Desensitizing Your Horse To Objects That Spook It
If you’ve been very long time pony person, you most likely have experience with horses that spooked at something they saw, heard or smelt. If you have a lot of young horses, you’ll have had this sort of experience frequently. Some horses are literally capable of facing just about any situation with equanimity, while other horses are so fragile they can get spooked by their own shadows. Some horses will take just a little bit of time out to inspect whatever spooked them and either become placid again or take off in a tearing hurry. I’ve been on horses that were so spooked I may have sworn I heard their heart beats thru the saddle! Manifestly, that’s not a very comforting thing to occur to a horse or human.
Some horses are vehement in their reactions to something that may be scary and unfamiliar. Others fight their fears and shortly put the whole thing out their minds. A record of getting preyed on by predators has made horses intensely attuned to their surroundings. Obviously, we won’t change this inbuilt nature, because it is this nature that enabled survival down the ages.
But here is a fact: even the touchiest of horses can be aided to conquer its fears if the problem is approached with a well created plan and a peaceful, unflappable behavior.
You can make a pony learn quicker if you’re able to assure him that whatever you do with him isn’t going to put anybody at peril. You can’t even begin to guess the many thousands of stimuli that will set off panic in horses; what you can do is to catch as many of them as you can and help your horse get numbed to them.
As with a great many other training techniques that involve horses, it’s advisable to start from ground 0 when you set about deadening your horse to objects that spook it. You are much safer off when you start this way, as this sort of approach helps instil confidence in your horses much faster. You can switch to strengthening the lessons from on top of a saddle at a later stage.
You must be acquainted with advancing and retreating, because it is vital for effective deadening of a pony. A horse starts panicking if he is unable to run away from something he considers seriously threatening. At some phase, the pony will surrender and try to live with the threatening object, but he’ll never be assured around it, and that’s no good for rider safety. I can remember once buying a young horse who had undergone some such experience in his life. He would stand rigidly still in the vicinity of moving objects like a swinging rope or possibly a hand. He showed the of great fright: head held high up, eyes wide and unblinking, and a tendency to flinch if touched. Often, horses will put up with things as long as is possible for them and then explode into action; they may buck or they may bolt.
Advancing and retreating is a system of deadening a pony by introducing it to the object it fears in such a way the horse gets rewarded for standing still by immediate withdrawal of the object. The practice is repeated with the object staying just a little longer everytime, until the horse finally loses its fear of the object when it comes to the realization that there had been nothing to fear about the object to begin with. At that stage, the pony relaxes completely.
Take the example of a pony that fears a big ball. Get that pony on a lead of between 12 and 22 feet long with the object within reach. Let the pony look at the object as and when it wants, and let it approach the object if it wants to. Don’t force it into doing anything at all. Let it act on its own accord. If your pony shows extensive fright, turn and lead the foal away, with the ball in the center of you and the horse. Often, horses are less apprehensive when they are moving towards something, compared to that something moving towards them. Once your horse gets inured to that, turn again and walk backward with the ball in between again. At the opening stages, the foal will resist to the whole length of the lead rope, but as time passes, their curiosity will triumph over their fear and they’ll come closer and closer to the ball, until finally they recognise it as a absolutely harmless object. Remember that you can achieve all of this only if you never force the horse to do anything all thru the process.
When the pony finally has become curious enough to approach inside sniffing distance of the ball, hold the ball still and let him sniff it a bit before removing the ball again to a distance. This way, you confirm your horse doesn’t fall back to a state of unease. The time is coming soon enough when you can move the ball slowly toward the horse without causing any trepidation. It will occur only if you don’t try to force things along, Once the foal is completely at home with the ball. On the ground, approach the pony with the ball held at shoulder height. As soon as you see any trace of anxiousness, retreat. You can try approaching from varied angles, always ensuring that you don’t cause the foal to get unduly nervous. At some particular stage, which should be decided by the pony itself, he’ll become so used to the ball you can even bounce it off him and roll it under him and he won’t even notice it is there.
You can use the advance and retreat strategy with practically any article. As time moves forward, you will find it amazing that your pony has acclimatised to so much. It makes him much more entertaining to be around with.
Horses are Heather Toms passion and she enjoys sharing her extensive knowledge through her 100s of articles with other horse lovers, like all things about riding hats
