Baker training session 38 - some review, and Bots
I got to work with Baker yesterday. We spent almost an hour together. He came right up to me in the field ( he is such a personable horse!). As I was walking him in, there were a few things he noticed, and was a little worried about - the tarp on the trailer, the chairs that sit under the tree near the barn, a dog trap (we are still trying to catch those dogs 😒). At each of his "concerns" we stopped, and I waited until he touched them. Sometimes I would have to encourage him by pulling a little on the leadline, especially if he would get distracted with something else. Anytime he moved towards the scary thing, he would get a "Good boy!", and whenever he finally touched it with his nose, he would get lots of scratching in his favorite spot. We had to repeat this process on the way back out, at the end of our session as well. He was a little nervous and unsure at first, but by the end, he was starting to pull me, gently, towards things that he "should" have been afraid of, just so he could touch them and get scratched. Success!
Once we were in the barn and crosstied, I worked on grooming him. He gave me a little trouble when I picked up the first hoof, but other than that, he was pretty good. In fact, I did notice that he was exceptionally light and relaxed with his back feet. Most horses will lean on you a little, while you are holding a back foot, but he keeps all of his weight off of you. It's so nice! He was acting a bit impatient though - he was pawing a lot, especially when I would leave him alone to go get something from the tack room. It's possible that it was because it was getting close to dinner time and Char was making the meals, but it's more likely that he just didn't want to be alone. Either way, it's unacceptable behavior, one of my personal pet peeves. So, every time he would do it, I would stay hidden behind the door. As soon as he stopped and stood still, I would come out. We didn't solve this problem, yesterday, as easily as the first problem, but this one is a bit harder and takes more time. What you absolutely DO NOT want to do when a horse paws, is go to him and rub him and tell him "It's OK". All that does is encourage the behavior. It is much better to just ignore them and leave them completely alone. Please DO NOT teach your horse that if they paw they will get attention!
While I was grooming him, I noticed that he had bot eggs on his legs. (If you are easily grossed out, you may want to skip this paragraph 😉).
Bot eggs are very tiny, yellowish eggs (about the size of a grain of sand), which are deposited on a horse by a bot fly. Bot flies are about the size of a honey bee or yellow jacket, and they look a little like a honey bee, but they do not sting. The flies usually deposit their eggs on the inside front lower legs of a horse, but they can also be found higher up on the legs, as well as on the belly, flank, neck and the hind legs. The eggs are very sticky, and don't brush off like regular dirt. They have to be scraped off with a bot knife, or picked off with your fingernails, or you can clip them off with clippers. If they are not scraped off the horse, then when the horse reaches down to scratch its leg with its mouth, he ingests some of the eggs. Once inside the horse's belly, the eggs will hatch out into larvae, or bot worms, where they feed off the horse for a while. When they are ready, they are pooped out in the horse's manure. Once outside of the horse, they will go through a metamorphosis, much like a caterpillar, where they will turn into bot flies. The bot flies will then start laying eggs, and the cycle continues. Bot worms can be very damaging to a horse's intestines (and Baker has had enough of that!), so it is best if the eggs are removed before they can get into the horse.
When using the bot knife to remove the eggs, some horses can be very sensitive, especially young horses. While you are scraping them, they either think that there is a fly bugging them and try to stamp their foot to get rid of it/you, or they think you want to pick up their foot, like they have been taught to do. They knife itself does not hurt the horse at all, it's more the sensation of something going on down around their legs.
Older horses usually understand what is going on, so they are less likely to move around while using the bot knife. If there are only a few eggs, I usually use my fingernails, because that doesn't bother the horse as much, but Baker had a bunch of them. So, I picked up his leg and held it while I used the bot knife on it. He was pretty cooperative for that, considering I had to hold his leg up for a while.
Once I had removed all the bot eggs, I started working on his mane again. It had been a while since I had last worked on "pulling" it, so I pretty much had to start over. He was very fidgety, but I don't think it was due to the pulling, more the action going on around the barn. Sometimes, I get very focused on getting a task finished (like pulling the mane), that I forget that the main thing he needs to learn from this exercise is to stand still. I was getting a little irritated with him until I remembered that (it happens to all of us 😃). Then I started putting my focus on getting him to stand still, rather than getting the mane completed. Every time he moved forward or back, I would pause from the mane pulling to put him back where he was supposed to be. If he stood still while I pulled, then I praised him. He was quite distracted for a while - Char was making food and bustling about, and Jenna and Sheryl were grooming Duchess, across from him, for their lesson. All of these are things he has to learn to ignore while he is being worked with. Once he had stood still for a few pulls in a row, I decided to quit there. His learning of patience is something that will come with time and LOTS of repetition, and LOTS of patience on my part too. EVERY time he is impatient, I just have to remind him of the proper behavior. Eventually, he will learn to stand quietly, just like the other horses, but there is no rushing this learning process.
