Back to Basics… Haltering Edition
Today we are working on haltering, but if you would like to catch up on Valiente’s story, take a look at our first two posts here and here!
Today we went back to a super basic but critically important skill – haltering. As you will see in the video below, Valiente can be haltered fairly quickly and easily, but he clearly isn’t comfortable with it. Valiente is an extreme case, but if you see things like haltering as just a means to an end instead of a part of training (“I have to halter the horse before I can START my training session…”), it is easy to skim over and produce the type of training “holes” that we see in this horse.
This is what Valiente thinks of your halter!
The video shows one way that you can make a game out of haltering a tense or fearful horse by building on the targeting of the halter shown in the previous videos. There are no hard and fast rules here – just making sure it is a comfortable space where he can make his own decisions for which he is rewarded. The more confident Valiente is in his role, the more likely he is to trust his handler to keep him safe.
Where Do We Go From Here?
Sarah has actually been able to get on Valiente a few times, but with very limited expectations – her role is just to be a passenger. Obviously having someone on his back isn’t one of the training holes. But, mounting, settling in, steering, etc. ARE. As Sarah says, this horse is basically Swiss cheese when it comes to training. This is why to be successful with him, it will take a boatload of patience and time to go back and fill in all those little lessons he is missing. We are excited to be part of the process and to see this guy bloom!
Check out the horses available for adoption (including Valiente) here!