Finn, second session of halter work
Sep. 3rd, 2022 08:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickAs you know, Bob, I am limited in time to work with Finn because Trysta's in-laws think she owns him and I'm just "helping" her with him. This is because Trysta's in-laws are idiots who want to tell Trys what she can and can't do with the ten acres that they literally DEEDED TO HER AND HER HUSBAND. Oh, well. Not my circus, not my monkeys and it's a simple enough ruse to keep going.
I have zero desire for Finn to be a yearling who has difficulty being handled over any part of his body, difficulty being caught, poor manners in halter, difficulty leaving the "herd" (such as it is), etc. Finn was born sometime in March, I don't know precisely when. He was weaned in late July, so I figure he was born late in March but I do not actually know. I'll find out when I get his papers, which are in progress. Anyway, he's a solid five months old even if he was born at the very tail end of March.
He is wearing a slightly modded "yearling" size rope halter for halter work. (I made the nose part smaller for his wee teacup nose by enlarging the lead rope loops under the fiador knot.) This is the kind of halter with the knots and such. I have experience with colts and rope halters and believe me, I am not going to rip him little face off. Him is clever and light and seriously DOES NOT want him's face ripped off either. We are all on the same page vis a vis the no face ripping off agenda, fear not.
But, there are rules for halter work and we're working on those rules. These rules will serve him well for his whole entire life and it's important that my handling is crystal clear and super-consistent about the rules to help him learn them easily and permanently.
Rule #1: When in a halter and lead, horse does not pull back on the rope. Ever.
Rule #2: Horse's front feet shall never, ever leave the ground inappropriately. Rearing is a complete nonstarter for me.
Rule #3: Horse's job is to keep the slack in the rope. If there is pulling on the rope, it is the horse's fault for not paying attention or not coming along fast enough or whatever. I lead with a drape in the rope. I'm damn good at leading horses. I'm dead fair and I clearly signal what I'm doing. Horses that get pulled on by me have totally dropped the ball.
Rule #4: During leading, horse MAY NOT proceed beyond handler. Horse is to stay beside handler, on either side, whatever handler chooses.
Rule #5: Horse may not bump into handler's body during leading or standing for any reason.
Rule #6: When handler is standing still, horse is to stand quietly and without excessive fidgeting.
He's getting the idea. For a baby he leads acceptably. Like, you can totally lead him around and get him to go with you and he doesn't bull ahead or lag behind. There's only a gentle tug on the lead every now and again.
Is this good enough?
No. It's not good enough. It's a start, a good start. He has improved rapidly from what he was at arrival in just two sessions. He will improve to standard here in a month's time, I have no doubt.
What needs work?
Sometimes he still pulls back and thinks about picking up his fronts when he's slightly pressured. He doesn't DO it, but I can see he's thinking about it. This is not a serious issue. He tried rearing like twice on the first day of halter work and I corrected both efforts and he has not tried again. He's sometimes thinking about it and then deciding NOT TO DO IT which is A-OK. I feel like the rearing thing is mostly solved and just needs time to fade from "an option he considers and discards" to "not worth thinking about", which will happen with very little direct activity from me.
He leads WAY better out of my right hand than out of my left hand. He is signed up for "extra-leading-on-the-off-side" until this is fixed. (We're also doing Extra Handling on the Off Side because wow, that's also lacking. It burns, it burns!)
Particularly when leading on the off side, his body is too close to my body. It's not great on the near side, either, but it's getting better. Anyway, we're working on it.
Sometimes he keeps walking after I've stopped. He halts when he hits the end of the lead slack (and he doesn't hit it hard) but he SHOULD halt BEFORE he hits the end of the lead slack. Again, we are working on it.
He fidgets at the halt. Again, we are working on it. Patience is very hard for little horses and we are working for small victories right now.
Besides leading, we're doing Stupid Rope Halter Tricks. This is ground work to prepare him for life as a riding horse. (Yes, yes, nobody is going to sit on him until he is four. But right now he's small and learns quickly and there's no time like the present to Learn Things especially for a baby horse that needs to be handled more.)
Stupid Rope Halter Trick #1: go in circles around me at the walk and trot. Be able to halt on the circle. Be able to turn in and face me if I ask. Be able to change direction if I ask. This is not longeing. This is body language ground work and at no time are there endless mindless circles.
