Re: RC: Re: Re: The Horse/Cow Thing

[Mickie Newnam <akelakhan@earthlink.net>]

Katee,
At our barn we ride down about a mile of road to get to the trails.  For
a while the city was putting in a water line, so we rode through
construction traffic. My gelding was completely unconcerned about the
bulldozers, back hoes, dump trucks, etc.  They were normal, they were
traffic and as such they belonged on the road. The guy sweeping off the
street had him quite confused, however!  To him that didn't look normal.
He passed the Llama test before a parade (the organizers had us lining
up just in front of them), and will generally go anywhere I ask him to
-- including walking into the building of the nursing home where I work
to visit my residents.  We have an enclosed courtyard and he just
followed me right in.
On rides we've passed working oil rigs and propane cannons, ridden
through a tunnel under a 4 lane highway, and so many other things.  He
doesn't like cows, though; the ones across the street he doesn't care
about but on a ride he is not amused!  Fortunately at 16 he mostly does
a spook in place now, rather than the what-the-heck-was-that-I-need
-to-jump-3-feet-sideways-to-escape maneuvers.

Mickie

P.S. To you digest subscribers, sorry I left on the whole post.  I
forgot to delete it and my program won't let me edit it out.

owens wrote:

> Dear Lynne;
> Like you, I welcome all big, bad, bugaboos that can help train my horses
> to not be afraid of new things.  When I moved here I noticed, with
> delight, that the two next-door neighbors had large tractor equipment,
> with a trail going in-between it all.  I always start my training rides
> going through this property.  My horses coudn't care less about any
> piece of large machinery.
> Katee
> >
> > >Hah! I've got you all.  Check out water buffalo and CAMELS.  Those will
> > >scare the living daylights out of anything but a farm bred Arab....and
> > >that's mostly because they get a chance to see them.
> > >
> > >Maryanne Stroud Gabbani
> > >Cairo, Egypt
> > >gabbani@starnet.com.eg
> >
> > Now that hikers are starting to use llamas for packing in our area of
> > National Forest I jumped at the chance to get a couple llamas from friends
> > who were moving back East and looking for good homes for their extra
> > animals.  It took a week or two before the horses stopped acting like
> > they'd encountered aliens,  but now they even chase the llamas away from
> > their hay rations and tolerate the llamas coming up and sniffing them all
> > over.  They now might be startled if they suddenly encounter a llama on the
> > trail, but I don't expect they'll be totally stupid about it.
> >
> > Lynn Kinsky (Santa Ynez, CA)
> > http://www.silcom.com/~lkinsky
> >
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> --
> The public will believe the press implicitly, they always do.  It is so
> much more convenient than thinking!  Baaaaaahhh.
>
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> Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net.
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Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net.    
Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/RideCamp   
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=