Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Thanks to everyone who gave advice for getting my Arab mare to take the bit.  I received a number of good suggestions and appreciate everyone who took the time to write.

 

To those who suggested I not tie her when trying to get her to take the bit, I had already figured that out and do most everything with her not tied.  She stands for saddling and grooming very well without it. 

 

I've tried various sweet treats along with the bit and she doesn't seem to care what is on the bit.  It is still a bit.

 

Today I had a long session with her and made some progress.  We finally had some sun today and she was pretty frisky.  I let her run around with her pasture-mates then exercised her so she could work off steam.  Whenever she would try to back away from me I encouraged the backing.  She quickly decided it was ok if I put my fingers in her mouth but not the bit.  She has learned to lower her head when cued so she just put her nose all the way to the ground where I couldn't put the bit in.  We went through a  lot of variations of her with closed mouth and me with bit.  And we did a lot of backing.  I just made sure it was not ever a fight.  Finally I decided to try another snaffle that I had used on one of my mules.  It is a snaffle with rubber covering the metal.  She seemed to find that interesting and actually let me put it in her mouth!  I wanted the session to end on a good note so that's where I stopped. 

 

We then worked on our other problem, trailer loading.  I was able to load her successfully, she was rewarded with alfalfa each time and I felt really good about our day.  She even ate her dinner in the trailer.

 

Thanks again,

 

Patsy