Stupid Rope Halter Trick #2: lower your head when I ask you to and keep it low. This is basically just yield to pressure plus also be patient and stand quietly. He needs practice at that stuff, so, yeah.
Stupid Rope Halter Trick #3: Yield your hq when I ask. Turn and face me, stand quietly. This is a safety & handling thing, but also works with "stand quietly" and "move your body *correctly*, not just move it but move it *the way I want*". It's the start of a more nuanced communication with your baby horse. Move your butt away from me and step the handler-side hind in front of the distant-side hind. Stepping side-to-side with the hinds isn't good enough. Stepping the handler-side hind behind the distant-side hind is not good enough. ONLY stepping the handler-side hind in front of the distant-side hind is good enough.
He's got all three of these at beginner-level acceptable. Again, I just introduced these skills TODAY in our thirty-minute handling session that also included leading practice (above) and body-touching skills (below). I've taught these skills to at least twenty horses before him, some of them quite young, and it's fine. I've got reasonable positioning and good rope control and I kinda know what I'm doing. Not my first rodeo over here.
Stupid Rope Halter Trick #4, turn out of the rope and Stupid Rope Halter Trick #5, learn how to step on your lead rope without losing your mind have been postponed until he's a little better at being handled all over his body and catches acceptably in a wide open space.
Body touching skills: A horse needs to accept being touched all over his body. This is for safety purposes, for healthcare, for routine foot and dental care, etc. In truth, all your domestic animals should be taught to allow themselves to be handled (non-painfully) all over their bodies. Anyway, body touching skills are a thing for baby horses and Finn did not come with a complete skillset on that front.
On arrival, he was touchable (if you had a halter and lead on him) on the near side (left hand side of him is "near side". right hand side of him is "off side".) shoulder, lower half of neck, and wither. Like, that was what he was comfortable with. Oh son, that's not gonna git r done.
I've expanded the area he is comfortable with being touched, but we still have more work to do. Today was first day with underside-of-neck, underside-of-head, between front legs, girth area from either side, insides of upper-back-legs (from front side), poll between ears (from front of horse and also from behind ears, hand reaching forward). Oh, and front legs down to cannon bones. We also went over all the previously worked areas, which was fine. He doesn't LOVE this, particularly at the start of a work session but he is able to stand-himself-still (there is slack in the lead, he is using his own emotional control to stand himself still rather than him "being held" still) to have hands on him by the time we're done.
Also, because my bandanna slipped off my hair and fell to the ground and Finn 'bout lost his mind when I picked it up and held it near him, we did I am going to touch you with this pink paisley bandanna that BURNS WITH THE INFERNAL FIRE OF A THOUSAND SUNS OH THE HORROR which was great fun. He got over the pink paisley bandanna touching him. And, because I was there, also the lead rope touching him floppily all over his back and neck and head. It is a rough life being the Finn.
Regular reader crockpotcauldron asked what I know of Finn's personality so far. Well, given that I've handled him three times (if you count getting him down the lane after the shipper delivered him), we're just starting to know each other. So far, Finn is quick on the uptake and super-easy to teach. He is light to handle, very responsive to cues and pressure, prefers the air cue to the one that touches him but doesn't overreact like a nutjob to the touching cue. He's not super spooky and even when he IS concerned, he doesn't lay back on the halter. He can be talked into things, it's not an automatic Aw Hell Naw with him if he's uncertain. Under reasonable handling (such as we are), he has never offered to kick or bite a person. He's personable, inquisitive, and will probably wind up liking people well enough once he's handled a bit more. At the current time, he is improving by leaps and bounds... but he's also still settling into and learning the routine of the place. I'll have a much better read on him by winter but so far, so good.
I have zero desire for Finn to be a yearling who has difficulty being handled over any part of his body, difficulty being caught, poor manners in halter, difficulty leaving the "herd" (such as it is), etc. Finn was born sometime in March, I don't know precisely when. He was weaned in late July, so I figure he was born late in March but I do not actually know. I'll find out when I get his papers, which are in progress. Anyway, he's a solid five months old even if he was born at the very tail end of March.
He is wearing a slightly modded "yearling" size rope halter for halter work. (I made the nose part smaller for his wee teacup nose by enlarging the lead rope loops under the fiador knot.) This is the kind of halter with the knots and such. I have experience with colts and rope halters and believe me, I am not going to rip him little face off. Him is clever and light and seriously DOES NOT want him's face ripped off either. We are all on the same page vis a vis the no face ripping off agenda, fear not.
