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Discussion on Correcting A 7 Week Old Foal | |
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Posted on Monday, May 22, 2000 - 1:08 pm: Hello,I have my first foals this year. They are both 7 weeks old. One is calm and cool the other more uppity. When leading the hyper one he does sometimes come off the ground doing little bucks. Not aggresive, but playful. He stays right next to me and doesn't try to get away or come at me. How do I correct this behavior in such a young foal. He was imprinted and is otherwise very easy to handle. I want him to behave properly and I am not sure how tough I should be with him. Thanks for any ideas/suggestions. ~barbara |
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Posted on Monday, May 22, 2000 - 7:21 pm: Nothing - absolutely nothing! If you watch him in the pasture he's doing the same thing next to his momma. This is nothing but normal. Don't worry about it, just enjoy it. You've plenty of time to worry later. |
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Posted on Monday, May 22, 2000 - 10:05 pm: OK, so you think as long as he is not aggressive or dangerous just let him be?...I am just worried because he will be about 17 hands and I don't want to end up with a BIG monster.Thanks! |
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Posted on Monday, May 22, 2000 - 10:18 pm: Look at it this way, right now he's finding out how much fun it is to be alive. Right now you want him to consider you his best friend next to his momma. He'll need that trust when you wean him. Once he's on his own you can begin setting the boundaries for his behavior. A seven week old foal doesn't have the capacity to understand right from wrong or to absorb that type of training. |
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Posted on Tuesday, May 23, 2000 - 1:23 am: His mother is already discipline him in the pasture and she is not going to lose any respect.If he chews on a tree in the pasture do you let him chew on you? We have to become more alert and ready to correct before bad habbits become realy bad habbits. If he bows, skips, takes two steps to the right and then jumps in the air when should we have corrected him? Does his mother correct him after he has eaten halve of her food? When you feel or see him tensing up ask for a 360(less or more what ever is required)possibly a good stern "no" maybe a snap of the lead rope should let him know that you are in charge and that behavior is unacceptable. Remmember their attention span is short. You should kep this in mind and if all you can get is 5 minutes of good behavior be happy. Do not push it, Mr. Lyons says to always end on a good note. On such a youg horse it might take a few sessions to learn how long you can work him before he becomes aggitated. If it is nothing more than haltering with good behavior sometimes that is where you start and where you should end up. Patience and Persistence. |
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Posted on Tuesday, May 23, 2000 - 11:03 am: I agree with you Bob. A 7 week old (and younger) foal does have the capacity to learn right from wrong. It may take him a little longer than a 3 month old, but he'll learn. Barbara, you are good to be concerned about his resulting behavior as a 17h grownup. He needs to learn to respect you now, while you can still, more or less, overpower him. His mom was undoubtedly disciplining him from day one. I wouldn't necessarily punish him for his antics, but make him do something else, as Bob suggested, instead |
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Posted on Tuesday, May 23, 2000 - 7:02 pm: The attention span of these little guys is about as long as a nanosecond, so it is possible he has exceeded his span when he starts misbehavin'.I found that using a very soft cotton lead rope wrapped in a figure 8 around the young ones helped to package them a bit and allowed me to "lead" them without ending up with a "trout on the end of a fishing line." The criss-cross of the 8 is over their withers and the loops around the back and front ends. Don't tie it, you want to be able to leg go and not get him tangled up if there is an emergency. Sometimes if you can break up the learning in very small increments - i.e. practice leading for just a couple of good steps and reward with a release may be all he can manage at the moment. I think these little guys have to develop an attention span - both through physical maturation and the mental exercises we give them. A few minutes of "training" several times a day is much better than one time of many minutes. If you have help, someone leading his mom may cause him to focus on following her. A good, nasty sounding Annnyt often is enough correction. You will note that mom's corrections in the field are mostly postures - flat ears, ugggy face, foot stomp. Your verbal is sort of the equivalent. Try to end handling on a good note, preferably before a misbehavior and not because of it. If you are stuck doing all your training in one session each day, breaking it up into mini-sessions with breaks. Watch yourself, too. This little footstompers can also knock a few teeth out when they get to swinging their heads around in a pique. Try to avoid situations where a correction is necessary. If you need one, go for a verbal and posture (look bigger) first. If it a dangerous misbehavior, you may have to resort to a tap with a whip. I had to do this with my mare's foal as the foal would charge up behind you, rear and tap you on the back - cute as a baby, but not so when she was bigger. So, I carried a crop out with me one day when I turned her out and lured her (by walking slow) into doing her "trick" and one quick swat on her belly cured it. Sometimes a good correction is worth a thousand nagging ones. It is a judgement call, you want to be sure you don't overreact, yet set boundaries and rules. Sounds like raising children, doesn't it? ;O) |
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Posted on Tuesday, May 23, 2000 - 11:40 pm: We have a 3 week old paint I've been teaching to lead and he likes to nip once in awhile and rear up. When I put firm pressure on the lead he comes back down and just looks at me then takes a few steps forward and will lead for a short time. I am happy with this as he's still young. For the nipping, I hold onto his halter at the nose and get my arm around out of the way and give him a firm no. He hasn't attempted as much lately but once in awhile he will act like he's going to nip and when I say no at the start of the attempt he backs down. His mother has helped me halter train him. She pushes him toward me with a nay when he trys to go the other way. Now she leads him into the smaller area where I work with him. I'm glad she's smart and I can tell he has her smarts also. I'm pretty green and she seems to understand this. |
