Desensitizing: Part 1

To humans, a convenient way to carry things. To horses, the absolute most wretched and menacing creature ever identified. I give you: the plastic bag.

I was inspired today because I came across some youtube videos by Australian trainer Warwick Schiller, who spends a lot of time discussing getting back to basics ("Your horse isn't afraid of the flapping peacock, he's afraid of the saddle pad"). Start from the easy things and build up your horse's resilience to "scary" items. So I started from the beginning.

JJ is already accustomed to crops and lunge whips, so I skipped over that hurdle and went for the white towel. Using Schiller's methods, I put JJ on the lunge and walked ahead of him flapping the white towel. I walked ahead of him with it so that this scary object was moving away from him. I did not force him to follow me but rather gave him a lengthy line so he was relatively free to move away from it. Poor thing thought I wanted him to lunge I think, and began by trying to do circles around me while being terrified of the flapping towel. I walked to a fence so he was unable to circle, and lowered the towel a bit. He stopped moving when I did and just watched. When he looked at the towel, I put it away. When he looked away, I flapped it a bit. As soon as he looked at it, it disappeared. As Schiller explains in one of his videos, you are empowering the horse with these actions - making the horse think he controls the object. Almost making the horse desire more of the object. He looks at it with interest, but as soon as he does it disappears. But he wants desperately to see it! Eventually JJ took steps in towards me, and I kept up the process. As soon as he looked at it, it disappeared. In almost no time at all he had his nose on it. I flapped it up over his head and on both sides. I threw it over his neck and over his back and down by his legs. At this point he was almost bored (almost. Head still a little high and neck a little tense).

I moved straight on to the plastic bag attached to a dressage whip, and started the same way. I gave JJ enough freedom that he was not forced to follow the flapping bag as it drew away from him, but this time he was MUCH more willing to follow it. Awesome! After only a couple circles around the ring with JJ following at a safe distance I started the "hide and seek" sequence. He seemed really entertained by this, actually. I almost think he was enjoying himself. By the end of the session I was standing next to him and smashing it on the ground and waving it over his head and he was fine (neck tall and tense, but fine). I imagine I will repeat this again tomorrow and see how he reacts. When he has "graduated" from the plastic bag, we will move up to the blue tarp (the equivalent of all the scary plastic bags combined). Yay JJ!