Once I had led him back out to his paddock, I asked him to put his head down so that I could take off his halter. He politely submitted, so the halter came off, and off he went! His mane is only about a third finished, but that will just give us another opportunity to work on standing still in the future!
Once we were in the barn and crosstied, I worked on grooming him. He gave me a little trouble when I picked up the first hoof, but other than that, he was pretty good. In fact, I did notice that he was exceptionally light and relaxed with his back feet. Most horses will lean on you a little, while you are holding a back foot, but he keeps all of his weight off of you. It's so nice! He was acting a bit impatient though - he was pawing a lot, especially when I would leave him alone to go get something from the tack room. It's possible that it was because it was getting close to dinner time and Char was making the meals, but it's more likely that he just didn't want to be alone. Either way, it's unacceptable behavior, one of my personal pet peeves. So, every time he would do it, I would stay hidden behind the door. As soon as he stopped and stood still, I would come out. We didn't solve this problem, yesterday, as easily as the first problem, but this one is a bit harder and takes more time. What you absolutely DO NOT want to do when a horse paws, is go to him and rub him and tell him "It's OK". All that does is encourage the behavior. It is much better to just ignore them and leave them completely alone. Please DO NOT teach your horse that if they paw they will get attention!
While I was grooming him, I noticed that he had bot eggs on his legs. (If you are easily grossed out, you may want to skip this paragraph 😉).
Bot eggs are very tiny, yellowish eggs (about the size of a grain of sand), which are deposited on a horse by a bot fly. Bot flies are about the size of a honey bee or yellow jacket, and they look a little like a honey bee, but they do not sting. The flies usually deposit their eggs on the inside front lower legs of a horse, but they can also be found higher up on the legs, as well as on the belly, flank, neck and the hind legs. The eggs are very sticky, and don't brush off like regular dirt. They have to be scraped off with a bot knife, or picked off with your fingernails, or you can clip them off with clippers. If they are not scraped off the horse, then when the horse reaches down to scratch its leg with its mouth, he ingests some of the eggs. Once inside the horse's belly, the eggs will hatch out into larvae, or bot worms, where they feed off the horse for a while. When they are ready, they are pooped out in the horse's manure. Once outside of the horse, they will go through a metamorphosis, much like a caterpillar, where they will turn into bot flies. The bot flies will then start laying eggs, and the cycle continues. Bot worms can be very damaging to a horse's intestines (and Baker has had enough of that!), so it is best if the eggs are removed before they can get into the horse.When using the bot knife to remove the eggs, some horses can be very sensitive, especially young horses. While you are scraping them, they either think that there is a fly bugging them and try to stamp their foot to get rid of it/you, or they think you want to pick up their foot, like they have been taught to do. They knife itself does not hurt the horse at all, it's more the sensation of something going on down around their legs.
Once I had removed all the bot eggs, I started working on his mane again. It had been a while since I had last worked on "pulling" it, so I pretty much had to start over. He was very fidgety, but I don't think it was due to the pulling, more the action going on around the barn. Sometimes, I get very focused on getting a task finished (like pulling the mane), that I forget that the main thing he needs to learn from this exercise is to stand still. I was getting a little irritated with him until I remembered that (it happens to all of us 😃). Then I started putting my focus on getting him to stand still, rather than getting the mane completed. Every time he moved forward or back, I would pause from the mane pulling to put him back where he was supposed to be. If he stood still while I pulled, then I praised him. He was quite distracted for a while - Char was making food and bustling about, and Jenna and Sheryl were grooming Duchess, across from him, for their lesson. All of these are things he has to learn to ignore while he is being worked with. Once he had stood still for a few pulls in a row, I decided to quit there. His learning of patience is something that will come with time and LOTS of repetition, and LOTS of patience on my part too. EVERY time he is impatient, I just have to remind him of the proper behavior. Eventually, he will learn to stand quietly, just like the other horses, but there is no rushing this learning process.
Once I had led him back out to his paddock, I asked him to put his head down so that I could take off his halter. He politely submitted, so the halter came off, and off he went! His mane is only about a third finished, but that will just give us another opportunity to work on standing still in the future!
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