But, there are rules for halter work and we're working on those rules. These rules will serve him well for his whole entire life and it's important that my handling is crystal clear and super-consistent about the rules to help him learn them easily and permanently.
Rule #1: When in a halter and lead, horse does not pull back on the rope. Ever.
Rule #2: Horse's front feet shall never, ever leave the ground inappropriately. Rearing is a complete nonstarter for me.
Rule #3: Horse's job is to keep the slack in the rope. If there is pulling on the rope, it is the horse's fault for not paying attention or not coming along fast enough or whatever. I lead with a drape in the rope. I'm damn good at leading horses. I'm dead fair and I clearly signal what I'm doing. Horses that get pulled on by me have totally dropped the ball.
Rule #4: During leading, horse MAY NOT proceed beyond handler. Horse is to stay beside handler, on either side, whatever handler chooses.
Rule #5: Horse may not bump into handler's body during leading or standing for any reason.
Rule #6: When handler is standing still, horse is to stand quietly and without excessive fidgeting.
He's getting the idea. For a baby he leads acceptably. Like, you can totally lead him around and get him to go with you and he doesn't bull ahead or lag behind. There's only a gentle tug on the lead every now and again.
Is this good enough?
No. It's not good enough. It's a start, a good start. He has improved rapidly from what he was at arrival in just two sessions. He will improve to standard here in a month's time, I have no doubt.
What needs work?
Sometimes he still pulls back and thinks about picking up his fronts when he's slightly pressured. He doesn't DO it, but I can see he's thinking about it. This is not a serious issue. He tried rearing like twice on the first day of halter work and I corrected both efforts and he has not tried again. He's sometimes thinking about it and then deciding NOT TO DO IT which is A-OK. I feel like the rearing thing is mostly solved and just needs time to fade from "an option he considers and discards" to "not worth thinking about", which will happen with very little direct activity from me.
He leads WAY better out of my right hand than out of my left hand. He is signed up for "extra-leading-on-the-off-side" until this is fixed. (We're also doing Extra Handling on the Off Side because wow, that's also lacking. It burns, it burns!)
Particularly when leading on the off side, his body is too close to my body. It's not great on the near side, either, but it's getting better. Anyway, we're working on it.
Sometimes he keeps walking after I've stopped. He halts when he hits the end of the lead slack (and he doesn't hit it hard) but he SHOULD halt BEFORE he hits the end of the lead slack. Again, we are working on it.
He fidgets at the halt. Again, we are working on it. Patience is very hard for little horses and we are working for small victories right now.
Besides leading, we're doing Stupid Rope Halter Tricks. This is ground work to prepare him for life as a riding horse. (Yes, yes, nobody is going to sit on him until he is four. But right now he's small and learns quickly and there's no time like the present to Learn Things especially for a baby horse that needs to be handled more.)
Stupid Rope Halter Trick #1: go in circles around me at the walk and trot. Be able to halt on the circle. Be able to turn in and face me if I ask. Be able to change direction if I ask. This is not longeing. This is body language ground work and at no time are there endless mindless circles.
Stupid Rope Halter Trick #2: lower your head when I ask you to and keep it low. This is basically just yield to pressure plus also be patient and stand quietly. He needs practice at that stuff, so, yeah.
Stupid Rope Halter Trick #3: Yield your hq when I ask. Turn and face me, stand quietly. This is a safety & handling thing, but also works with "stand quietly" and "move your body *correctly*, not just move it but move it *the way I want*". It's the start of a more nuanced communication with your baby horse. Move your butt away from me and step the handler-side hind in front of the distant-side hind. Stepping side-to-side with the hinds isn't good enough. Stepping the handler-side hind behind the distant-side hind is not good enough. ONLY stepping the handler-side hind in front of the distant-side hind is good enough.
He's got all three of these at beginner-level acceptable. Again, I just introduced these skills TODAY in our thirty-minute handling session that also included leading practice (above) and body-touching skills (below). I've taught these skills to at least twenty horses before him, some of them quite young, and it's fine. I've got reasonable positioning and good rope control and I kinda know what I'm doing. Not my first rodeo over here.
Stupid Rope Halter Trick #4, turn out of the rope and Stupid Rope Halter Trick #5, learn how to step on your lead rope without losing your mind have been postponed until he's a little better at being handled all over his body and catches acceptably in a wide open space.
