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Post by runningdog on Feb 9, 2018 3:57:44 GMT -5
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Post by runningdog on Mar 9, 2018 16:02:45 GMT -5
Apologies that we’ve been so quiet recently - we’re still here, all of us, and in good health. Even those pretending they’re ‘late’ ferrets. I’ve just been tied up with the newest member of the family, who’s taking quite a lot of time and energy.
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Post by LindaM on Mar 9, 2018 16:46:44 GMT -5
Horsey baby! I absolutely love horses, I hope in the future we can get a house with decent acreage (was a bit out of price range when we recently bought a house) on which I can keep one or two. I love horse riding, and it's just been so long since I have been able to.
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Post by runningdog on Mar 9, 2018 18:42:46 GMT -5
Tbh, I’m not riding this fella yet - he’s still unbroken! I’ll get him started long-reining soon and then I’ll back him but he’s only rising 4, still very much a baby, and we’re still getting to know each other.
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Post by LindaM on Mar 9, 2018 21:22:09 GMT -5
You should try T-Touch with him to relax and bond. You can also try join-up if you have a round pen, it's pretty great for unhandled/unbroken horses. But both are great for bonding training methods before you get to actually riding him.
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Post by runningdog on Mar 10, 2018 3:58:09 GMT -5
I do use T-Touch but Abe doesn’t want it - he reaches round and nuzzles my fingers away. As you can see in the video, in any new place he wants to have a look around - but then he comes to his human and wants to know what we’re going to do together. I don’t know there’s much point trying to do join-up with a horse who’s already human-oriented and thinks humans are far more interesting than horses or scenery! He’s been very well handled by his previous owner and the moment we set eyes on each other we just clicked, heart-horse and heart-human, so even though I’ve only had him two weeks he already nickers when he sees me, comes to me in the field, stands with me, wants to be with me more than other horses, even. His favourite thing in the stable is to stand with his nose up to mine and share breath, even when I’m trying to do other things around him! It’s not so much trying to get him to bond with me as persuading him to go away and be a horse at times. I’m using clicker-training at the moment to teach him the last of his ground-work commands; he already walked and trotted smartly in-hand from his previous owner, he’s used to having his hooves picked up, teeth checked, being groomed, rugged, he’s totally cool with things draped, dumped, flapped and wrapped all over him, even snakey things like hoses and ropes. He’ll walk over tarps and picks up toys to throw them around quite happily. Once he’s got ‘come left’ and ‘go right’ fixed firmly in his head (probably another couple of days) I’ll start him long-reining in the school gently, then we’ll spend most of this summer going walkies around the local countryside together, build up his muscles (and mine!). Gradually putting my arm over him (whch I do now) will turn into leaning on him will drift into leaning over and end as briefly sitting on, ideally without him noticing, but he’s very young yet - I won’t be doing more riding than gentle brief walks in the school until next year, when his bones have hardened more. He needs to play and mature at his own pace and Arabians are slow growers. Horse agility in the meantime, and liberty training. He’s learning to bow just now...
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Post by Sherry on Mar 10, 2018 10:43:31 GMT -5
Oh he IS a beauty!
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Post by LindaM on Mar 10, 2018 17:28:32 GMT -5
Haha, not all take to T-Touch perfectly, but always worth the try. I have no horsies to do T-Touch with now, so kitty and the ferrets get to enjoy T-Touch in our home.
I agree join-up won't do much at this stage and could actually cause an issue, he sounds WAY more along than I thought at first.
Are you going to do any liberty work with him after his liberty training?
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Post by runningdog on Mar 11, 2018 2:28:23 GMT -5
I probably will - I didn’t set out to buy him for any particular discipline, I just wanted another horse and fell for Abe, so we’ll try out lots of things and carry on with what he’s good at and we both enjoy, whether that’s endurance, agility, show-jumping, dressage or just playing together! He’s clever and quick to learn, enjoys doing things with humans rather than just going off being a horse by himself, so we’ll be doing a lot of ground-work, agility and liberty together while we wait for him to be physically mature enough to go rides together instead of (as well as, even....) go walkies. Liberty and agility will help him turn into an unflappable, bombproof ride, too, by increasing his personal confidence (not that he’s short of that already! He’s a very composed young man).
I’m finding he responds better to clicker training than my dogs did - they got totally focussed on the tidbits and wouldn’t listen, just stared at my hands and pestered for nibbles. Abe’s interested in the food, but he’s also paying attention to my voice and movements and he puts things together in his head very quickly, then remembers them well.
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Post by LindaM on Mar 11, 2018 15:51:26 GMT -5
I think you're gonna do just great with him, he definitely sounds like a very eager to learn horse, which is awesome. And I think it's really wonderful that you're planning to go with what the horse enjoys, I've seen too many times where people only want the horse to do what they want or what they bought it for, even if the horse has zero interest in that field. Keep us updated on Abe's adventures too!
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