This Rescue Horse Dragged Me Across the Floor...

They have drug me down the aisle. Because he's a little bit of a bully there. He feels really comfortable plowing through people's space. But I'm also just trying to get it to where he can be handled safely without worrying about losing him. Okay, I'm going to get you guys to kind of stand back a bit. Our chances are not great. There's a pretty good chance he pulls away from me. I'm Nikki. I have two rescue horses, actually technically three, but the main two issues are the rescue horses that I got. I've had one for a year and I've had the other one for a few months. They both are showing signs of separation anxiety from if I take a horse away or if I take both horses away or anything like that, they kind of lose their mind. A lot of pacing and eyes glazing over, like doesn't even pay attention if I'm in his way. He kind of just... We have a very strict routine that we have to stick to. And if we don't, if anything changes, we have to then bring them in. Which then causes Cimarron to not want to be caught. And that causes like a good half hour to an hour to get him in or close enough or where I could trap him. And it just... So this is kind of starting to take over your life a bit. Yeah. So what are you hoping Ryan can accomplish here today? At least just give me somewhere to start. Like I know this can't be solved. I know it's something that has to be worked on for a long, long time. I don't know where to start. I don't know who to start with and what road and what path to take. So... Oh, okay. Okay. This is a good setup here. Which is great. And I like the gate fronts. But like when he... Marco goes in this stall. So when he was having his like... I have to open it to get in to get to him and that's where it's a little scary. Just a little note here. These are really low by horse standards. You could either leave this gate here and put another gate that goes up top that if you needed to lock them in, that they for sure couldn't get their head over, like that could be an option. Or you could raise the skate. When they can that easily get their chest up to it, it invites them to think over it. If they can't put their head and neck over it, they don't push on it very hard. Like they don't really push on things with their nose, but they'll push on it with their chest. And that's where here if they can get their... Yeah. No, I get it. Yep. Just throwing that out there. How old's Marco? What? How old's Marco? 23. Oh, wow. He was in the same home with the lady, I think that bred him. So he was always with his two brothers. He's separated from them for the first time. Okay. So you're saying to try to take Marco out and work with him now, that would be... I haven't tried. You haven't tried? No. I haven't tried him. Then how do you know it won't work? Well, that might work, but if I take Simran out... Then he freaks out. So that's the problem is taking him away from him. Yes. I see. So if we wanted to take the easiest approach, because it could be a fairly big task to say he's got to stay here where he can't see the pony very well from where he's at because of the wall, to take this horse out, that could end up being a fairly big project. Yes. I'm sure we can make some headway on it, but it'd be a fairly big project. Versus if you're literally just trying to care for him, the path of least resistance might be the easiest option. So my recommendation is we just put this horse here and you're using, then leveraging the fact that you have the pony now to build his confidence. Because honestly, three horses is kind of handy compared to two. When people have only two horses, it's usually harder than even just one or three. What a lot of people do that have only two is what I recommend to them, again, when they're wanting to take one out and ride them and the other one's having a problem. First take the horse that they're not trying to ride. So in this case, it would be like Marco, you take Marco out and have a spot that you tie him up at. You say, okay, you just get him used to standing there tied. Maybe he has feed there, it's just, that's fine. Then you get the next horse out to work with. So in other words, the order that you take them out in matters versus if I said, okay, we're going to tie him up, but we're going to take this horse out first. Now you come in to grab him and he's already a mess, worked up, on adrenaline, and then you try to tie him. Now he's standing in their pond and whipping around and like really uncomfortable, sweated up. It becomes a whole thing. Versus if we took him out now while he's quiet, that probably wouldn't be as big an issue. You see what I'm saying? So that when people have only two, that's a lot of times what I would recommend. And since we're not trying to create a full on training program here, I think we should go ahead and try that. So let's go ahead and halter Cimarron and also let's halter Marco up. Now if it's okay, let's get this set up in case this goes bad. Let's let me get my halter and lead rope. Horses are innately herd animals. And so it's very common, especially when they've just, they've not had much training. They've spent