Rescued horse needs help

[bettyc64]

Hi All I need some helpful advise. I recently rescued a mustange who had been beaten with a baseball bat! On top of it he had been starved! I could slide my hand between his ribs! :mad: a vet was called to the scene and he got all the majors taken care of including his feet this was in may of 2004. Mustange is now blind in 1 eye and very well feed. I have him to where I can pet his head shoulders and finger comb his mane. hard as I have tried he will not let me put a halter on him! I'm very worried about his hooves! They are about 5 inchs now and one of the front hooves has a split in it. I have him running on 4 acres and all the hay he can eat as well as 4 cups of baby beef feed a day as it is all he will eat other than pears :rolleyes: I know this isn't a proper diet for him. I would love any helpful suggestions. Also if there are any ferriers in my area please let me know I have been looking but no one wants to help with this horse and they haven't even seen him. I can't trailer him for 2 reason's I have no trailer and I can't get a lead on him yet. I'm working on it though. :)

[Gary_Miller]

Betty
I to recently rescued a horse though all our problem was starvation. Anyway you have you hands full with this animal. So here are some ideas.

First, remember that a horses first instinct is self presivation. In this horse I would guess that he was beating due to his self presivation instinct and not being treated well he developed a mean strick, with only one good eye this horse really be cautious around everyone due to him not being able to see well. You should always try and approch him from the side of his good eye and do all you saddle training from that side.

Second, some mustangs are harder to gental down than others. One we had took a really long time to win over and even then she still never learned to really trust where the other genteled down really well and was some of the best mountain horses we had.

Third, there will be some who disagree with me on this one. I believe that all horses can be won over and gentaled down with alot of love and kindness. I don't mean spoiling as that can be dangeous. But alot of petting brushing and soft talk work wounders. Especally in your case as my guess is he was yelled at lloundly while being beaton.

Fourth, I suggest you get this horse in some kind of corral for awhile. The reason you can't get a halter on himj easy is becaus of the beating he does not want to be in a situation of being caught where he can be beatin. Put him in the corral. Get a halter on him no matter how much he fights you. You may need to rope him so you can have some kind of control while you do this. Then put a long soft rope on the halter so you can catch him when you want to. The rope should be long enough so you can pick it up withoout being kicked. Let him drag this rope around until he lets you walk up to him with out running off. If he turns to run off pick up the rope he will soon learn that he can't get away and you mean him no harm. Keep him in thecorral while the rope is on him so he can't get in trouble with the rope.

Fifth, get a second larger halter that will fit over the one you now have on hilm and put it on every time you work with him so he will learn you mean him no harm puting a halter on him.

Sixth, Some mustanges have large feet this is due to the old pioneers turning out their draft animals and inter breeding so as long as he look straight he should be ok until you can get him trained to pick up his feet so a farrier can look at him. Most farriers these days don't want to mess with an un trained horse, as they like thier jobs and don't need to have a horse to fight that may put them in the hospital and possably looking for a diffrent line of work. Ask you vet about the crack he maybe able to tell you if it some thing that need worring about.

I hope this helps.

Good luck
Gary

[bettyc64]

Thank you Gary,
I can understand and fully empathize with the farrier's, I have seriously concidered having the poor thing given a tranquilizer for the the trimming.

I don't have a corrall wish I did. I so have some small pens he likes to graze in and would work as a corral. he will let me scratch between his ears and I always approach and work with him from his sighted side :D he's not a bad tempered animal but very scared, he has never tried to kick or bite me and will eat grain from my hand so I know i'm getting somewhere :) he won't willingly come to anyone else yet unless they are on the other side of the fence and then only my mother and son... he takes off for the back pasture if anyone else shows up..

I've had my vet look at the split and if we don't get his hooves trimmed soon he will have to be shoed, I was hoping not to have to do this as he will never be riden, I want to leave him as close to free as he was born as possible. But I do want to be able to give him good care.

[Phil Armitage]

Saying he will have to be shod, is not logical. How are you going to accomplish a difficult task as shoeing if you cannot accomplish an easy task like trimming? Not trying to be a smart### but think about it. If you can touch his head then you can slowly work with his feet. One way to gain his confidence about picking up his feet is to touch his legs and feet with a rope and gently wrap the rope around his pasturn and try to gently pick his feet up with it. Also d**** the rope over his head and rub him down with the rope to show him the ropes will not harm him. The more and more you do this the more he will trust things and chip away at his fear. People that know Natural Horsemenship can help you with this. I trim a mustang that only trust one person, very flighty horse. He will let me trim him, I go slow and easy and he is OK as long as his owner is there to catch and hold him. Get a farrier that is gently and patient and has has experience and I think you will do fine. The Farrier should be able to give you pointers on how to work with your horse. Good luck.

