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By: olivia clark
on May 26, 2012
in General Questions
Rating: 1
i have a question for you guys.:) okay so i have been working on bathing my horse and she has never been bathed before:/ so this is what i have been doing tell me what you think
i dint want her to hate it and just stand still because i am making her, i wanted her to bath and enjoy it so i wanted to change her mindset on bathing because to her it is a crazy scary experience so, i started with gently spraying the water next to her and rubbing her and feeding her a treat every now and then talking to her all the while and just showing her my love, i spray the water to the point of craziness and if she reacts to the water i simply move it away from her a little bit. When she is used to that i spray her foot and give her a treat if she stands still then move it further and further up till she is enjoying to treats and ignoring the water pretty much. What i am hoping will happen is that she will associate water which is bad to treats which is good to water which means treats so water means good :) what do you think. If you simply tell me it is dumb and will not work i would like to know what your method is and if it worked and ask yourself if your horse is standing still by pain of you beating him if e moves or he is content with what your doing so does not feel the need to move away from the presure you are creating:) thank you so much
olivia :)
When I was working with my horse with bathing I would spray him until he stood still then remove the water as a reward. Let him get his mind together, then apply the water again and keep it until he stood still, repeat process over and over again until he stood still when the water was applied and stayed still for a minute.
Sounds good to me. I use the " reward what you want and ignore what you don't want" method. So keep rewarding the good behavior of standing for the water and go slow. You might also add a sponge with soap and water and rub her with that too, and again reward and make it all no big deal. Your reward can also be a kind word, a loving pat, as well as the treat.
I had to work with my mom's horse with bathing.
I started with his feet and kept the water on him until he stopped moving.
Then I would move the water higher up.
He now will move a little bit when you get the water on his butt, but for the most part stands still once he realizes the water is not going to eat him.
It's funny because if the hose is on and just running, or filling up the trough, he comes and plays with the hose and water that way.
