Hula Hoop
I got a new toy. I had been wanting a hula hoop but could never bring myself to spend the money. All of five dollars, I know, but more than I wanted to spend! My daughter asked for one at the store and I jumped on the chance to make us both happy. She quickly realized I was after it for the horses and said she didn't want it after all. Dang kid is too smart and has a weird thing about sharing her toys with horses. I got it anyway.Once we got home I rushed out to see what the horses would do. I had tried to teach them to pop balloons earlier in the year but they are amazingly hard to hold still. Now there was something to tie them to!Rusty came in first. My trustworthy, well trained boy, who can do anything and go anywhere. Almost. He thought the whole thing was pretty scary.Then Harvey, new and so flighty looking, couldn't care less. He plodded right over it and was not at all concerned about it around his legs.This is how I sack out, desensitize, whatever you want to call it, my horses. They are free to leave any time. I don't move. We all just hang out and have fun. Notice that Rusty chooses to leave, a couple of times. He is welcome to do that. We are on a section here, that's 640 acres to those unfamiliar with the language. While technically he can't go just anywhere he wants on that, there are fences, there is a lot of that that he could leave to. It's half a mile to a county road and another mile and a half beyond that to the highway. He can go a long ways. The benefit of that is that he doesn't really want to. Before he got out of the yard he'd be missing the other horses. By the time he reached the county road he'd be getting tired. There's a really scary spot that they hate to go through in order to get down the driveway anyway.The most that has ever happened is that I am unable to compete with the green grass in the summer and they leave to go graze in the yard.The strong positive punishment of having to walk clear out to get them makes me more aware of what I am doing and encourages me to be more interesting. And sometimes to use a halter.I wanted to show the videos side by side to show the difference between these two horses of the same breed, same basic age, and same training techniques. Everyone has there own personality and way of reacting to things.
Posted by Rescuing Rusty on Monday, November 19, 2018