[bettyc64]

Thank you for your advise Phil. I was told by my vet that if this spit makes him lame that he will have to be shod once I can handle his feet. Mustange and I are making progress in training...He will let me run my hand down to his knee so far....on a side note 2 days ago mustange while i was feeding him decided to put me on his blind side and keeps me there now....I'm guessing that he now trusts me more than he has ever trusted a human. Since he does not jump or flinch when i move on his blind side, I make small noises and talk gently to him at all times.

[Dave Purves]

All of the ideas given to you are great. I'm not a trainer so I won't even begin to tell you what may or may not work in trying to "gentle" this poor guy. What I will tell you is it is impossible, and very, very dangerous to try and trim a horse without a halter and lead rope on him, even if he is tranq'd. Nobody has any control of the horse therefore at anytime the horse can turn, kick, bite, or any combination of things that can harm the farrier or the horse or both. Your intentions are great, but you will not get anyone to come out and attempt to trim your horse without, at least having the control of a halter and lead rope. I suggest you contact some local trainers that schooled in the more gentle types of training, like John Lyons, or Pat Parelli things like that. You need to get his feet trimmed, but that cannot be done until you can get a halter and lead rope on him and he accepts it, and respects it. Because his feet are in bad shape that just means you have to work that much harder and faster to get a halter and lead on him. Asking a farrier to work on an animal like this is just saying to them you think the animals feet are more important than the farriers life. Your asking a truck driver to drive an 18 wheeler full of explosives across country without the help of a steering wheel. It is just way to dangerous. Concentrate on getting a halter and lead on him, then teach him to pick up his feet and allow someone to handle them. You may also need to bring in some friends to help you, horses like this will many times trust one person, and no one else, it does you no good if you can handle his feet, but no one else can. Food for thought.
good luck
Dave Purves CF :D

[bettyc64]

Hi Dave;
You are very right I should have been more clear about wanting a farrier to trim his after I have him trained. I would never want to have my farrier hurt!
I'm working with this animal 3x a day right now. I know how to train him I'm just afraid to push him to fast after all he's been through but he is progressing nicely. I figure he will have to live with his hooves as they are til spring. Since I wasn't really set up to take him in the first place I've had to play catch up with all the things he needs. At least this winter he will have shelter and feed unlike his previous winters and by spring the halter and lead will be in good standing with him. I got a halter on him today and 2 hrs later he had it off :eek: so I have a trickster on my hands :D oh well there are worse fates. I will just have to fasten it tighter this evening :)

[caballus]

Most of the critters on my farm (17) are rescues. They come in with various issues - all of them were mistrustful of humans and exhibited all signs of "post traumatic stress syndrome" (yep, horses get it, too). I use operant conditioning to re-teach them. Also known as "Clicker Training". The sound of the actual clicker is able to interrupt the flight messaging system that is output from the Amygdala. The Amygdala is in the primal cortex of the brain (all mammals have one, including us) and is responsible for split-second messaging to the rest of the body to be ready for survival flight or fight. The human voice does not have the frequencies nor the speed to reach the amygdala before the messaging has been completed. But the clicker does, for some obscure reason. When the flight processing is interupted, it causes a "cortical override" which means that the horse can THINK rather than react. Once you've reached the horse's thinking you can now proceed with teaching/training much easier and with the horse's full attention.

Operant conditioning also allows for easy, clear steps for the horse to be able to understand PLUS have something to motivate him/her to want to repeat the behavior that is correct. In other words, the "click" (can be a tongue click or a unique "GOOD boy!" or whatever marker you want) tells the horse precisely (that is why the actual clicker is good because it allows for precise timing) what behavior is being requested and then the "treat" (one cheerio or one pretzel or one whatever) is the reward and motivator to try again.

If you go to http://www.thepenzancehorse.com and look at the cover photo you'll see a young lady on a horse that came in wild from Manitoba just a couple of months prior to the photo. She was on this horse for just the 4th time. The mare foaled after she arrived here and will nurse while the Mom has a rider on her back. No issues. No problems. Teaching her with CT. We also are teaching the yearlings with CT. They love it! There are also links somewhere in there to a photo journal of sorts of my work with an EXTREMELY aggressive and dangerous mare last winter/spring. Used CT with her with tremendous results. The CT stopped her reacting to stimuli and caused her to start thinking through the formerly terrifying 'things'. It helped her to stop wanting to arbitrarily kill everyone! :O

If you'd like to know more, please feel free to contact me privately at caballus@charter.net.

--caballus

PS. I also use this type of training with the horses that I trim.

[caballus]

OH ... here's another site I wanted to post for you and forgot. This one deals strictly with Mustangs and Wild Horses:

http://www.kbrhorse.net

Enjoy!

*S* --cab

[bettyc64]

Thank you so much for the idea of useing a clicker. I would've never thought of useing one on a horse. The sites are wonderful, I've been useing the family tradition of horse whispering to help this poor guy buts it's a very slow form of training and some of the horses never make the transition to being able to accept anyone other than members of my immediate family here on the farm. :( Mustang will never leave this farm :D When I rescued him that was my idea. He has been through so much, I want him to know this will always be his home. :cool: