New (terrified) colt - join up or sit it out and bore him?

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Coo

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Hi there, so tonto as he is currently known arrived yesterday and I turns out is even less handled than I knew previously, he is a beautiful 2yr cremello colt, currently a very leggy fine bred 13.2 (looks a hell of a lot larger to me but I can't get near him to measure) he unloaded ok but hasn't really a clue how to walk on a rope, and is incredibly nervous of every movement and sound, he's a nice little chap though - his last owner told me that he could be a bit cheeky to catch but I think honestly it's more fright, he's only had human contact since June and I don't even know how much of that he's had, he has been running just about wild since June even it seems, I managed to get near him yesterday afternoon after turning him out in the morning with a headcollar on, thigh he is jumpy he seems ok (ish) once you have a hold of his head...anyway, this morning I went to check on him and he had ditched his headcollar over night gah! Now I can not get within reaching distance, in two hours this morning I managed to eventually get from 6 ft where he would run a mile to sitting on the floor with him grazing about a foot away with one big blue eye on me ;) - I'm a big believer in natural horsemanship principles and want to start getting into clicker training. Obviously the first major hurdle is getting him to be happy to be caught and come to me! He has no idea of a treat (I'd rather give a rub or a scratch than a treat but in this case I'd do anything just to get a headcollar back on him)yesterday when I managed to get near with his halter on I offered poles and carrots but he kept his mouth shut and didn't want to know :) - now in this situation where the first hurdle and really most important is to get him happy for me to put on and take off a headcollar without stressing him or spending 3 hours trying to do so...would you recommend just sitting it out everyday spending a hour or so in the hope he eventually gets so bored he will come up to me, or should I get him in a round pen and try join up so he feels he has a place in his herd? I know join up isn't ideal for very terrified horses and especially colts... What worked for you? Xx
 
Not a fan of join up.

Id get hold of him, put him in a stable and keep him in for a few days so that he can get used to being handled. I would then turn him out in a small turnout area only, making it easier for you to catch and continue handling.
 
I wish I could, no option of a stable for him sadly though, he's got a relatively small section of his paddock fenced off with electric but even the I'm walking miles just trying to follow him in the hope to get near, there's nowhere inside I can put him at all :(
 
I should add, I did think about keeping him in an even smaller paddock area for a few days but because he's used to such huge roaming space he seemed very stressed even in a small areas 4 times the size that I thought of, he constantly shakes his head at the electric fence in frustration x
 
I agree with anymay, I had a pony who wad similar to your fella and join up just didn't work with him, he was still terrified of me after an hour or so of trying. I kept him in for a few days and worked out that if I walked backwards towards him really slowly I could catch him, just everything had to be ridiculously slow and calm. He then got turned out in a small paddock and eventually he was good enough that I could have him out in a big field with no headcollar left on and could catch him most of the time :)
 
No I wouldn't be doing join up, fear can sometimes turn to aggression and you don't want that

I would fence off a smaller area or get him into your smaller paddock a couple of times a day and give him a small bucket feed, gradually get closer til you can hold the bucket while he's eating then move on to a few strokes until he trusts you enough to let you near him with a headcollar
 
Wheels said:
No I wouldn't be doing join up, fear can sometimes turn to aggression and you don't want that

I would fence off a smaller area or get him into your smaller paddock a couple of times a day and give him a small bucket feed, gradually get closer til you can hold the bucket while he's eating then move on to a few strokes until he trusts you enough to let you near him with a headcollar
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Yep, I agree.
 
amymay said:
Not a fan of join up.

Id get hold of him, put him in a stable and keep him in for a few days so that he can get used to being handled. I would then turn him out in a small turnout area only, making it easier for you to catch and continue handling.
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I would agree with this. Our little girl (14 month Connie x) was delivered yesterday and we've put her in a large stable (16 x 14) while she gets used to us (and the chickens and goats)! We are just cracking on in the barn and letting her get used to the sights and sounds. So far she's happy to be led and pick up her feet and have a scratch. In a few days, she'll be turned out into a small paddock for the day and back in at night just so she gets used to basic handling. She was shaking with fear when she arrived (first time in a trailer), but she's taking it all in. Good luck with him he does sound lovely :)

Oh, sorry - I've just seen your post about no stable :eek:
 
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You could try a couple of things. I think my preferred option would be to just hang out with him in his small section (presuming he is on his own). I'd just sit in his field and totally ignore him, not even look at him, until he comes up and touches you,then get up and walk a few yards and sit again. Don't try to trick him into getting the head collar on or he will lose more trust (unless you have to get it on fast for some reason). Eventually you will be able to offer him a rub and then leave. Building it up gradually.

