Baker training sessions 13 and 14 - more repetition
Another busy week, but I did manage to get two training sessions in with Baker on Wednesday and Friday for about 16-20 minutes each time. Each session started with lots of snuggles. When I am taking folks out to visit with him, he is a little startled at first with each new person. But once they start petting and rubbing and loving on him, he stands still as a statue, closes his eyes and soaks it all in. He has even started to give hugs! Gently, of course. He definitely understands that he will get reprimanded if he pushes too hard or leans too much on a person.
Anyway, back to training. In both sessions, I worked with him on picking up his feet, holding them, and tapping on the bottoms. I also added actually picking them out and cleaning them with the hoofpick this week. That was a non issue for him. He did panic once while I was holding one of his back feet, but I believe that it was actually because Fiona panicked about some unseen boogey man that might attack her baby. She took off running, so of course, Baker tried to follow. I lost hold of him, but once I caught back up and tried again, he was perfectly fine. So, no harm done.
On Wednesday I flysprayed Baker, but on Friday it was quite cool, and no flies were present, so I did not bother with it. He stood perfectly still the entire time, so I sprayed him like I would a regular horse - continuously on one side until I covered his whole body, and then moved on to the other side. He was completely unfazed.
Finally, on both days, I worked with him on leading. He is definitely getting a lot better at it. He is walking next to me with much less prompting than before. He does try to lean on me at times the way he leans on his mom while they walk together. Each time he does this, I just push him away until he is walking on his own, then we proceed to go forward again. We were able to get pretty far away from Fiona before he got uncomfortable. As we headed back to Fiona each time, he would try to dart ahead quickly. Each time, I reminded him to wait for me. And when he did, I rubbed him on his neck and back. Slowly, he is learning that's it's ok to be away from his mom, and that being next to me can be a safe place as well. Each positive experience he has will continue to build his confidence. And he'll need a lot of confidence if we are to tackle some pretty big fences one day!
Anyway, back to training. In both sessions, I worked with him on picking up his feet, holding them, and tapping on the bottoms. I also added actually picking them out and cleaning them with the hoofpick this week. That was a non issue for him. He did panic once while I was holding one of his back feet, but I believe that it was actually because Fiona panicked about some unseen boogey man that might attack her baby. She took off running, so of course, Baker tried to follow. I lost hold of him, but once I caught back up and tried again, he was perfectly fine. So, no harm done.
On Wednesday I flysprayed Baker, but on Friday it was quite cool, and no flies were present, so I did not bother with it. He stood perfectly still the entire time, so I sprayed him like I would a regular horse - continuously on one side until I covered his whole body, and then moved on to the other side. He was completely unfazed.
Finally, on both days, I worked with him on leading. He is definitely getting a lot better at it. He is walking next to me with much less prompting than before. He does try to lean on me at times the way he leans on his mom while they walk together. Each time he does this, I just push him away until he is walking on his own, then we proceed to go forward again. We were able to get pretty far away from Fiona before he got uncomfortable. As we headed back to Fiona each time, he would try to dart ahead quickly. Each time, I reminded him to wait for me. And when he did, I rubbed him on his neck and back. Slowly, he is learning that's it's ok to be away from his mom, and that being next to me can be a safe place as well. Each positive experience he has will continue to build his confidence. And he'll need a lot of confidence if we are to tackle some pretty big fences one day!
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