but it's particularly important with these really smart, really in-tune horses.

About getting nervous, I've learned to breathe deeply, and make 100% sure that your aren't riding differently.
It's not that a horse can read your mind, it's that your body changes when your nervous, you start tightening your legs, etc.
If you're riding and he spooks, pretend to melt your body down to the knees like a chocolate bar in the sun, and contract your calf muscles (make sure not to tighten them around the horse though), and keep them tight until he settles down.

When it comes to desensitizing, how long have you had him?
You need to develop trust before he'll be really calm.
I've seen trainers ask a young horse to walk on a scary tarp, with no previous work working up to that, then whip the horse when he refused. This is not desensitizing!
He needs to trust you before he will be bombproof.