94. How to deal with a barn sour horse...

Training a Buddy-Sour or Barn-Sour Horse with John Lyons

'Horses love the familiar even more than we do, so getting separated from home or friends is legitimate cause for upset. But like us, our horse can’t always have things the way he wants them, so we have to help him deal with the emotional trauma he’s experiencing. Through training a buddy-sour or barn-sour horse, we'll have a good, horse-specific game plan.

Fortunately, we have a big horse asset working in our favor. Horses have a one-track mind.

Anyone who’s tried to quiet a horse left behind by his buddies knows that no attempt at feeding carrots or soothing talk will work. And anyone who’s ridden a horse who adamantly refuses to leave the barn can tell you that it seems the horse can only think "back to the barn." So what’s the solution? Use the horse’s own emotions to train him. Here’s the plan.

In a safe area where the horse isn’t upset, work on particular exercises that give you good control. Be specific in your requests. Don’t just lead or walk the horse around.

Cool-headed Training
# Realize that responding to a cue involves the horse's mind, body and emotions.
# Take learning cycles into account.
# Work through the "bad" parts without anger or frustration.
# Ask yourself if the performance problem you're dealing with could be primarily emotional.
# Distractions can be used as an opportunity.
Anticipate what tools you’ll need if he were to get upset. Moving his hip over will give you control of the horse’s hindquarters, which may prevent him from bolting forward or pulling away from you. Moving his shoulder over gives you control of his front end. That will prevent him from crashing into you if you lead him from the ground. Steering the shoulders or hindquarters is also much more effective when riding than just steering the nose.

Let’s concentrate on what we want the horse to do. We’re going to separate him from his buddy or the barn just momentarily, then relieve his concern by immediately returning to the buddy or barn. We’ll work that "get upset and then calm" process while we ask him for specific movements. Getting worried isn’t hard and getting calm isn’t hard. But that emotional roller coaster is. The horse will learn that getting worried is too much work, and he’ll relax and trust your signals. Gradually, we can lengthen both the time away and the distance from the buddy or barn.

The rule we follow is: Ride where you can, not where you can’t. That means we’re not going to have a fight with our horse in a place where we don’t have control, which essentially means we’re not going to fight with our horse.

In the following examples, if your horse gets too upset, then you’ve tried to take him too far too fast. Backtrack in the lesson to where he’s under good control and relaxed, then increase the distance or time'

93. Long Reining

So (as i said i would in my last post) i used long reins on Spice today and boy did i enjoy it! It was so nice to be in control and not feel threatened by Spices behaviour. I was able to remain completely calm and focused throughout the exercise and this allowed me to 'not give into her ' in ways i probably have before. Finally, Spice realized that i was not going to 'give up' and so it was really not worth the effort trying to make me. I'm not saying it was easy because it wasn't we had a big discussion with lots of 'i can't do this' by Spice and lots of 'you can do this' by me. She wasn't happy... for once her rears were ineffective and all the tricks she had learned were failing her.

What i found fascinating about the exercise was that i was actually able to make her move with just two long pieces of rope attached to her bridle. She had no bit, no leg pressure and no crop/whip. I am definitely going to continue long reining Spice in fact i will do this until we get to the point that she goes everywhere i want her to go without the slightest hesitation or reluctance and only then will i attempt to actually ride her out again.

I know this is going to take a lot of time but i've said before i don't want to resort to using violence against Spice. I want to work on the basis of applying pressure and releasing pressure with lots of reward as positive reinforcement.

My hope is that long reining prepares Spice for the eventuality of riding out alone so that she doesn't feel the need to react so violently but i guess only time will tell...

91. Long Reining...

As usual Spice has given me a headache...It's 2.24am in the morning and i find myself lying in bed 'thinking over' everything that happened yesterday. The first feeling i felt after what happened when i tried to get Spice to go towards the gate yesterday was disappointment. I was disappointed in Spice. All i could think was how dissappointed i was that after all our work she had failed the task i had set before her but really it was me that had failed...

Is it a case of long reining her out of the yard first so i learn what to do with my reins without the risk of getting injured in the process?

Or is it simply a case of simply being more authoritative, firmer, stronger and quicker and in effect 'forcing her to go' as when Spice is flatly refusing to listen to me even before i attempt to communicate with her she is completely disrespecting my authority.

Anyway, tomorrow i have decided to long rein her in the arena and try to perform a variety of transitions so i can get her 'listening' to me and then long rein her out of the yard and then repeat these exercises whilst riding her...

Will let you all know how it goes providing i'm still alive to tell the tale...

One thing is for sure...i never imagined just 'how much learning' was involved in riding!

90. Barn Sour & Buddy Sour...

This afternoon we decided to hack out and it didn't go well. :( I could tell Spice was going to be difficult even before i 'd finished tacking her up as she was quite irritable. Anyway, as soon as i mounted her (which took three attempts) I asked her to walk forward and she refused so i asked again and she obliged but very reluctantly, in fact she was so reluctant that i was wondering whether she was lame...she wasn't...

After a slow and short walk around the yard i asked her to move forward towards the gate where i was planning on waiting for the others but before i could even point her towards it she was already heading back to the field. Spice had decided that she wasn't going out (at least not on her own.) She was not giving to her right rein at all and the more i pulled the more she pulled. I knew i could not give up and eventually i did manage to turn back towards the gate and walk her out successfully. However, by this time the other horses were already heading out of the gate so it was easier to persuade spice to go this way in view of the fact that she had realized that she wasn't going to be hacking out alone...

So...i really need to start riding her out to get her 'over' this. I feel a bit deflated as if i'm honest i hadn't expected her to be quite so reluctant - especially after all our groundwork but i am going to stay positive as i also have to take into consideration that it has been almost 5 months since i last rode her out alone (so she is bound to be apprehensive).

61. Day 13...Spices abscess continues...

Today we took off what we hoped would be Spices last poultice but there was still a smell of puss on the poultice which would indicate that it is still draining albeit ever so slightly as visually there was next to nothing on it. So, my first thoughts were to apply yet another poultice and assess the situation tomorrow. However, Spice was behaving quite frantically with it being so windy and looked as though she was going to be a bit of a nightmare to keep still so reluctantly i postponed applying the poultice with the view of coming back to do it later.

I came back roughly 4 hours later to apply the poultice which was actually quite easy due to the fact that spice was happy to stand still for me but her hoof was full of mud due to being outside so it was quite a job cleaning it. I only hope that i managed to clean away the debris from the draining hole so that if there is anything left to drain it has an easy escape but as i said it was quite difficult.

I'm so over the whole hoof abscessing thing. It's times like this when you wish you had a stable just because it would be easier treating a horse in somewhere clean, dry and out of the wind than in an open muddy field.