Skeeter: Part One
Fidel Candelaria brought us his little wild pony for training. This little appy is only about 10 hands tall and looks like a yearling although he is two. He had never been touched, and even when they brought him here, they just herded him into a corral with the rest of the horses, then put him into a cattle loading chute to shoo into the trailer. Fidel backed up to out mustang pen and the little pony jumped into his new school.
Our first goal with the wild guys is to do some perception modification and get the critter to see humans as interesting rather than as potential predators. We hand feed them through the bars of the mustang pen. It doesn't take them many meals to change their minds about humans. The bars of the pen keep them feeling safe from the human as well as keeping the human safe from the critter.
Once we can feed them from hand with no problem, we introduce our secret weapon, horse cookies. There might be an equine out there that doesn't like horse cookies, but we haven't found them yet. We use the horse cookies to introduce the bridge (the sound we want to make into a conditioned positive reinforcer), so that the animal get the idea that if the human makes the bridge sound, a cookie is about to be delivered. Then we start using the bridge to teach them to touch their shoulder to our hand. Occasionally an equine will prefer to touch you with the nose, but many prefer the shoulder because they can see what they are touching. They will prefer one shoulder or the other, but we have to get them to be equally willing to touch we with either shoulder. This pays off later.
When all this behavior is stabilized (it only takes a session or two), we start going into the mustang pen. Hopefully we have a critter in there that isn't terrified of us, and wants to touch us with his shoulder rather than his hind hooves. Once in the pen, my initial goal is to be able to deliver a cookie to the animal out of my hand without scaring him.
Skeeter got through this stage in the first two days. He was much less willing to let us touch him on the side his mane was hanging, but we just stuck with it until he got it. He had been really hungry and on poor range, so he was really keen for some green hay and thought cookies were to die for.
Now things change radically. We have a 10ft pole and we stand in the center of the 20x20 mustang pen and lay an end of our pole on the wild one's withers. With just a little pressure we can keep the pole on the wither until the animal settles down. If the animal stops and looks at us, we take the pole away and turn around, carefully relaxing our posture to let the horse know that everything is totally calm. This does a very important thing: it teaches the animal that if things are scary, looking at the human will usually fix the problem. It's a stress coping behavior I want in all my equines.
Then from the withers, we start rubbing the equine with the pole, gradually working out to where we can rub any part of the body. This is worth spending several days on. If the animal not only stops and looks, but takes a step toward me, I bridge and deliver a cookie. It isn't long before they are following you around and you can have the pole touch them anywhere.
Here is a video of Jerri working Skeeter at this stage. He's willing to let us pet his head and shoulders here but he's trying to figure out if he can bully us into giving him a cookie. It's instinctive for them to try to take food by domination so we don't punish him much for trying it, though later if the behavior is there, we would pop him on the rump with the stick for trying to kick. This behavior goes away but if an animal has kicking as one of it's primary coping behaviors, it can be dangerous. Helmet and protective vest are a good idea.
Our first goal with the wild guys is to do some perception modification and get the critter to see humans as interesting rather than as potential predators. We hand feed them through the bars of the mustang pen. It doesn't take them many meals to change their minds about humans. The bars of the pen keep them feeling safe from the human as well as keeping the human safe from the critter.
Once we can feed them from hand with no problem, we introduce our secret weapon, horse cookies. There might be an equine out there that doesn't like horse cookies, but we haven't found them yet. We use the horse cookies to introduce the bridge (the sound we want to make into a conditioned positive reinforcer), so that the animal get the idea that if the human makes the bridge sound, a cookie is about to be delivered. Then we start using the bridge to teach them to touch their shoulder to our hand. Occasionally an equine will prefer to touch you with the nose, but many prefer the shoulder because they can see what they are touching. They will prefer one shoulder or the other, but we have to get them to be equally willing to touch we with either shoulder. This pays off later.
When all this behavior is stabilized (it only takes a session or two), we start going into the mustang pen. Hopefully we have a critter in there that isn't terrified of us, and wants to touch us with his shoulder rather than his hind hooves. Once in the pen, my initial goal is to be able to deliver a cookie to the animal out of my hand without scaring him.
Skeeter got through this stage in the first two days. He was much less willing to let us touch him on the side his mane was hanging, but we just stuck with it until he got it. He had been really hungry and on poor range, so he was really keen for some green hay and thought cookies were to die for.
Now things change radically. We have a 10ft pole and we stand in the center of the 20x20 mustang pen and lay an end of our pole on the wild one's withers. With just a little pressure we can keep the pole on the wither until the animal settles down. If the animal stops and looks at us, we take the pole away and turn around, carefully relaxing our posture to let the horse know that everything is totally calm. This does a very important thing: it teaches the animal that if things are scary, looking at the human will usually fix the problem. It's a stress coping behavior I want in all my equines.
Then from the withers, we start rubbing the equine with the pole, gradually working out to where we can rub any part of the body. This is worth spending several days on. If the animal not only stops and looks, but takes a step toward me, I bridge and deliver a cookie. It isn't long before they are following you around and you can have the pole touch them anywhere.
Here is a video of Jerri working Skeeter at this stage. He's willing to let us pet his head and shoulders here but he's trying to figure out if he can bully us into giving him a cookie. It's instinctive for them to try to take food by domination so we don't punish him much for trying it, though later if the behavior is there, we would pop him on the rump with the stick for trying to kick. This behavior goes away but if an animal has kicking as one of it's primary coping behaviors, it can be dangerous. Helmet and protective vest are a good idea.
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