Try to sit it out in the first instance probably nicest way forward.

Remember the best reward for a horse being a prey animal is to be left alone, food is more a predator related reward.
 
Wonderful replies, thank you all, next year we will have stables, so frustrated that I can't do this with him now but hey ho I'll just have to get creative :) glad that join up is not right, I had but feeling this wouldn't suit him the only time I've use join up is to rehab horses with bad habits... I'll try and fence off a very small area and see if I can tempt him with some food, he's only just realised the water bucket isn't petrifying though so who knows how the food in a bucket will work, worth a try though for sure, thank to, when I managed to get a hold of him yesterday to swap over what was a horrible dangerous headcollar for a better fitting one (which he subsequently got off ha ha!!) he was ok with being stroked and even pushed into a good head scratch and rub of his withers, I totally think he wants to be near humans, he just doesn't know why or how or what to expect, he will indeed be great fun, I can't wait to really get a bond with him and start clicker training, at the moment he is terrified of the sound of a carrot being snapped in half so it's going to be a loooooooong (but fun) road :))
 
I got a feral yearling in March off the welsh commons. The kindest thing is to find him a nice friend to go in with him so he will get his confidence from them and go in little and often so you are just part of the furniture. Mine will come up to me now in the field but will only be caught with a carrot.
 
I had a very timid lad that I couldn't get anywhere near. OH and I used to take books and chairs to the field every evening and just sit and read. Every day the lad got closer and closer, and I would chat to him when he got near. After a few days he was nuzzling my shoulder and allowed me to stroke his nose. He would come to me as soon as he saw me after a week and OH and I never had a problem catching him again. Still wouldn't let anyone else near him though!
 
I got my welsh as a un handled yearling, I turned him out with my others, spent lots of time in the field making a fuss of them, while he watched on. Did plenty of approach and retreat. 3 weeks later he came to me of his own accord, he's never been a moments trouble. Depends if you want to give him the time to sort it out himself or "make" him come to you
 
This is very encouraging, partly knowing he will come along and partly knowing I really can trust my instincts, I like to think I have a good connection with equines in general, I've been around them since I could walk though have had a few years of non ownership - I've always had a way of feeling I can understand what they are wanting, but though I've worked with many stallions and young colts I've never worked with a frightened colt, only frightened geldings and fillies or colts who were boysterous but used to human company, he will be gelded once the flies are gone, along with my little mini shetland who is super duper company and a real little gem of a boy, once both gelded they will be field companions, just not sure about them being together at the moment as the shetland is a stallion ATM... Thanks all, sitting and reading it is them, will offer him food in a bucket too on the off chance it helps, I definitely do not want to make him do anything, we will be work partners and not a step aside from that, it's never been my way to make anyone do things, I believe we should offer the same respec we expect, it's worked so far, hopefully soon it will with young Tonto too :). Don't know how to post pics on here but they are saved in album on my profile - am very much in love :) xx
 
Find somewhere where you can temporarily keep him stabled, otherwise I suspect you are fighting a losing battle. Do you have an older well behaved horse he can learn from?
 
Coo said:
This is very encouraging, partly knowing he will come along and partly knowing I really can trust my instincts, I like to think I have a good connection with equines in general, I've been around them since I could walk though have had a few years of non ownership - I've always had a way of feeling I can understand what they are wanting, but though I've worked with many stallions and young colts I've never worked with a frightened colt, only frightened geldings and fillies or colts who were boysterous but used to human company, he will be gelded once the flies are gone, along with my little mini shetland who is super duper company and a real little gem of a boy, once both gelded they will be field companions, just not sure about them being together at the moment as the shetland is a stallion ATM... Thanks all, sitting and reading it is them, will offer him food in a bucket too on the off chance it helps, I definitely do not want to make him do anything, we will be work partners and not a step aside from that, it's never been my way to make anyone do things, I believe we should offer the same respec we expect, it's worked so far, hopefully soon it will with young Tonto too :). Don't know how to post pics on here but they are saved in album on my profile - am very much in love :) xx
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Oh, he's lovely!
 
