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Bombproofing

Bombproofing with Advanced Tarp Work

March 28, 2012
Bombproofing, Video
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We’ve had a lot of wind lately. I used to dread wind because it meant I couldn’t ride. But now, I’m grateful for the training opportunity.

For the non-horsey readers, winds make horses spooky. Aside from surprises of things blowing around, the wind will also put a sensitive horse on higher alert as he tries to smell and hear possible danger and they are a bit more covered up.

I had Zahra not only wearing the tarp but walking around with it. Walking forward is a bit easier, though she’s still tentative about it. Backing is another degree of emotional difficulty for her, but she did great!

10 Ways to Bombproof Your Horse by Using a Tarp

March 28, 2012
Bombproofing
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Horses need to learn that the world isn’t such a scary place. A tarp is a cheap tool that can teach this lesson in so many ways. Before jumping in with both feet, make sure you have read about the basics so that you don’t end up with a train wreck!

Using normal household objects in creative ways can help you turn your horse into a more solid citizen.

10 Ways to Bombproof Your Horse by Using a Tarp

  1. Let the horse sniff the tarp. Start with it folded up and work your way to unfolding it.
  2. Get the horse to walk on a flat tarp on a calm day.
  3. Get the horse to walk on a crumpled up tarp.
  4. Get the horse to walk on a tarp that is in between a tight space. I used two lawn chairs (after teaching the horse to walk through that space without a tarp)
  5. Get the horse to wear a tarp.
  6. Get the horse to wear the tarp and walk forward.
  7. Get the horse to wear the tarp and walk backwards.
  8. Flap the tarp around.
  9. Put the tarp on some poles and get the horse to walk through/under the tarp.
  10. Do it all again on windy days!

Bombproof Your Horse – Advanced Tarp Walking

March 26, 2012
Bombproofing, Video
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I haven’t written much about basic tarp training because Zahra did that a long time ago. But I will get to it soonish.

This exercise assumes the following things about your horse:

  • he is comfortably walking over a tarp that is laid out flat
  • he is fully desensitized to the sounds that a tarp makes when it flaps around
  • he is fully comfortable having things wrapped around his feet
If your horse can’t do all of these things, please don’t try this yet.
You also want to make sure the tarp is in good condition. If your horse gets caught in a hole in the tarp, he could panic.
Click any thought of forward.
Just because you can get one foot on doesn’t mean you can get two. Just because you can get two doesn’t mean you can get four. Each foot is a goal unto itself.
Also, stepping backwards on the tarp isn’t the same as stepping forward. These are separate exercises. The video shows mostly forward but at one point, I am giving her the cue she knows to move backwards.
Pardon the vertical orientation of the video camera. This was my first time taping a session.
Zahra did get her hind feet on the tarp but the wind knocked the camera over!

Horse Bombproofing Basics

March 25, 2012
Basics, Bombproofing
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You know how to read a horse’s body language, right? If you don’t, you don’t want to try to bombproof because you might make a mess. These isn’t rocket science, but it can be tricky and the consequences can be bad.

Horse Bombproofing 101

There are two general methods of getting through fear….flooding and systematic desensitization. In flooding, you simply put the horse (or the person) into the traumatic situation and leave them there until they burn through all of their adrenalin and relax.

Smaller, less traumatic ways of doing flooding might be to post plastic bags around the horse’s corral so that they are blowing in the wind while the human may not even be around. This can be helpful but it’s not clicker training so we’re not going into those details.

Systematic Desensitization and Clicker Training for Horses

Clicker training uses an approach called Systematic Desensitization, which is a progressive method that never overloads or floods the animal. In systematic desensitization (SD), the exposure to the feared thing is gradual and waits for a calm response before proceeding to the next step.

With SD, we don’t ever want to flood or overwhelm the horse.

We also want to make sure we are clicking RELAXATION. This is so important. If you click the horse stepping backwards away from the scary thing, you are reinforcing fear responses. Even if you don’t click, but you retreat the scary thing by moving it away and then click, you are reinforcing the wrong thing.

Just as in every aspect of clicker training, first figure out your tiniest steps and if the horse looks overwhelmed at any time, back up.

So, in tarp training, your smallest steps might look like this:

  1. handler holds a folded up tarp in her hand within eyeshot of the horse
  2. handler holds a folded up tarp a bit closer and sees if the horse will move towards it either by moving the muzzle towards it or moving the feet to get closer
  3. horse sniffs the folded up tarp
  4. handler pets the horse with the folded up tarp
  5. handler unfolds the tarp a little bit so that it’s still folded, but a bit bigger, and repeats the steps above
  6. handler holds the tarp near the horse and makes the (still folded) tarp make a small crinkly noise
  7. handler repeats all the steps above while making crinkly noises
  8. handler unfolds the tarp some more, preferably on a day when the wind isn’t blowing and does all of the above again
Each step of the way….the horse must show a relaxation response before the handler moves on to the next step. Also, the handler clicks the relaxation response, not the fear response.
In fact, if you get more than a tiny fear response, you need to back up. We are not practicing flooding! We are practicing systematic desensitization.
If my horse snorts at the scary thing, that’s okay and I don’t back down. But I will wait until she looks more relaxed to click.
If she flinches, the thing will repeat over and over again until she’s not flinching.
If she’s backing away or even looking like she wants to back away, she’s telling me that I’m going to fast and need to back off.

