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[RC] Sacking out a horse for bears - Melissa Margetts Ms. KittyCarla, I wanted to reiterate the *possibility* of desensitizing or "conditioning" a skittish horse to predators on the trail. (re: read below) If you click this link http://myspace.com/sweetmayleesa and just go to "view my pics", you will see a few of the photos that I specifically just posted tonight. (go to the pics so you don't have to watch all the slide-show) There are pictures on there of an article in Western Horsemen, of Pat Parelli using my mountain lion at a clinic about 15 years ago to show people how to do exactly that. If I remember right, he was demonstrating this "Super-sacking-out", using a "volunteer" horse who was scared of flapping jackets, hats, dogs, the whole wazoo. As you can see, he had me get the lion on top of the cab of a truck so it was even ABOVE the horse and more scary. After he worked with the horse for not very long, it just stood there under the lion even when it hissed at him. Below are the suggestion that I posted about using predator "scent" from trapper outlets. It is best to use the urine scent, sow in estrus scent, or feces scent on the rag that you hang in the horse stall, NOT the FOOD scents that are used as attractants. Here is also a link to where that can be obtained. *http://www.wildlife.com/Portals/wildlife/bookandarticles/huntingscentbook07.pdf*. and also a great pamphlet on understanding bear behavior, coexisting with wildlife and what to do upon encounters. www.*bearsmart.com*/bearFacts/Communication.html - // Yikes! I hope this will settle this whole topic down by giving tools for solutions instead of stepping on more "personal ethics" toes.
/Well behaved women seldom make history./ RE: Melissa wrote: Now this may also sound like a bizarre idea to some folks, but if you have a really skittish horse and you are very worried about their, "buck, bolt and burn" behavior if they were to encounter predator scent on the trail, There are trapper suppliers that have paste scents for all different kinds of critters. You can spread "Bear" or "Mountain Lion" scent on a rag and leave it tied in your horses stall so they get a little "desensitized" to the odor. I would rather have an alert and wary, yet MANAGEABLE horse in that situation, rather than trying to control a horse that thinks he's going to get eaten by some fire breathing dragon if he were to encounter a predator on the trail. I have owned a mountain Lion for 23 years and many friends have come to get buckets of lion poo to either put around their gardens to discourage the deer from eating their crops or flowers, or to defuse their horses so they will be able to ride past my property without an explosion. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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