In the Mode to Load

The article you posted is based on the premise that it coming to you should be the most desirable option. It seems to follow the "join me" tradition of horsemanship, and I have read many similar articles, so I assume it works. However, if anyone is interested, I thought I would share a different technique that some people might like. This is what I used on Cali, she's a rescue horse that had been abused in the past, so I tried a different approach.

Frist of all, the idea was for her to trust me, not just find me the better of two evils. (Not that I'm saying your technique implies this, just that to her, after being afraid of ropes and whips for 6 years of her life, I need her to learn to come to me before I could work with her on her fear. Anyhoo...)

If you watch many horses in a herd, often the lead horse will turn its back and look over its shoulder to signal a desire to "join up" with the subordinates in the herd. This seems to be how they ask for attention. So, I played with this idea.

First, I put Cali in a corral (I closed her up after she went in to munch on some hay I put in with her). Then, I got in the corral with her, and let her just trot around to her hearts content, go munch, trot some more, etc. All the while, I just stood in the middle. After she started to become more curious in me, and figured out that (too her surprise), I wasn't going to who-skow (for lack of a better word) her around, she watched me. That's what I wanted, so I would just say "good girl" to let her know that I saw her notice me.

I then knelt down (able to run if necessary, but less scarey to her this well) and just waited. After about 5 minutes, she came up to. I just let her smell me. I let her do this about 3 more times, just enough that she seemed to be bored with it, but still interested in me.

Then, I stood up. She then came up to me slowly, but didn't smell me or touch me with her muzzle, which was fine. I believe horses can pretty much only experience one feeling at once, and that includes affection. If a horse nuzzles you, and you reach out right away with your hand, you have stopped the affection coming from them, and made it a reaction coming from you, which ends their line of communication. For trust, I wanted her to think it was HER decision to come to me, not vice versa.

Then, slowly, as I could tell she wanted some attention, but was too afraid still, I started inviting her to come to me. For this, I simply waited for her to look at me, turned my back to her, and looked over my shoulder. Slightly suprisingly (since I had not tried this technique before), she seemed to recognize the herd leader behavior and walked over to me right away.

So, I began to play with this. I would turn away, but start to use my whole arm to "call" her to me. Basically, like you would do to a person, making a vertical circle with your arm and bringing in towards your body. Each time I did this, I would do turning a little more towards her, until it was simply the arm movement she was coming to. As she came to me, I started to touch her, too. First, I let her smell my hand, but did not touch her face. Rather, I rubbed the spot on her neck about 5 inches behind her ear, because I had read that's where mother horses nuzzle their foals to calm them. Since she seemed to like it (or at least not mind it), that's the spot I started with. Each time, then, I would work my way further down her neck.

This process took me about 2 hours the first day, and I repeated it for about 30 minutes for 3 days after that, and by the 4th day, she learned to come to me without treat incentive. She also, because I was the "herd leader" to her, once she "joined up" with me, would follow me where I wanted her to go without a halter. From this, to putting on the halter, to teaching her lead, all seemed to come natural, because she was in "follow the leader" mode already.

Now, she is out in the pasture with the other horses. The pasture she is in right now is only about 5 acres, but she has learned to come to me when I do the "arm call." When she's feeling anti-social, all I have to do is make enough noise to get her attention, turn my back and look over my shoulder, and over she comes.

Anyway, the point is, I liked the article, but I thought I would add another technique incase someone wanted to try something different. I will note that this may seem like a fluke result, but after the success with Cali, I did the same teaching technique with Dixie, my husband's horse (because when it comes to coming up to him their relationship is kind-of, "Do you want to? No? Okay."), and it worked just great with her, too. The funny thing is that she was already trained, never abused, and the technique to nearly the exact amount of time it took with Cali.

So, anyway, there you go. I just realized I pretty much wrote a novel instead of a comment, but that's the way it goes. Haha.