Getting a tough horse into water

[quietann]

[QUOTE=SuzieQNutter;8873826]
One gelding I had quite a job to get him in the water. The next day it rained. I tacked him in a wintec and a plastic bridle and took him out. By the time we got to the water he didnt care one iota about it anymore.[/QUOTE]

They are funny creatures, aren’t they! My mare is also better about crossing water when it’s raining; perhaps the sound of the raindrops hitting the water gives her “more data” about just how deep it is.

That said – this is the same mare who, when confronted with not one but two big rubber water troughs at her new barn, would play and play – sticking legs in and splashing, submerging her whole head into the water and tossing it around, and tipping over the smaller trough on a regular basis. (She has an automatic waterer now.) She’s also fine crossing water that has a thin coat of ice on it, so she breaks through it and gets wet.

[snakeybird]

Congratulations on getting your horse in the puddle! It sounds like your horse got to say “no” a lot before she came to you, and you are doing a great job of circumventing her tantrums and moving forward.

Just keep making water a positive thing, and don’t start a fight if you can help it. If there is any way to make water fun, go for it! We used to take our horses swimming, and they learned to adore water. For a stubborn horse, I have used the ask, and go run/lunge if they don’t do it method successfully for other issues. Most of them decide it is easier to do what I want than have to work when they say “no.”

Have you tried having her follow a lead horse into water? And praising, rewarding when she goes in?