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[RC] [RC] training horses to drink - Hopkins, Lorretta J.


My own remedy to this has been to use carrots at the start, which seems to
be working for this horse.
The 'I don't want to drink now -lets keep going till I collapse' problem
persisted with my own
Arabian to his own detriment. After two years of CTR's, trying to understand
how to
get this one to drink ( I carry water from home, tried all the 'tricks'),
it turned out that 
he's low thyroid, and this was just one of the symptoms.  No matter how
thirsty he was,
he would not drink.  Now that he's on medication,  he's much better about
eating, drinking, 
and much healthier, more stable, etc.....thankfully for us both.

The carrot reward started at the water trough in his paddock - he takes a
drink, he gets a carrot.
At his bucket, he takes a drink, he gets a carrot.  Now, when I show up, he
steps over to his bucket
to get a sip of water, then looks up at me in hopes of that carrot or verbal
praise.  We will translate this
out on the trail.  He's just starting to learn to stop at the water spots,
and check them out.

With the big snow melt creating lakes on our property, I walk him out into a
foot of water, we 
stand there (it's very relaxing), and when he takes a drink, he gets a
carrot -  now he's looking
for puddles.

My other horses have noticed this, and now they, too, are standing around in
puddles, taking sips, looking
up hopefully to see if a carrot is somewhere nearby .......

Lorretta J. Hopkins


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