Advice Wanted

[mollyg1710]

Hi! Just wanted to see if anyone has been in a similar situation and might have any advice: about a year ago we introduced a new pony to my boss’ herd who for the last seven years lived alone. The previous owner was elderly and bought him from his breeder where he was broken in however we don’t think he’d done much schooling in either homes.
As is expected he’s taken a while to settle in and has a few issues with leaving his new herd. He’s fine when going out with other horses although that took him a while to get used to and now I’m trying to get him happy by himself.
My current strategy that seems to be working is keeping him occupied, such as lots of transitions, to keep his mind off being alone. As soon as I stop this though he starts shouting and getting worked up/upset.
Due to his lack of schooling and having no where to school him to teach him much I’m struggling with what to do to keep him busy. I was doing eight strides trot to eight strides walk but I’m worried I’ve taught him a bad habit as he keeps trotting off with other riders so I’ve stopped with that for now. He’s also still learning that leg doesn’t always mean faster so I’m attempting to teach him leg yielding.
Does anyone have any ideas on what else I could do with him to keep his mind off being alone? Many thanks!

 

[be positive]

He sounds as if he is suffering from separation anxiety, often when they have lived alone they really struggle once they have a more normal life so you are doing well if he is improving generally.
The schooling will take time and while keeping him occupied is good you need to mix things up a bit so he does not learn to anticipate and create other problems, try to avoid sticking to a set number of strides, if he feels as if he is about to move up into trot after a certain amount of walk do something different, a halt, a few steps of leg yield to keep him listening and doing something positive rather than just staying in walk, if the trot is going well go a bit further than a set amount of strides but do something interesting, what you can do depends on your route but there maybe somewhere you can fit in a few circles or a turn on the forehand, a few steps of rein back, to keep him thinking, ponies are clever and I have known a few that quickly learn to count if you repeat an exercise too often, they are really just feeling the riders weight or body change but they can be very switched on especially if they are enjoying the work.

If you have poles using a few just randomly set out in a field, if you have access to one for riding ,that you can use in walk, trot over or circle round will give you both a new focus, there are loads of exercises you can try and many can be done out hacking although it is harder to do you just need to use your imagination and as he gets better things become easier.