I have a 12 year old mare whom I have had since she was four.
She is an awesome horse with loads of heart which makes up for where she
may not have the toughest constitution. She has about two more 50's to
earn her 2000 mile patch (with only one pull).
She is VERY reactive. Used to spook at any provocation. She is
now a solid, easy to ride, fun, dependable trail horse. She will step over logs,
objects on the trail, cross country through the most tangled mess up and down
steep slopes. BUT...she does not do blue tarps. No way, no how. I have tried
clicker training, John Lyons methods, etc.
I think I may have contributed to this problem as I was a
novice with horses when I purchased her and tried to force her to accept the
tarp by placing it where she had to step on it in order to eat or in order to
get out of her stall. This only proved to her that it was a nasty
thing.
I even hired a "trainer" who came with word of mouth
credentials as a Parelli Natural Horsemanship trainer. He made some major
mistakes with her and my gelding before I had sense enough to invite him off of
my property.
I looked the other way since all was so well with her in every
other respect. But when last summer, she refused to go by a large pile of
construction materials which had been covered with a blue tarp, and it took me
almost 15 minutes, dismounted, (on a very narrow trail with a bit of a drop off
on the other side) to drive her past the obstruction, I decided that I had
ignored the problem for far too long.
She was so terrified of tarp that if she spied it in the
arena, she would refuse to enter without much prodding and then was a nervous
wreck the entire time, seeing nothing but the tarp.
I began by tying a very small piece of tarp on the pipe fence
of her paddock which is attached to her stall. she has to go into the paddock to
get into the pasture. She made a prisoner of herself for an hour or so but then
rushed by the piece of tarp in panic mode. Same upon re-entry for evening
feeding. Over the course 0f several weeks, I added four more full size tarps
which were tied so that they moved in the wind (of which we have plenty).
Although she walked past them, avoiding contact, there was not the panic in her
movement. After a windstorm, two of the tarps ended up half on the fence and
half fluttering on the ground and she all but had to step on them to get past
them. She is no longer in panic mode but when I was removing and folding one of
the tarps and then entering her stall to enter the barn, she was trembling and
cowering in a corner with "flight mode" written all over her body. At least I
was able to walk past her without the explosion of escape from the stall that I
would have seen in the past.
But I am at a loss as to where to go from here. I don't want
to try to force her to walk on the tarp but I want to get past this block. Years
ago, I was able to have her accept (grudgingly) my rubbing her all over with a
small folded tarp. I can play all seven Parelli games with her, she is wonderful
in all other aspects of ground work.
Any suggestions?
I really didn't mean to write this missive but one word just
leads to another and so it goes. Fell free to reply privately if you
like.
In a message dated 1/20/03 11:44:58 AM Mountain Standard
Time, superpat@xxxxxxxxxxxx
writes:
Every thing, without exception, that you do while interacting
with your horse is training him to be a better or less respectful partner.
The more you can interact with your horse with this attitude the more
pleasurable every ride will be. And you know what? I bet you train your
horses every day but just may not name it as that
Truer
words have never been spoken...Good on ya'
---Frank