Body touching skills: A horse needs to accept being touched all over his body. This is for safety purposes, for healthcare, for routine foot and dental care, etc. In truth, all your domestic animals should be taught to allow themselves to be handled (non-painfully) all over their bodies. Anyway, body touching skills are a thing for baby horses and Finn did not come with a complete skillset on that front.
On arrival, he was touchable (if you had a halter and lead on him) on the near side (left hand side of him is "near side". right hand side of him is "off side".) shoulder, lower half of neck, and wither. Like, that was what he was comfortable with. Oh son, that's not gonna git r done.
I've expanded the area he is comfortable with being touched, but we still have more work to do. Today was first day with underside-of-neck, underside-of-head, between front legs, girth area from either side, insides of upper-back-legs (from front side), poll between ears (from front of horse and also from behind ears, hand reaching forward). Oh, and front legs down to cannon bones. We also went over all the previously worked areas, which was fine. He doesn't LOVE this, particularly at the start of a work session but he is able to stand-himself-still (there is slack in the lead, he is using his own emotional control to stand himself still rather than him "being held" still) to have hands on him by the time we're done.
Also, because my bandanna slipped off my hair and fell to the ground and Finn 'bout lost his mind when I picked it up and held it near him, we did I am going to touch you with this pink paisley bandanna that BURNS WITH THE INFERNAL FIRE OF A THOUSAND SUNS OH THE HORROR which was great fun. He got over the pink paisley bandanna touching him. And, because I was there, also the lead rope touching him floppily all over his back and neck and head. It is a rough life being the Finn.
Regular reader crockpotcauldron asked what I know of Finn's personality so far. Well, given that I've handled him three times (if you count getting him down the lane after the shipper delivered him), we're just starting to know each other. So far, Finn is quick on the uptake and super-easy to teach. He is light to handle, very responsive to cues and pressure, prefers the air cue to the one that touches him but doesn't overreact like a nutjob to the touching cue. He's not super spooky and even when he IS concerned, he doesn't lay back on the halter. He can be talked into things, it's not an automatic Aw Hell Naw with him if he's uncertain. Under reasonable handling (such as we are), he has never offered to kick or bite a person. He's personable, inquisitive, and will probably wind up liking people well enough once he's handled a bit more. At the current time, he is improving by leaps and bounds... but he's also still settling into and learning the routine of the place. I'll have a much better read on him by winter but so far, so good.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-04 08:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-05 12:21 am (UTC)As he's the first baby I've bought from a breeder (and since breeders as a whole are not a monolithic entity -- each breeder has their own ways, I am sure), I can't say for sure if this is how things usually go or not.
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Date: 2022-09-05 05:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-05 07:09 pm (UTC)I wanted a weanling because weanlings are malleable and adjust to new environments rapidly. They are still building ligaments and bones and will benefit from LIVING OUTSIDE. They are visibly babies and can be introduced to Herd Skills 101 in a more gentle manner than a large-sized two year old that has no herd skills but LOOKS ADULT SIZE. Further, a two year old is more likely to injure his weak, unfit stall-kept bones and ligaments when trying to adjust to Out In A Field Life, learn about fencing, learn how to function in a herd dynamic, etc. I for one am not gonna buy an expensive half-grown, frail, stall-kept idiot so that he can kill or permanently injure himself in the first week by... running through the fence (which Finn did, twice) or panicking when the chocolate lab frisks and barks at him (which Finn did) or slipping in the wet grass and falling flat out (which Finn did). Five month old babies kind of bounce back. Finn remains uninjured despite his assorted mishaps and he is building skills and becoming more suited to herd life Out In A Field literally by-the-minute.
There are about 1500 Arabian colts hitting the ground every year in the USA, not all of which are for sale. (There are also about 1500 Arabian fillies hitting the ground every year but I wasn't shopping for one of those.)
For this project, I had a budget of between 5 and 10K. Budget matters and 10K would have been a stretch. More than 10K was not an option. (It is unreasonable to say things like "Only people with unlimited budgets should be allowed to buy or have horses." We don't say that about having children and they're WAY more expensive than horses and require more competency to raise them up correctly.) It is 100% possible to get a reasonable, functional Arab weanling working within this budget.
I wanted something built reasonably well, not-gray, with clean, efficient, flat-kneed movement and with parents/grandparents who were reasonably made and had show records.
Built reasonably well -- horse needs to be made well enough to function as a riding horse.
