I emailed Vonni Halverson regarding our little catching issue with Sunny, and she recommend two things.
1) Peer pressure. Let her get jealous of what's going on.
2) Keep her moving, don't let her stop until she faces up to me and lets me come up to her. If she turns away, get her going again. Eventually, she'll realize that she only gets to relax if she stands for me.
I'd already been moving her around, but in a large area. So...I tightened up the corral and put her in the small side and round and round we went. It didn't take long for her to stop and say 'alright, already!' and take a few steps towards me. I walked towards her and then away before she had a chance to move away from me. We did it a few more times and eventually I walked up and scratched her. Tighter space = more work = I'll let you walk up to me.
Later in the day she was out with Jet, who's miss socialite. I don't feed from my hands typically, and Jet is oral already, but I wanted to try the peer pressure to see if it worked. The answer is yes, it did! Although Sunny didn't ever take anything from my hand (she's very protective of her muzzle), she desperately wanted to and walked timidly up to see what Jet was getting.
This will most definitely be our routine until she decides to give in.
4 comments:
Jet is just gorgeous!! You picked a great one!! When did you get Sunny?
Christy, Sunny was a reassignment horse. She was adopted last year at Monroe but her adopter had to give her up. She hadn't been worked with at all during the eight months they'd had her, so I had to start from scratch. If you go back through the diaries here, you can see how she's progressed. Very slow, but certianly makes you appreciate each and every step that we often take for granted with our domestics!
Ya, it's great how the peer pressure works. We have a mare here we bought as a yearling filly and no one could catch her so we could bring her home. But she hated the other horses getting attention when she wasn't, it was no time at all and we had her caught. It took a little longer to get her loaded in a trailer to bring her home. She was a wild thing! She's a peach now.
Tee hee hee... Peer pressure among horses. I love it. But, hey, it's also common sense, when you think of it. :-)))
Beeeeeeeeeutiful Jet! Nothing taken away from Sunny but.. I have a thing for black. :-)
Mari-Nanci
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