most of their lives just living with the herd. Then when we come along and we try to separate things, it gives them a lot of anxiety because they don't see the human as the herd. To them, the other horses are the herd. So that's where all the groundwork training that we do communicates to the horse that your herd is here. You're with us. Everything's cool. But getting them to stand alone by themselves is significantly harder than having them be okay being handled. I don't know if he's ever really been taught how, like personal space because he's always like in it. I don't know if he knows his strength. Yeah. So when they've been together with other horses, they're herd animals. And so they don't really know anything different. So it's a pretty foreign concept to them. But having them stand by themselves requires a lot more self-confidence and a lot more emotional fitness for them to kind of learn. And so I think the pony is going to be our workaround here. There may be a little bit of, he's not attached to the pony yet, but I think it'll still be easier to have him in this stall than in the, in the other stall. So I think that is the easiest switch that we can make to start, start with. I have talked to his previous owner because he was fine. Like the first, I don't know, six months I had him, like I could catch him, I could walk up to him. Everything was fine. Okay. Then all of a sudden, like this winter, he kind of started turning a little more stubborn and taking off running and not letting me catch him. And so I talked to his previous owner and he was like, oh yeah, he used to do that to me all the time. He was horrible to catch because he used to work cattle. So he would put him in a smaller pen with his halter and a small leader rope on so that he could catch him in the morning to take him. Yeah. That makes sense. They're very aware of space. And so trying to, like when they look at you like that and get that defensive, just approaching them in a stall, I could have predicted that he'd be hard to catch in a field. So we would want to get this approach better is what it, what it amounts to right now. No different than if you, how you interact with a person, like generally when you're around people, you're just kind of aware of their bubble and you, you know, you see, oh, they're trying to walk with a purpose. I'm going to move away or, oh, I'm going to shake their hand or whatever. You're kind of feeling for where they're at with things. That's kind of the conversation that you're having with him. So literally every day when you go to approach him, you can just play this little game with him. Go ahead and get a little bit closer. Now, see there, he felt you a little bit. Do you notice that he tightened up? So now slowly bring your hand towards his nose. And so now that it, now, so at some point he probably will be less curious about that and he may not bring his head towards you every time. Okay. And now I want you to think about taming the air kind of around his neck. So just kind of reach for it. But with feel that if he gets tight, you're going to just stop and hold that position until he softens and then your hand goes away. I'll just wait there. Yep. So he got tight. So just wait for him to soften with your hand there or to look at you. Now take your hand away. You're about to go for more, weren't you? But see he, you were looking for a green light to where when you have an approach, he doesn't change states. Okay. So like that time you approached, he got a little bit tight. Okay. So then you waited and then he got curious and you retreated. We're built, we're continuing to build that trust that you're not going to push through his threshold. Right. Okay. There you go. Now you can go up a little higher on his neck with it. Can you see the bottom of it there? And then just pull it. Good. Now just step away from him and ask him to face you and to give you the other eye. Good boy. And so what, what we're trying to do is set up a situation where we're teaching him how to be caught and like being caught while simultaneously trying to not teach him how to not be caught. So I know that took a lot of time and it was slow, but that's like, if you followed that advice, you could take a Mustang and get them to eventually where you could halter them. If you follow that approach, I'm going to halter up Marco and I'm going to bring him around and open up this gate and basically bring him there. Then you're going to slip out. Okay. And then we're just going to see how well he handles it. Okay. So go ahead and take him away and be prepared to bring him back in and just go stand on the outside of that door there. Okay. Oh, that was a close one. Yeah. Okay. He knows how to pull away. Yeah. I'm kind of glad he did that to show you what he does. Yeah. So if you're thinking about becoming a trainer or you already are a trainer or you want to teach lessons, that sort of thing, I want to show you how to run a successful business in the equine industry. There's a big need for it out there. There's a lot of horses that need to be trained and a lot of people that need coaching. And so if you're interested in getting started, I'm