Zahra Horse and the Tarp

March 17, 2012
Bombproofing
1 Comment

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! 🙂

My Training Plan

March 17, 2012
Training
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By March 18, 2012, (3 days) Zahra the horse will know

  1. to look at me when I say her name.
  2. to pick up a cone from the ground in her teeth for at least one second.
  3. to keep her head down when I halter her.

Next goals:

  1. I will teach Zahra to STAY (like a dog.)
  2. Zahra will pick up the cone and hold it for at least 3 seconds.
Accomplished Goals:
Prior to starting this blog, Zahra the horse has learned:
  1. to lift all of her feet on a hand signal
  2. to backup from a wag of the finger
  3. to disengage her hindquarters in a few different ways
  4. to have a big blue tarp shaken near her and laid on her
  5. to walk on the big blue tarp when it’s crumpled up and crunchy
  6. to touch a cone with her nose, take the cone with her teeth, walk to the cone to touch it if I throw it
  7. to put her head through the halter

 

Teach Your Horse to Target

March 17, 2012
Basics
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You can accomplish so much by making sure your horse really knows how to target. This can be the foundation of many other things including trailer loading, walking on a lead, and tricks like playing fetch.

Teaching Your Horse to Target

Teach your horse to target an object. I used a small, orange marker cone. You need something sturdy enough that your horse won’t destroy it.

Hold the object near the horse’s nose. Horse’s are naturally curious animals and eventually they will sniff at it or touch it with their nose.

Click.Treat!

When your horse is reliably touching the cone, hold it to the right  and retrain it.

Hold it up higher and retrain.

Hold it lower and retrain.

It may all seem to be the same to you, but it’s not the same to your horse. And you need to keep training it in different places until your horse is entirely solid.

Adding a Command to Targeting

It’s backwards from how most of us learned to train dogs, but it’s important to teach the behavior thoroughly before you name it.

 

When your horse is reliably touching the object with his nose you can add a command. I use “touch.”

Once your horse is touching the cone, you can have him touch all kinds of things. Touching scary things can help bombproof your horse.

Loading the Clicker

March 17, 2012
Basics
2 Comments

A horse doesn’t know that a click means anything good or bad.

Before you can do clicker training, you have to teach your horse that the click means a treat is coming.

Steps to Load the Clicker

  1. If your horse is bargey, greedy, bitey, or otherwise unmannerly, you may want to have the horse in the stall for the first lessons. Safety first! Your horse cannot be allowed to run you over to get treats. More about safety in some other posts.
  2. Find some treats that your horse likes. If your horse likes the treats a little, you may not have as much success as if your horse likes the treats a lot.
  3. You can use a real clicker or use a ballpoint pen. I don’t recommend using your mouth to make noises at this stage in time.
  4. Click. Treat.
  5. Click. Treat.
  6. Click. Treat.
  7. Yes! Do it again and again until you see your horse’s ears perk up when he hears a click. It won’t take long for him to know that if he hears a click, he’s about to get a goody.

That’s it! Your horse now has the first steps towards learning almost anything. Trailer loading. Tying. Backing up. Standing for mounting and more.