I've started sharing a horse called Mika from a woman at my yard. Shes had her about a year I think and this is what she told me:
-she's 3
-she's unbroken
-she's hard to catch
-she was abused
-shes terrified of everything
-she has no trust in humans
I saw her in the field and I just felt some weird connection to her... I knew I had to have her!
Ive had her since last Tuesday and since then we've made remarkable progress! Yesterday it took me 20 minutes to 'catch' her. She runs away when you get a certain distance so when I was at the edge of her comfort zone I wandered backwards and forwards, gradually getting nearer, singing as I did. Soon I just put my hand out onto her nose and she didn't even flinch
Question: if she plants her feet when I'm leading her in, how can I persaude her without force?
The first time I brought her in I tied her up and started by stepping towards her and away from her, getting nearer when she looked more relaxed and eventually her nose was on my tummy when I stepped forwards. Since then I've stroked her neck until she looks comfortable and then stroking her 3 times putting my hand down and doing it again, lessening the time between the strokes and hand down until I could put my hand up and down quickly. If she ever looks uncomfortable I go back to stepping.
I then led her around a bit ( we have a space between the 8 stables and the fence to their field) on the end of the leadrope, stopped when I stopped and walking and turning when I did. She did it lovely. She even backed up when I walked backwards!
The next few times I let her off her leadrope (it's completely safe) and allowed her to wander round while I sat down, she had a look at a few stuff and then followed me round like a lamb. Yesterday I did the same and for half an hour we walked stopped turned and even trotted without a leadrope. She did wander off to have a look a things sometimes but came straight back to me
Question: why was she following me like that?
Anyway, so then all the horses in the field where galloping around and her best friend came right up to the fence and she went up to the fence to say hi... then he started galloping on the other side of the fence and she started galloping on our side of the fence, crashed into a 1.3m fence, jumped over it, stumbled and galloped away... she's fine, her knee is slightly swollen though.
So anyway, thats whats happened so far
Does anyone have any ideas of things I can do to gain her trust? Im 13 if anyone was going to ask.
Anyone want to see her? She's a real beauty!
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-she's 3
-she's unbroken
-she's hard to catch
-she was abused
-shes terrified of everything
-she has no trust in humans
I saw her in the field and I just felt some weird connection to her... I knew I had to have her!
Ive had her since last Tuesday and since then we've made remarkable progress! Yesterday it took me 20 minutes to 'catch' her. She runs away when you get a certain distance so when I was at the edge of her comfort zone I wandered backwards and forwards, gradually getting nearer, singing as I did. Soon I just put my hand out onto her nose and she didn't even flinch
Question: if she plants her feet when I'm leading her in, how can I persaude her without force?
The first time I brought her in I tied her up and started by stepping towards her and away from her, getting nearer when she looked more relaxed and eventually her nose was on my tummy when I stepped forwards. Since then I've stroked her neck until she looks comfortable and then stroking her 3 times putting my hand down and doing it again, lessening the time between the strokes and hand down until I could put my hand up and down quickly. If she ever looks uncomfortable I go back to stepping.
I then led her around a bit ( we have a space between the 8 stables and the fence to their field) on the end of the leadrope, stopped when I stopped and walking and turning when I did. She did it lovely. She even backed up when I walked backwards!
The next few times I let her off her leadrope (it's completely safe) and allowed her to wander round while I sat down, she had a look at a few stuff and then followed me round like a lamb. Yesterday I did the same and for half an hour we walked stopped turned and even trotted without a leadrope. She did wander off to have a look a things sometimes but came straight back to me
Question: why was she following me like that?
Anyway, so then all the horses in the field where galloping around and her best friend came right up to the fence and she went up to the fence to say hi... then he started galloping on the other side of the fence and she started galloping on our side of the fence, crashed into a 1.3m fence, jumped over it, stumbled and galloped away... she's fine, her knee is slightly swollen though.
So anyway, thats whats happened so far
Does anyone have any ideas of things I can do to gain her trust? Im 13 if anyone was going to ask.
Anyone want to see her? She's a real beauty!
Posted via Mobile Device