 

Reading a Horse’s Emotions

March 25, 2012
Bombproofing
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Horses are Prey Animals

I often ask children, “do you think a horse is more like a lion or more like a bunny rabbit?” Most children rightly answer, “bunny”, but they aren’t sure why that is. Or they know it’s because horses and bunnies eat grass.

I then talk to them about horses as prey animals and what that means to the psychology of a horse.

Horse owners will tell you that their horses spook over crazy things….a butterfly, a discolored part of the ground that is discolored because the same horse urinated there, a small bird. Humans can look at these things and think it’s ridiculous that a 1000lb + animal would be scared of something so tiny. But the prey animal mind is ever vigilant to small changes in the environment that may mean danger is near by.

Some horses are more sensitive to these small changes than others. My horse Zahra, is very sensitive and can spook easily. So when you see pictures of her wearing a tarp, she does not come to these things easily or naturally.

How Can I tell When My Horse is Relaxed?

These are signs of relaxation

  • licking
  • chewing
  • lowered head
  • relaxed sigh
  • blowing air (there is another blow that is stress….but they are different sounds…..the relaxed one is closer to the sigh and the horse’s muscles are relaxed)
  • cocking a foot
  • closing the eyes and looking drowsy
  • relaxed, soft looking eyes

These are signs of stress or tension

  • showing the whites of the eyes
  • “hard” eyes (hard to describe but sometimes it’s not as extreme as showing the whites, but you can still read stress or grouchiness in the eyes)
  • high head
  • arched neck
  • snorting (may sound somewhat similar to the soft blowing of a relaxed horse, but the entire body language is different….and this snort means SOMETHING IS WRONG)
  • trying to flee
  • moving backwards away from the stimulus

 

Being able to read these signs is critical to successful clicker training for bombproofing!

Advanced Tarp Training (and an Umbrella!)

March 25, 2012
Bombproofing
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Advanced Bombproofing Horses

Seriously?? You want me to do what?

Tarp wearing horse
(Before reading this, you may want to read about Horse Bombproofing Basics)

In the ever increasing indignities forced upon her, the mean owner has asked the nice horsey to wear a tarp.

In fairness to Ms Zahra, today was very windy and most horses would find tarp wearing a chore under the best of circumstances.

Zahra had some experience with tarps going back years, but that was mostly limited to walking across tarps that were flat on the ground on calm days.

Advanced tarp walk includes horse walking on crumpled up tarps and then being under one.

As always in clicker training and most especially bombproofing….fast is slow. I didn’t just whip out a tarp and throw it on her.

But after a bit of time, she looked like she was falling asleep while the tarp was flapping around on her.

Horse wearing a tarp
Bombproofing Horses with Clicker Training: A Few General Notes

In my continuing quest to have this blog be a resource for any who may choose to clicker train their horse, I’m adding more details here.

Horses are prey animals and when training for bombproofing, we can never ever lose sight of this. Horses spend their lives worrying that something is going to eat them.

Tarps and umbrellas as well as a myriad of other things can terrify horses. And if we don’t have that front and center, we can end up making our horses more afraid of things rather than less.

When clicker training for bombproofing, you need to be able to read horse body language because you need to be sure you’re clicking relaxation, not stress.

 

 

 

 

Zahra Horse and the Tarp

March 17, 2012
Bombproofing
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Horse standing on a tarpIf you’re a horse person, you know horses are usually terrified of things that move around, make crinkly noises, and are strangely colored. So, this makes tarps a great thing to play with to help horses get used to weird things.

Teaching a Horse to Walk on a Tarp

Your clicker is loaded, right? So, now you can bring out the tarp.

My horse Zahra had tarp walking experience, but it had been a few years. And back then I never took it so far as I have now.

But let me start from the beginning.

Steps: (In Bombroofing, always take it slowly!! The steps below might happen over a week or two!)

  1. On a day that’s not windy, pull the tarp out so that it’s tightly folded and in your hand. Let your horse sniff it and click for curiosity.
  2. Unfold it a wee bit and let your horse explore it some more with her nose. Click. Treat.
  3. Make some crinkly noises with it and click treat if your horse doesn’t try to run away.
  4. Pet your horse with the folded up tarp.
  5. Unfold it a bit more and let the horse walk near it. You might want to weight the edges down with some rocks.
  6. Unfold it flat and weight it down. Even if there is no breeze, you don’t want the horse to panic if they step on it and it moves too much.
  7. Encourage ANY movement towards the tarp with a click and a treat. Don’t expect your horse to just walk on it. Click for sniffing it. Click for the horse even looking like she wants to move forward.
  8. Shift into clicking only forward movement. It still doesn’t have to be ON the tarp yet.
  9. Click for one foot on.
  10. Two feet.
  11. Four feet was surprisingly much harder for my girl to master.
  12. Bunch up the tarp so that it looks like the photos in this blog entry and encourage your horse to walk on this.
  13. Do it all again on a windy day! 🙂