Not-gray. Roughly a third of Arabians are gray. Grey horses are hard to keep clean. They are prone to melanomas as they age. It's my money and I didn't want a gray. (Bird is gray. I've done my time in the gray trenches.)
Clean, efficient, flat-kneed movement. I like this look. It's a thing I like. I do not like "park" style movement. This is the kind of movement I like. In particular, look at the canter sections. That's a nice, sweep-y canter right there. He turns with his weight on his hq, he swaps leads cleanly and easily, he keeps his hinds pretty well under him. Not bad for a stall-kept baby with zero muscles. He does look slightly cow-hocked (back legs, the middle "pointy bits" point toward each other, visible in the one turn) but this is largely due to lack of muscle and stall-kept-ness.
I picked him based on video and stills of him, of both parents, and of all four grandparents. I did not see him "in person" until I'd paid for him and he got off the trailer from North Carolina. I also bought him based on the show records of sire, both grandsires, and both granddams. His dam does not have a show record.
Finn was affordably priced for what he was. I could maybe have gotten a nicer baby, but he was good value for the money and also the sort of thing I was looking for. (The absolute cream of the foal crop is well out of my budget range and was never an option for me.) The things I figured might be issues (no herd skills, no clue about fencing, may not handle as well as I'd like) were all fixable things that I not only knew how to fix but am in the process of fixing.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-05 07:16 pm (UTC)I wonder if horses ever wonder about how 'the thing that I am afraid of' always turns into 'the thing that touches me until I chill out about it.' lol
no subject
Date: 2022-09-06 05:20 am (UTC)Was that his name on the video? Finn was a good way to shorten that silly mouthful. Was Bird's name also like that?
no subject
Date: 2022-09-06 12:20 pm (UTC)His official name is CAF Infinete Star (or similar misspelling, I haven't seen his papers yet but it's supposed to have "fine" in it because the breeder likes that for #reasons) and his "barn name" was Prince which... no. Just no. I am not owning a horse named "Prince" or "Star" because those are two of the most unimaginative horse names on the fucking planet. No. Finn is a perfectly adequate horse name and it's not hideously overused the way that Prince and Star are.
Bird did not have a name when I got him. He was one of three full brothers over a period of three years. Galen's stud Mohummed Kazam (he came with the name) was over in the field at Clyde's with GF Hamid's Tamora (this name was Galen's fault) and for three years, the pair put a gray stud colt on the ground. As it happened, each of these gray stud colts was mostly unhandled until weaning time came 'round. At that point, my friend Laur and her mom and Galen would run the stud colt (who did not lead or tie or even really speak to humans) onto the gooseneck trailer and haul him over to the farm... where the rather horrified five month old stud colt lived in the horse trailer for a week getting civilized enough to tolerate the touch of human hands. None of them really liked this process, but they all three survived and went on to solid careers as riding horses.
The first one was horrified enough that he tried to climb into the gooseneck portion of the stock trailer when a person entered the back of the trailer, even if the person tried very hard to be nonthreatening. Like, he tried to climb up on the roof. We named him Fiddler, like Fiddler on the Roof. We thought this was funny and also a good name for a horse. I broke Fiddler to ride as a four year old gelding and we sold him. Guy who bought him still has him.
Second verse, same as the first. Tried to climb into the gooseneck portion of the trailer to escape from human contact. We named him Hot Tin, as in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. We also though this was very funny besides being a good name for a horse. I broke Tin to ride and he spent several years as Trys's evergreen (not ridden enough or consistently enough to be finished) idiot gelding. He's currently trying out life as a lesson horse at my lesson barn because she's given up on trying to finish him out. She's got two boys, is busy mom-tracking, and doesn't, as it turns out, really like riding or finishing green horses.
Third verse was Bird. Tried to climb into the gooseneck portion of the trailer, horrified by human contact, etc. We were out of roof themed names. I tried to get them to go for South Pacific or Rent (I am a landlord. Having a horse named Rent would be effing hysterical.), but no dice. We finally went with Brigadoon but the horse in question was so pink and filthy and gawky that he was more of a Dooniebird than a Brigadoon. But y'know, Dooniebird is a mouthful. He's been Bird for like eight years now. Bird is my riding horse and he will stay my riding horse until he dies.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-06 05:24 pm (UTC)It's funny how fast wildness wears off once they realize we won't hurt them, and will make good things happen to them.
Very interesting to learn about Bird's background and brothers! Lots of different lives a horse can lead.