Continued thoughts on working with our young ones. Starting from day one.This isn’t “pre school.” No, it’s the real deal, but you can start the schooling on the foal’s very first day of life. No messing around here, there’s work to be done!
I believe it is of benefit to horse and handler to do imprint work, be it the specific work of Imprint Training taught by Dr. Robert Miller, or any handling, touching and lessons inspired by his teachings. At the very least, we flood our foals with human handling, which makes “catching” or “taming” older horses an unnecessary, archaic and often traumatic experience we can do without.
Spending time working with our foals on the first days of their lives is time well spent, like money in the bank. We’re finding a high percentage of training can be accomplished in those first few days. Teaching the horse to be comfortable with people, respect ones space, remain calm when restrained, have their face, feet and entire body comfortable being handled, give to pressure, follow a lead, and be desensitized to “scary objects” like plastic bags, slickers, saddle blankets, clippers, ropes and more.
But the work doesn’t stop there. To create a positive “imprint” that lasts a lifetime, we must continue lessons, or at the very least, continue contact and handling, on a regular basis through the first month of the foal’s life. Again, our summers are such that I’m not always able to spend all the time I’d like for doing complete imprint work. I don’t have scientific research backing me here, but we’ve found we have just as much positive results in raising horses that we handle a great deal throughout their first month as we have with those we’ve done actual imprint lessons on the first two days of the foals life.
The biggest benefit to this work – it is far simpler than the long term benefits of a more personable and respectful horse. It is that handling the foal is safer and easier. For me, and for the foal. I’ve had enough traumas with foals in the past few years to tell you I do need to handle them. The last thing either of us needs is additional stress during medical emergencies.
However, I’ve also found that after all our time and efforts on the first few days of life, there is a natural aspect to the horse that will shy from human touch, despite imprint work, at sometime between 4 days and 4 weeks old. I try not to take it personally, try not to despair, and try not to give up either. With patience and persistence, we get our colts over this. Or, truth be told, sometimes we’ve been too busy, come back a week later, and the little fellow can’t stay away from us.
We live at a guest ranch and outfit with our horses. We consider it the horse’s job to accept human touch, and respect human space. This can only be achieved with regular handling, and positive lessons. Not just the first few days, but continuing on for the first few months, followed by refresher courses and fine tuning throughout their lives. Raising colts on a guest ranch (and before that, a kids camp) in plain site of the guests and cabins and all the activities and going-ons is a sure fire way to get the horses used to people and people stuff. Now respecting people, that’s another story.
Respect does not come natural for a foal with a human. Fear does, and this should be overcome with positive early handling. But respect still needs to be considered. Our guests will treat the horses like a puppy, and love on them, and that’s great. Believe me, I think it’s awesome that our horses learn to adore human contact, touch and attention and I have my guests to thank for good deal of this. But our guests can not and should not be expected to train the horse and to instill respect of human handlers. That’s my job, and sometimes it doesn’t happen until after the guests have left… that’s when I have time to work with the young ones.
How do I do this? For the immediate concerns, like a foal that nibbles (I call this biting) or kicks or steps over you or drives into you: I’ll be physically firm with a protective elbow to block the foal. Have you ever seen a mare tell her foal he’s nursed too hard? Yup, she nips his behind. He can’t see her – his head is under her belly – so putting her ears back as a warning is a waste of time. And her nip, it is never vicious – never broken skin or even left a scratch or removed hair! But it’s enough to say to the little fellow, “Hey, don’t do that!”
And for every elbow, there are plenty of kind and gentle pats with my hands. My hands should become, in the foals mind, a good thing. And that is lesson I hope will last a lifetime. I have bought horses that shy from human hands. Perhaps this is from ill handling or lack of handling. But even they can learn the lessons of the babies, and learn to love my touch, and still respect my space.
Here's one last thought to put out there that just came to mind as I read this over: I can teach the horse to love my touch and respect my space, but I can not teach the horse to love and respect you, can I? Each horse is an individual. Likewise, are each of us. The horses may know this better than we do...
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