going to be launching a program on school where I show you all my playbook on how to run a successful equine business. And so if you're interested to get started, there'll be a link in the description below and in the comments and I'll look forward to seeing you on there. Okay. Let's go ahead and close this gate now. And I'm going to go ahead and unhalter him. And then if I say, just be ready to bring that other horse back in. Okay. And you feel like you've got a handle on him that you can take him around? Yeah. Do you want me to leave? Yeah. I want you to just go that, just stand behind the barn where he can't see him. So Marco is now just a little bit uncomfortable, just kind of looking around, but he's got his pony there. So he's kind of like, it's not as bad as I thought it was going to be. Okay. You can go ahead and bring Cimarron back in. And so this might be counterintuitive, but the bigger problem is you taking him away more so than once you're gone. Like because he couldn't see you, it wouldn't have mattered if you were a mile away or if you were right there. Nope. You can stay right here. Yep. And now go ahead and just head back out of the barn. So last time he had him taken away, he had the halter and leader up on. Okay. And if you were to lean on the stall right now, I would put a little pressure on with the flag. In fact, I'm going to show that really quick, just what I would do. I would just do whatever it took to just talk him out of thinking this way. So just like a real subtle little, little deal. And I'm just saying, Hey, there's no relief out here. Find faith in your buddy. And he's like, pony's still here. Yep. Okay. He's grunting a little bit. Like he kind of would rather have Cimarron with him there. He's blowing out. So that's good. Would you mind throwing him a little bit of hay and just see if that is enough to distract him? Cause that'll also give us an indicator of like, Oh, that's all it took. You know, you can just chuck it in there. So by him eating some hay there, that tells us that he's not, he's not too upset. Like he's just mildly uncomfortable that that other horse is gone. But if I, if I was doing this, like at my house, I would set this situation up probably three or four more times where you stand here with a flag and she takes the other horse away and you're just ready to guard it a little bit. Because not only am I keeping him from jumping out, but I'm interrupting his pattern a little bit of being uncomfortable at the other horses away. And also as he gets more and more attached to the pony, that's going to make a difference. So all I'm doing is when he sticks his head over saying, no, don't think out here, you're fine. You're fine over there. And then they're like, he came and checked it out, but he's like, Nope, I'm not supposed to put my head over the gate. Okay. Go ahead and bring him back. And then we're also rewarding good behavior when he settles. If we weren't doing this, what could happen is you finish up whatever you're doing and then you come back in here and he is distressed. And now he gets more relief with Cimarron being back where I'm timing this. When I see him get more settled than I say, Hey, come on back. So he finally found a spot to stand still and relax there. That's when I had you bring him back. It wasn't just random reward for being calm. Yes. Seeing his buddy. And then also over a couple more days, he's going to get more attached to the pony. So I feel like this is a pretty good system. Okay. Is this achievable for you? Yes. Okay. It's a, it's a path to follow. A couple of things that you can do with this horse is see, I'm just going to see if my hand bothers him at all. And so this is really good. He's not head shy. And you said he's blind in this left eye. Right. So we'll just kind of work this side. So that's not a problem. So now we're going to up the ante. I'm going to teach him to stand there and then I'm going to practice approaching him with a little more energy. Now I'm not touching him until he softens like right there, his ears went forward. So then I finally pet him, but I'm going to practice coming up and I'm going to do it on both sides, even though he can't see me on this side and just petting him here. But you're going to want to teach him to stand there and work on approaching him from a distance with a little energy. So I told you to do the exact opposite of this in the stall. That's when you're trying to catch him. This is preparing him to handle more pressure. And I just kind of approach him awkwardly at times. This is one of our cult starting steps that we do with horses. We call it the drunken sailor game. I don't know why we need a better name for it, but essentially you just, just try to approach them with a little more energy and it just gets them gentle to approaching them. So as horsemen, we have to learn to swing our energy levels. You know, in the stall, I asked you to tone it down and zone it right in and get really quiet. And then out here, I'm like, Hey, let's bring it up and get noisier and come at him with some energy. Yep. So do it a couple more times. Do us a little more energy this time. Yeah. Super. And then you