Thank you very much!!!
Yes, you jump wire in Ireland. I was told tight wire will snap. If there is a mix of ice and snow on paved lanes you are riding those as well. You will also go thru plowed fields, mudslides, dikes, ditches, anything resembling a fence, hedges, 5ft stone walls, backyards, thru town, dense woods, boggy spots, creeks, tunnels, thru traffic, and may get lost to where pounding a pint down and grabbing a bag of crisps to keep the yankee alive is necessary because it has started to rain.
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Do you have experience with horses like this, or a trainer?
My concern is that you are feeding him a lot of cookies to be his friend and with his behavior I feel he’s going to become aggressive for treats. I worked with my yearling last week teaching him in hand work and using cookies as a reward. The next time I got near his face he bit me looking for a cookie. He no longer thinks that was a good idea, but he’s pretty easy to handle on the ground the rest of the time and eager to please but if he were a bigger more reactive horse treating could easily lead to more aggressive biting or striking.
I frankly would send him to a good colt starter (someone with a solid background in horsemanship) and make it clear his ground manners need to come first.
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Totally true! I wish I could duplicate my mare but whatever I got would probably be quite different.
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My beloved, grey ISH mare will give me that same look. Sometimes after a particularly good course in a lesson, when we go back to stand near trainer to give another horse a turn, she expresses her impatience by turning around and biting the toe of my boot. I know this sounds wildly disobedient, but she never bits hard - it’s mostly like, okay lady, after my brilliant performance, are you really going to make me stand here and watch this gelding?
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100% agree about semi-feral horses not having the depth of trust to take a joke. Building a strong trusting relationship is going to take more time if he has had what he perceives as a breach of trust.
My vet told me she has had huge success with clicker training needle shy horses. It takes her 5-10 mins to get them to be ok with being stuck.
Watch a few of Warwick Schiller’s free videos. He is all about relationship training now and it sounds like this guy needs to build trust. Does he like to be scratched anywhere? Taking some time everyday doing some scritches may help build a bond. Embrace your inner 12 year old girl!
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I had great luck clicker-training one of mine who was terrified of needles. We practiced every day with a syringe (no needle). Then whenever a vet was on the property, I had them come over and give him a treat. Then we progressed to them putting the syringe on him and giving a treat.
He got to the point where he would whinny whenever he saw a vet truck!
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