Sweet Wild Syringa

[baymule]

Haha! You know it!
Do you know how hard it is to do a happy dance standing still and quiet?

Yup, I do. My 32 year old TW mare took 12 years to "ask" for attention. Sparkles was and is very stand offish. I was brushing another horse one day when I felt the lightest touch of her nose on my arm. She wanted me to brush her! So I happily brushed her for 45 minutes, lavishing attention on her. She likes to be brushed and will come to me. Other than that, she is hard to catch, but better by leaps and bounds than she used to be.

I don't know what happened to her before we got her, but she is deeply damaged. She is compliant, but distant. Her trust was all but destroyed. She trusts me all that she is able, but she holds back.

 

[ducks4you]

She is reactive to sounds, and the jingle of the metal buckle on the cinch with the sensation of it flopping down on her side is what caused that explosive reaction with the saddle. I thought I had prepared her for that but apparently not.

IF she can SEE another horse that isn't afraid of the sound and feed that horse carrots while you jingle the metal cinch she will learn that it won't hurt her. Unlike training, where you try to repeat only 5-7x, you can feed the other horse a whole package of carrots while jingling the buckle of the cinch, AS LONG AS she see and hears you doing it. She WILL be interested and will overcome her fears and YOU won't be right next to her while she spooks. Just make sure that she is in another stall (within earshot/eyeshot) or on the other side of a fence.
When we started CW Reenacting in 1985 we bought a 15yo TW/QH cross. Mother was tired of caring for daughter's backyard horse but he was very safe and not afraid of anything. ALL of his local previous owners came out of the woodwork to talk to me (and take another ride on him.) Among other things, he had been a pony at a racetrack.
He was the toughest horse I ever met or owned AND the herd leader. ALL of the my other horses gained their confidence from him and I was able to break in 15 horses to gunfire BECAUSE of him.
Also, Ryan Gingerich is a gentle, but firm natural horseman. In his program at clinics he tells you to watch HIM, not the horse, bc the horse is listening to him, learning, and reacting positively.
We have to make sure that we are a HORSE herd leader and not a WOLF herd leader. Watch a cat or dog stalk something. They move slowly, and creep. Horses don't like this. The leader of the herd moves towards another member and that member moves away. When the other horse doesn't react, the herd leader pins his ears or raises her back leg. RARELY is there a fight, but when there is both horses will give it their all, so we don't want to get into a battle of the brawn. IMHO, a horse can be rehabilitated into a good citizen, but a dog cannot, so she is worth the effort!
I think that you are making great progress. I broke my arm being thrown by a horse that I didn't ready to the event. He spooked, he bucked, I bailed, and my whole 2004 riding season was a bust. Good luck!
I think this might help you:
https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Whisper-Training-Language-Behaviorist/dp/B005DI9UBO

 

[thistlebloom]

Thanks for the link, he looks like a good trainer.
There are a few I am following now. Warwick Schiller, Carson James, Mark Rashid. I'm also a fan of Buck Brannaman, Tom Dorrance and Ray Hunt.

We celebrated our oldest's birthday this week, and I was recalling a memory.
The very first horse clinic I attended was 33 years ago almost exactly. My Kid#1 was only 2 weeks old when I audited a clinic by some cowboy named John Lyons. The baby lay in a little basket bassinet while I hung on every word and watched in amazement as this cowboy took a horse that nobody had been able to get their hands on and within 4 hours was calmly up and riding her. I told my son about his first official horse event, but he said he must not have been impressed because he doesn't remember it.

Syringa is not actually a candidate for rehab. She's a clean slate. If she gets messed up somehow we all know where to look. But she's not going to get messed up, because I'm investing a lot of time and my whole heart into her.

 

[Carol Dee]

@thistlebloom You are doing a great job.

 

[flowerbug]

Yup, I do. My 32 year old TW mare took 12 years to "ask" for attention. Sparkles was and is very stand offish. I was brushing another horse one day when I felt the lightest touch of her nose on my arm. She wanted me to brush her! So I happily brushed her for 45 minutes, lavishing attention on her. She likes to be brushed and will come to me. Other than that, she is hard to catch, but better by leaps and bounds than she used to be.

I don't know what happened to her before we got her, but she is deeply damaged. She is compliant, but distant. Her trust was all but destroyed. She trusts me all that she is able, but she holds back.

i'm sure horses can be as varied as people in terms of personality and how much they may want company. perhaps she is a philosopher horse, just off to the side a bit and an observationalist? still this story does make my heart get all warm and fuzzy that she was able to finally communicate with you about what she wanted and that she trusted you enough to respond. i'd have probably been a puddle of tears brushing her down that time...