can practice like giving him a hug around his neck and just get him a little bit desensitized to that. Yeah. I take it pretty serious. I'm like, well, what if there was a tornado and my horses got loose and we're running down the road? Could somebody walk up and just catch them? Would they be looking for humans for the relief? Like there's a big motivation to like get them easy to catch, you know, instead of like, Oh, well I can just run them in the stall and close the gate and now I can catch him. It's like, well, no, let's, let's take some time and train them to just, this is not that big a project. He just kind of learned to walk away from people in big spaces. And I'm giving you some workarounds that are like low key, low stress ways of doing this for both horses. Right. You can hear him blowing out. So let's go ahead and bring, bring them in. Good work, sir. I heard a good noise. Yeah. Do you hear that noise when they go, it's equivalent if like you're in, maybe you just got broke down the side of the road and now you got back into drive and you go, you just take that deep breath. Like, okay, we're good. You know what I mean? Like everything's good again. Was he pacing a lot? He did not stop moving. No. There's one more thing I want to do with him. So we're going to take it off one more time. You good still? I'm good. All right. Appreciate it. Probably didn't know you were going to get roped into training today too. Yeah. I mean, so he's going to be uncomfortable again, you factor in his age and everything, but I think in a few days of doing this, I think what's going to happen, there's three ways that we're approaching this. Like there he's standing calm, just looking out here. He's going to get more buddied up with the pony. He's going to learn that it's okay. He's just going to get better at this overall. And then thirdly, the gait going up by those three things changing, I think this will be totally fine. Okay. Last but not least with him. The other thing I would teach him is a hind quarter yield. Now the magic of this is going to be that we're not going to rely. We're going to pretend like we're doing this at Liberty. Okay. So there's no pressure on the halter. So I'm going to step around here and ask him to yield his hind quarters and face me. And then the pressure goes away and we'll pet him. I'm going to step back and I'm teaching him that if I look down and put a little pressure that you can move there. There, he took a step back and looked at me more like obviously here. The move that he just made was really critical. That's the move I want him to make. So it's not about how far he moves his hind quarters. It's about him deliberately trying to put me right there. One, he's putting me in the blind eye, but two, that is the move that if he goes to look away when you are trying to approach him, I want him to learn to go ahead and face me when I do that move. When I look down at his hind quarters and I'm not pulling on the lead rope, now see here he's kind of just moving around. I'm going to sign him up to it a little bit right there. That's the move where he moves his hip out of the way and kind of takes a step back. That's the opposite of him being ready to run away when you go to try to catch him. And again, if you practice this a few days while you're working this game, you're going to have him easier to catch and you're going to have him more okay being by himself. And then I would do it on this side too. But on this side, add a voice cue, a little cluck, and then just put a feel on the lead rope. That was my next question. Yep. And then when you want to approach him on this side and he literally can't see you, just talk to him. Like, what do you say to him when you're approaching him usually? I just walk up and be like, hey Simmy. Yeah. It's okay. So just say, hey Simmy, hey Simmy, hey Simmy. And you're teaching him that when you say, hey Simmy, it means a relaxed rub. If you say, hey Simmy, and he's like tight and braced up. Hey Simmy means pressure. You want hey Simmy to mean relief. So only use it when it means relief. So use it carefully. Okay. So again, watch. We're going to do this yield. I'm going to cluck, put a little feel on the halter. So there he's walking forward. I don't want that. See there when I bumped on the halter, he's yielded and stepped back a little bit. Now I'll come back in here. He's pretty quiet. Hey Simmy, hey Simmy, hey Simmy. So you, but you're just working the yields. Now if he leaves, if he runs away, you're going to have to teach this at Liberty. Okay. You're going to have to follow him around until you can get his eye. So it's basically like you just play this little like game that you played with him in there of like, I'm just going to keep putting a little pressure on you until I get that look. Now I retreat. And eventually he's going to go, okay, I'm caught. And then you work your pattern of, hey, can I walk up to you and, and pet you? Ah, okay. Hey Simmy. Can you put your leader up around? You're all good. Do you see how it can all kind of come together then for you? Yeah. I'm going to, I'm going to cue you to come back in here in a second. Little flag. Yeah. There