I know people, that chain does not look pretty for you, but believe me, horse had been used to the chain all his life, and we are trying to go really slowly with him. His biggest changes now is with owners and walking. He was one person horse for past ten years, so new people around him… Changes. Then at spring he will be moved to a new box - still the same building, but new doors, new entrance, window in the different place, and much much more space (about 3X more than now) so again - for him it will be a big change.
So at present, if somethings works, we do not try to change it just now. Slowly, step by step.
In small farms here people keep their cows on chains as well as horses - and there are no harm for them. A young calf is going through basic training to get used to it, and then he/she is ok. During the day you just go to pastures, put the chain in a new place and that’s it.
His previos owner had done another thing - I even do not know how to describe it right. It is very old fashioned thing, I do not know if anybody is using this method now. He tied horse’s front legs in a special manner so horse still can move around in pastures, but slowly, so he can not walk far away from home. This method does not hurt horse at all, but I would not like even to try it out.
See, we have another problem here that we must respect - his prewious owner. He is an old farmer, very good to animals, he had never hit this horse and loves him to pieces. We agreed to take this horse and try our luck basically because of him as he was really devastated that he can not take care of him and horse must be sold out (and it means slaughtery). Him and his wife are watching us each day with crossed fingers and prayers for us in hope that we shall get it all and horse will be here around till the end of his days… They are still feeding him and when we take horse out of the box, they instantly go in and clean it to save us doing this, they still feed the horse (so it is not our concern as well) - they are ready to help us in every way that they can just to convince us to keep this horse. For them we are doing the hardest job - to take horse out for a walk. And we try to respect them and invent changes very slowly (Neighbour is nearly 80 years old farmer, I mean really old fashioned farmer, like 100 years ago).
Like yesterday when the new crop worked, we show it to neighbours, showed how “strong” poke must be to make horse to respond and they were extatic. “Ooo, and you can find all these clever things on Internet? Wow! What a great thing!” said neighbour when Peter was showing them how well beheived horse was just by seeing this crop.
You know, we must treat this horse similar like a non socialized dog - when I rescued our poor St. Bernard girl, she had no socialization at all, so we build up her confidence, and then went step by step including trips on different public transport around the city. She is with us 3 month now and the happiest dog I ever seen, but at the beginning she was growling in the corner, so scared.
In comparison with horse, St. Betnard is a lapdog, really, so slowly, slowly for our own safety. It is easy to spook the horse - for example, yesterday we spotted that he was spooked by water in the trench along the road, so we stopped and Peter checked the water and showed the horse, that there is nothing dangerous to worry about. Horse followed him to check it out, and he was fine.
Maybe we are making to big fuss about him, but we do not need a professional racing horse, we want to try to turn him in a nice pet, friend and partner, who will like to hang around when I’m weeding garden and help a little(or something like that, you got the idea).
So far we are happy that horse recognizes our voices, and comes to us, when we call him. It is a nice beginning. This is 11th day with him for us - and we both just must learn, learn and learn.
Professional would do it much faster, I can imagine, but this learning thing for us and horse seems to be great fun anyway.
Please, be patient with me - this is my first horse ever, and I do not want make horse to pay for MY TRAINING mistakes. He as well has not been trained right so now we must find our own solutions that will fit for him and us.
Now I’m not so frightened and feel much more confident around him - and now I know that he is not a nasty boy, all this biting was just game that he was allowed to carry on for years. I really wish he would be smaller size - it would be so much easier. When I put my hand on his withers, I must lift my hand up, and I’m 5’9".
and learned he gets attention when he paws. So he probably is asking you for company.
Yes, that is it. Hobbling.
