So this afternoon I was working with my 2.5 year old filly. Did a bit of groundwork with her, then took her for a hand walk down the road.
Since the weather has gotten to be pretty nice out, I figured I would try to get her used to the hose/water today since I'm sure I will eventually want to bath her. Wow! Was I ever surprised. She has shown herself to be very calm/level headed in most situations. But she does not like water!
Everytime I picked up the hose she would try to bolt. I was doing this in my driveway, so at least she wasn't slipping on pavement or anything like that. So I decided to put her to work and made her do circles. Then I invited her back in to where the hose was....trying to show her if she came back in she could relax and get scratched. At first I wanted to get her feet wet, but my goal soon turned to just having the water running out of the hose without her bolting. it took longer than expected, but I was finally able to hold her there while the water was running. I called it a day with that.
Guess my question is...how did everyone else get their horses used to water and bathing? I used to work on the track so we had to train all our babies for this, but there were always a couple people around to help. I'm all alone and really want her to just learn to relax....I don't want to force her there by having someone hold her for me.
I'm open to suggestions and interested in everyone's feedback!
Since the weather has gotten to be pretty nice out, I figured I would try to get her used to the hose/water today since I'm sure I will eventually want to bath her. Wow! Was I ever surprised. She has shown herself to be very calm/level headed in most situations. But she does not like water!
Everytime I picked up the hose she would try to bolt. I was doing this in my driveway, so at least she wasn't slipping on pavement or anything like that. So I decided to put her to work and made her do circles. Then I invited her back in to where the hose was....trying to show her if she came back in she could relax and get scratched. At first I wanted to get her feet wet, but my goal soon turned to just having the water running out of the hose without her bolting. it took longer than expected, but I was finally able to hold her there while the water was running. I called it a day with that.
Guess my question is...how did everyone else get their horses used to water and bathing? I used to work on the track so we had to train all our babies for this, but there were always a couple people around to help. I'm all alone and really want her to just learn to relax....I don't want to force her there by having someone hold her for me.
I'm open to suggestions and interested in everyone's feedback!