you go. Keep the flag going on his nose there. And I'll take it away when he turns away. Very good. So I'm looking for a spot where he's settled enough to bring Cimarron back. Right there. Okay. Let's go ahead and put him in this stall now. We're going to practice catching him again. So just walk in there. Yep. Really good. Go ahead. Yeah. Super. There. That's really good. Now, now go. Yeah. I think you can keep going now. Yeah. Okay. Yep. So go up to his neck. Hand down. Just work your body towards his neck. Yep. Now pet his neck. Good. Should I try putting the halt around him again? Now watch him change now that you got it to here. And I'll step back and put a little feel on it. And do you feel that, that kind of shift where he's like, oh, okay. That's what you're looking for to create with the hindquarters yield out there. Yeah. And so they come in every night. Yes. Okay. So he's going to get more settled to being in that new space overnight as well with him being here. I'm trying to give you like a fairly, all the other options require a lot of training. Okay. And so it's like this workaround with leveraging three horses is really the only real plausible thing without saying you're going to put these three horses, these two horses into like a pretty full on training program, like not like with somebody, but you doing it every day and this much time. And it would be extra hard because they're both well into their twenties. Yes. And so it would be this huge deal, like this huge time commitment, this huge problem. And if you didn't have a pony, that would be our only option. But since you do have the pony, I would, I would go with this, this option for both horses. Okay. Now let's go halter him up again. Cause I'm going to take him out and you're going to put him next to the pony. So now we're going to do the exact same thing we did when I first got here and just do the old switcheroo with these two. So you can kind of come on out and we're going to be avoiding that, we're teaching this horse to pull the rope out of my hands. You're okay. Should we go outside? Um, nope. You're okay. Nope. No, no, no. Come back. Sorry. I was just trying to stay out of the way. So you're going to come back in. Okay. And slide in there. So what we're, all we're going to really try to accomplish is just a little bit of basic leading and handling and maybe set him up in a couple of situations where he thinks about pulling away and hopes that I can stop him because you can see it's like drop of a hat. He's ready to go to that. Yes. Like our chances are not great. Right. There's a pretty good chance he pulls away from me. I'm just going to, again, do some basic groundwork. So there he thought about, like I put a little feel and he just pushed back into it. So I gave it a little tug. So it just had a little bit more meaning. Now I'm just trying to work a hindquarter yield here. There we go. So as a general rule of thumb, when you have a horse that pulls away, if you can stay kind of at an angle off of their shoulder and when they think away from you, you can kind of do that and get, get them to connect back with you. You can keep them with you. And again, I'm doing a little tug and other videos, people see me put more pressure on their hindquarters, but the problem is here. He has to learn to give to pressure here, not me driving him with a stick and string or something else. When you move that other horse in the pen, he just immediately put pressure through there. And so I'm just letting him know that, Hey, you can't, that's not going to work out so good. What I'm showing you is kind of what I would do is like take them away and teach them to connect with me. And that means following me around that. If I move, you move with me. And that also means that you're giving me attention. So when I step around here, do you see how without pulling on the rope, he's staying connected. Now there he's not. And so I'm going to put a little pressure on the halter again. I'm avoiding driving him right now because I want to bank yields off this. I'm very much curating what I'm doing to this horse in this situation. So people watching at home, don't freak out. That's where you see me just giving those little tugs on that when he doesn't come with me. If I didn't tug on it that firmly, I would just be irrelevant to him. And the first chance that he thought he needed to leave, he would just, I'd be like, bye. Right. Yeah. That's what like I noticed when he was dragged me down the aisle those two times. Like I wasn't even in the room. Yeah. He just gone. Right. So again, I'm just doing a few little exercises that I do to ask a horse to connect with me going, stopping, backing. He's learning a little bit of personal space. And then there I stepped around and you see, I didn't, I had to go away from the barn. I didn't have to touch the halter. Right. He hooked on with me that whole time. That was really big of him. And he's learning some personal space because he's a little bit of a bully there. He feels really comfortable plowing through people's space. Yes. Bully's the wrong word. He just, he doesn't know that there's a boundary there. Right. So it feels like you're being kind of pushed around by him, but really it's his lack of just didn't know because it doesn't take that much pressure to drive him out of my space. Like he just didn't know. Yeah. No, exactly. All right. Good boy, Marco. So my goal with this flag is not to build his confidence with the flag. The goal of this flag is that I may instigate him trying to leave and I set a boundary and he learns that he can't leave. So hopefully I don't screw this up. My assumption was that he would be a little bit afraid of this and that he might try to leave. But again, people watching, you got to keep in mind these, how old is this horse? 