 

[baymule]

i'm sure horses can be as varied as people in terms of personality and how much they may want company. perhaps she is a philosopher horse, just off to the side a bit and an observationalist? still this story does make my heart get all warm and fuzzy that she was able to finally communicate with you about what she wanted and that she trusted you enough to respond. i'd have probably been a puddle of tears brushing her down that time...

She was definitely abused. We bought two geldings along with her. They were both dangerously crazy if you tried to ride them. One of them hated Marlboro jackets, the sheepskin lined kind. I wore one to Feed one evening and he left his Feed, cane to me, turned around and kicked me right above the knee. Big hoof print bruise. I wore it again and he came at me, teeth bared. Sold both of them with full disclosure.

Sparkles doesn’t act out her abuse, she just withdrew.

 

[thistlebloom]

She was definitely abused. We bought two geldings along with her. They were both dangerously crazy if you tried to ride them. One of them hated Marlboro jackets, the sheepskin lined kind. I wore one to Feed one evening and he left his Feed, cane to me, turned around and kicked me right above the knee. Big hoof print bruise. I wore it again and he came at me, teeth bared. Sold both of them with full disclosure.

Sparkles doesn’t act out her abuse, she just withdrew.

The good thing is she is safe with you now, and you understand her reasons for being shutdown. I'm sure she senses your empathy.

 

[thistlebloom]

Sweet Potato update- she now will jump in the trailer without any hesitation, in fact I have to hold her back while I open the rear doors she is so eager.
She backs herself out frequently and I am allowing that so she doesn't feel pressured and trapped. Eventually I will expect her to stand quietly while the back door is open and not unload until I ask her for it.

While she eats her goodies I walk around the trailer opening and shutting doors loudly on the off side, and swinging the butt strap across her haunches so it bangs on the divider. I get in the extra stall and jump up and down and rattle the divider. Sometimes all that commotion makes her back out, but she gets in again as soon as asked. All that backing out and getting back in is great practice.

One really neat thing she does, and I discovered she would do it while I was just messing around, is come to me while I'm standing on the muck tub while she is halterless and at liberty. I climbed up one day while we were just hanging out in the round pen together. She trotted over and stood parallel to me. She was just a little too far back for me to lean over her back so I cued her forward with a slow point of my left hand and she took a step. It was still not quite enough so I cued her again and she took one more step. She seemed to know what the plan was. I leaned over and rubbed her entire right side, putting as much weight as I could on her.

My ribs are not completely healed and they were cringing and sucking back, but I was careful to keep them and her withers far enough away from each other to avoid conflict, haha.

Anyway, I thought it was pretty great that she would do that while loose. I even sent her away at a trot and called her back to me and repeated it to make sure it wasn't a fluke. I do it all the time now.
She makes me smile.

 

[flowerbug]

"Sweet Potato"

 

[Carol Dee]

Sweet Potato update- she now will jump in the trailer without any hesitation, in fact I have to hold her back while I open the rear doors she is so eager.
She backs herself out frequently and I am allowing that so she doesn't feel pressured and trapped. Eventually I will expect her to stand quietly while the back door is open and not unload until I ask her for it.

While she eats her goodies I walk around the trailer opening and shutting doors loudly on the off side, and swinging the butt strap across her haunches so it bangs on the divider. I get in the extra stall and jump up and down and rattle the divider. Sometimes all that commotion makes her back out, but she gets in again as soon as asked. All that backing out and getting back in is great practice.

One really neat thing she does, and I discovered she would do it while I was just messing around, is come to me while I'm standing on the muck tub while she is halterless and at liberty. I climbed up one day while we were just hanging out in the round pen together. She trotted over and stood parallel to me. She was just a little too far back for me to lean over her back so I cued her forward with a slow point of my left hand and she took a step. It was still not quite enough so I cued her again and she took one more step. She seemed to know what the plan was. I leaned over and rubbed her entire right side, putting as much weight as I could on her.

My ribs are not completely healed and they were cringing and sucking back, but I was careful to keep them and her withers far enough away from each other to avoid conflict, haha.

Anyway, I thought it was pretty great that she would do that while loose. I even sent her away at a trot and called her back to me and repeated it to make sure it wasn't a fluke. I do it all the time now.
She makes me smile.

Wonderful progress, you 2 were meant for each other