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Posted on Wednesday, May 24, 2000 - 8:13 am: Hi y'all,I wouldn't worry about working with babies much at these very young ages. You can actually do too much with them, in my opinion. Generally, until mine are weaned, my interaction consists of nothing more than a daily passing through the pasture where they are, with an occasional crouching down to allow them to approach or a casual rubbing of their backs as I walk by. By the time they are weaned, they are calm and friendly, but not overly-familiar, and halter-training is uneventful. I try to avoid letting a situation develop in which the need to "discipline" one might arise. One thing I would mention: you sure want to avoid using the halter in a punitive way, as in giving a corrective jerk on the lead, etc. You want pressure on halter, whether it be poll or nose, to always mean one thing: yield softly. When you give a sharp tug on the halter, the head automatically pops up (and the back DrOps--not good either) and you lay the foundation for a horse that will pull back when tied. It also creates other problems such as a certain braciness while haltered. As you can imagine, I'm not a big fan of the old fashioned method of letting foals drag leaDrOpes around on the ground. Foals are *extremely* sensitive and you should try to be finger-tip light while you have them on line. I don't imprint mine, but it's my understanding from others who have that these foals are more likely to be overly-familiar with humans, as they've been programmed to be. |
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Posted on Wednesday, May 24, 2000 - 12:54 pm: Amy,I tend to agree with you on over working a young colt. In my case our paint is a very big baby and was attentive and curious about me. I am a very small person so it worked out ok. I work with him 5-10 mins. or if he gets unattentive. I don't want to hurt his pride for sure. I hope to use what I've learned on line with Horseman's Advisor and and our neighbor how helped deliver him in a professional and sensitive manner. I'm a late owner and have really wanted to get involved with training our horses. Common sense is a big factor in anything you do. Thank you for your wisdom! |
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Posted on Thursday, May 25, 2000 - 12:10 am: You know, it's a funny thing about people and horses and it's also contridicting. The very ability GOD gave them to be trained by us for companionship also gives them the ability to be a tremendous sourse of frustration. They are smart enough to stay two steps ahead. They can learn at 7 weeks old, they learn at two days! The thing is we have to retrain our minds. A horse of any age learns anytime you go around it. We can make 15 mistakes just being around them for 7 min.,let alone trying to accomplish something. It took time, alot of prayer, thinking, and the fact that I was in a situation where I had to train many high strung(if you will)horses to learn what alpha(a leader they trust) means to a horse. I have a 7 week old colt who I disciplined at a very early age. I did so because his mother is a very aggresive mare and she taught him this by making him keep his distance when she wanted him away. The thing is, that even though I disciplined his aggresive behavior, he runs up to me like a big dog when I go out in the pasture. He even calls to me when he sees me. This colt did not start this way. At two days old he kicked and pushed anybody that came around him. His mother was the same. She didn't like people as a baby and really didn't care to be fooled with. She communicated this to the baby and he had to be trained differently. |
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Posted on Thursday, May 25, 2000 - 12:46 am: IT'S ME AGAIN,This morning I went out to our colt and put the lead on him and clucked and the little bugger lead all the way around the trailer with me without a flinch. And this was in a bigger area than normal. Took two minutes and we were done. Didn't want him or me disappointed. Now on the other hand. We just purchased an 8 year old QH who after one week would just look at me and stand firm when trying to lead. Of course, this is an experienced working horse that had me pegged from the start. But she finally let me curry her and this morning she lead for me, but only after singing to her. I think she enjoyed that. |
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Posted on Thursday, May 25, 2000 - 1:59 am: Amy,Thank you for pointing out the errors of my ways. You are absolutely right about the jerking on the lead rope and the halter. I went and worked (played) with my TWH 14 month old filly. Knowing that she behaves at a dog walk and no other horses around I tied some horses in an arena and then asked for some speed while leading her around these other horses. A soon as I felt her tense up instead of jerking on the lead I immediately stopped and with a swirl of the lead towards her hind end asked for a 360(not necessarily getting it at first, but she now had her attention back on me) and then we moved on. After about three tries she was working better. The sooner you correct the easier they learn. If you wait for the third step to correct you teach them that two is OK. A note on the Perreli lateral longe since no one has definitively explained this: I believe it could be getting a horse to move with you while on a longe (extended lead) line in a straight line or with you moving. Similar to leading but with distance between you and the horse. I am only guessing I have seen one of his videos. Was impressed with what the horses were doing but not impressed with his instruction during the video. I believe the horse moved better with his female owner then he did with Perrili giving the instructions to the horse. Each one is different. They all respond differently with different people. We have to be exact and explain to them that when I do this one little particular thing I want you to react in this one little particular way. Keep in mind that if you are asking him to run off- stop when you ask -and then turn at a piece of grass, if he doesn't know how to turn on your cue, odds are he won't be turning on that piece of grass . A lot of the time our request has to be general in our mind and exact in theirs at the same time. In the beginning a request of any sort should be praised if you notice your friend thinking about it. Then we learn what they understand and they learn to learn. Bob Hill |
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Posted on Monday, May 29, 2000 - 6:29 pm: Barbara,I have an 8 week orphans foal that I've had for 2 weeks. I use Parelli on him with amazing results. since Parelli uses the same approach as a mare with her new foal, it is easy to teach them. We only teach the first 3 Parelli games until 6 months old. These are the Friendly, which teaches him to trust us that scary things won't hurt him; Porcipine game which teaches him to move away from pressure; and Driving game, which teaches him to move off a suggestion (like a mare pinning her ears to make her foal move) "Riley" leads, ties, and faces many scary "monsters" as well as turning on his forehand and hind quarter. He loads into the trailer with me standing outside of it. Don't use physical or verbal punishment because that s not natural to the horse. Instead use release from pressure to help him understand. Check Parelli's prgram out at 1-800-642-3335. Enjoy that little guy. |
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