23. He's 23. And so I'm trying to be, you know, easy on his body and not put, do a bunch of work, but I'm also just trying to get it to where he can be handled safely without worrying about losing him. Luckily, he wants to be really gentle. Like it's kind of unfortunate that this horse didn't get trained well when he was three and four years old. Yeah. Cause he probably could have been a really nice horse, you know, like to me, his disposition strikes me as he really could be a really nice horse. You know what I mean? See there, he thought about leaving and I caught him right away. See, I'm trying to like get him to think towards that gate right there. See, then I caught him and said, Hey, nope. And then see there, he's licking and chewing and getting relief here with me. So I kind of putting his hand in the cookie jar and being like, don't touch versus just keeping him out of the kitchen. I mean, exactly. But so far just with me, about five times now he's thought about leaving and it didn't work out for him. You see there, he thought about going that way and then he changed angles and looked me up. That was really big of him. Yeah. Right there. Really good. Oh, that was good. He got his life up a little bit, but he stayed soft. He never put pressure on the halter. So again, I'm going to get rid of the flag here and is it a particular issue with right there? He's trying to leave. So he caught him there. Is it a particular issue with going through here? Not really. No, it's just kind of wherever. Okay. I'm going to get you guys to kind of stand back a bit and then I'm just going to come in and out of the barn a little bit with him because this seems to be a bit of a trigger for him. Is this kind of moving around here? And how long were these horses together? Him and Cimarron? Yeah. Since I got Marco in the beginning of... Oh, they weren't together at a rescue? Nope. Okay. So they just kind of pair bonded. Yeah. Since being here. Gotcha. Because I got Marco the beginning of April. Did you see that? I kind of baited him into going ahead of me and then he went in and stopped. I was like, wait, you're not coming with. So they're both very smart. They both catch on very quickly. I think I'm going to be pretty happy with that. Are you happy with that? No. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. These could both be really good horses, which is nice. It's just nice because some horses, especially ones that are rescued sometimes are also very difficult horses. And these guys are just a little bit of a victim of their circumstances, but they innately could have been really nice horses. I'm glad he showed you what he does because I was a little scared now that he's out with the pony that he would be like, oh, it's fine, the pony's here. But I am glad you saw that he pulled. And I can definitely work with him and catch him and not have his butt come at me. Super. Yes. We're going to take a three-fold approach for both of these horses to be penned up by themselves. We're going to get them used to coming and going. Him with tying, him with being loose and somebody managing him not leaning over the panel with a flag. We're going to raise the gate so it's a little harder for them to lean over because that way if the conditions weren't ideal and you just had to do something and nobody was here to help you, theoretically, it would still be just fine. They might whirl around in there and be a little upset, but it's like you're not going to come into a horse. Yeah, a horse that's loose. And then the third thing that's helping us is the pony is the real hero here. They just got turned out together. So as they spend more time together, they'll be more attached to him and not just each other. So that'll be a big win for both horses. It's great news that he stands tied well. I don't think I'd worry about trying to tie him. I would just teach him to stand there at liberty and get better at it. Okay, perfect. Awesome. Oh, yay. Well, thank you so much for having us out. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for coming. He's kind of like, eh, the little dude's with me. We're good. He'll protect me. It's kind of ironic, but I think that's what goes through that, like, oh, we're safe because the herd is here. And the pony's like, I got you. I'm running security today. Atta boy, Marco. Got a little of that lip hanging there. Do you remember all this? One more try. Well, good news is we got it on video, so. Hey, thanks for watching. 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