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Re: [RC] Early handling - Sisu West RanchRobert Miller, DVM (The imprinting guy) among others has been advocating early handling and training for many years. Somewhere in his writings he states that the TB folk have been the hardest to convert.John Lyons has been changing his methods lately so that they are more suitable for use on horses who arrive at the proper age for riding with a basic knowledge of how to interact with people. He seems to feel that perhaps a majority of horses are handled by people during their formative years. His earlier writings assumed that the early history of most horses included minimal or no contact with humans. Are there mishandled horses who have bad habits so ingrained that even a top professional may not be able to extinguish the behavior? Of course. Are there folk who should not raise horses because they do not know how to train them, and are not interested in learning? You bet. Are there people who should not own horses because they allow every horse they own to do whatever it wants? I have seen some examples, including a family that had at least 8 unrelated horses that all kicked at each other and other horses while under saddle. I am a slow learner, it took being kicked in the ankle as they pushed by me to get further into the St Croix River before I refused to ride with the group if they were along. Are there people who will train you how to apply resistance free training techniques to your horse incidentally training the horse at the same time? Yes, we had an excellent one when we lived in WI. Is it easier to train a horse that spent his first 2 years on the range in WY an no contact with people than one who has been mishandled? You bet. I still hold that horses properly handled from birth are the easiest to train, and least likely to develop bad habits that need correction. They do exist. Our neighbor to the north makes her living breeding Paints that are all imprinted and socialized as youngsters. My bottom line is it is the duty of each and every horse owner to make sure that his horse is properly trained and that at a minimum he/she learns enough about horse training to prevent the horse from developing bad habits. To excuse dangerous bad behavior as being inherent in the particular horse and therefore OK is just a copout. At the minimum, owners of poorly behaved horses should keep them home. Remember where we started on this discussion. It was a case where a horse that bites folk was taken to an endurance ride. In the case of racing TB's, who are just a commodity whose purpose is to earn money, it is more understandable that bad behavior is tolerated. That still does not make it right or the most desirable situation. I have had minimal contact with the TB industry. Before we moved to MT we would go to Canterbury Park in Shakopee, MN a few times a year. When we moved here we started going to the TB racing at the Western Montana Fair, Missoula, MT. We were immediately struck by the uncontrolled wild behavior of the horses at the fair in comparison to Canterbury Park. I'm sure that some were at the fair because they were problem horses from bigger tracks. Since some were listed as MT bred and raised, I suspect that much of the difference could be traced to lack of proper training. Ed Ed & Wendy Hauser 2994 Mittower Road Victor, MT 59875 (406) 642-9640 ranch(at)sisuwest(dot)us =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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