Another one who says find yourself a good book and go sit in the field with him. It will take time (some take days, some take a couple of weeks), but eventually he will get curious and come closer. Slow and sure will win his trust. Don't be in a hurry because the time taken now will pay off later.
I did this with a feral yearling filly and she ended up trusting me 100%. This was most apparent when out riding on a busy A road (years ago!) and army tanks came rumbling past us something that was out of the ordinary. She didn't turn a hair and she was only 5 then. Was very proud of her.
 
he unloaded ok and is ok to touch, rub and stroke once you have hold of him and you managed to changed headcollars with too much trouble? in the photos his feet look good too so it looks like they have been trimmed.

he looks and sounds more like a pony that has been grabbed when people have got close enough rather than an unhandled pony, what his owner said leads me to think the same too.

sounds like you just need to spend time on him, a stable would be the quickest way but it can be done in a filed with approach and retreat methods, when you do get up to him give him a stroke then turn around and walk away keep doing this as often as you can until he understands that you are not going to grab him, be warned even when he is ok he is likely to have off days if he is spooked and on those days he may revert back to being suspicious
 
Here is a method that I came across the other day:

"I am going to suggest something that is the opposite of what you've been advised, and that is to not do anymore chasing/deliberately electing a flight response in your colt.
We recently took ownership of a completely unhandled two year old colt whose only experience of people was having a rope thrown at his head, causing him to demolish the stable he was in and cause himself an injury.
We used the approach developed by Australian trainer Kell Jeffery, known as advance retreat. It is a form of habituation and negative reinforcement (pressure-release). We (OH and me) coaxed the colt into a small space made of rubber lined round yard panels. We let him settle and then slowly decreased the size of the space until he could no longer turn around. This took 40 minutes because we made sure we stopped any stimulus change the second he started to react to it. Once the panels were in place we left him alone until he showed signs of relaxation- slightly lowered head carriage, sighing, big snorts.
I then began approaching him- always stopping and standing still when he showed signs of anxiety. The aim is to teach the horse that the pressure of you will go away only when he is calm. You use just enough pressure to get the beginning of a reaction and then stop. You wait until he relaxes or stops trying to escape and then move away. Over a period of about 20 minutes, we used this approach to be able to touch him. We then repeated over another 30 mins to get a halter on. We then took another 30 mins to teach enough of a leading response to get him on a float and drive for 2 hours to get him home. Because he'd had the time with the panels he had habituated to the feeling of the float on his sides and didn't move a muscle during the trip.
We repeated the sessions in the yard at home, except that he was free to trot a few steps away if he wanted. The aim at all times was to never use enough pressure to make that happen. Providing food and using clicker training at this point also helped- he had to get in close enough to get a food reward which speeded up his habituation to being handled. In two sessions we were able to walk up to him quite normally and touch him all over. After another few more days we could lead him outside the yard and then out in a paddock. When he got out into a paddock of 12 other horses I was able to catch him and lead him back to his yard despite everything else going bunta around us. Three months later (and gelded) and with very little handling since the initial sessions, he will canter up to us in the paddock and lead anywhere. He is bold and inquisitive towards me and other people, even those he doesn't know.
The aim at all times is to never activate the HPA (adrenaline) axis and to use his behaviour to tell us when we have pushed too far. Anytime he attempted to flee us we knew we'd used too much pressure. I use this approach with any nervous horse, as well as with our foals and get the same results, though depending on the horse the time can vary.
I never want my to think that a flight response is a worthwhile choice when confronted with an aversive stimuli when he is with me. And I certainly never want him to think that running away from me will ever solve a problem he has with what I am doing.
Join-up works due to the approach and follow behaviour being negatively reinforced by release from with being chased (and likely frightened if chased hard).
While the method we used took a bit longer, it enabled us to firstly catch and load our colt in an environment where the fences were made of electric tape and barbed wire (thus not suitable for join-up), and secondly, it minimised the activation of his HPA axis and over-rode what he leaned before- that flight from people would be rewarded. By preventing him from putting any distance between himself and us, he habituated to the presence of a person within his flight distance and then to the feeling of being touched etc.
The principles described above are how most police forces now train their horses to not be frightened of things like crowds and fireworks.
That you are having difficulties, perhaps due to chasing too hard is indicative of some of the problems with using contrast with flight to reward behaviour.
If you can get hold of it, Maurice Wright's video of the Jeffery Method is well worth a watch as you can achieve the same training outcomes(being able to catch, handle and train your horse) without needing to chase the horse away.
Good luck"

I'm not saying this is the answer or IH but maybe a little bit of that and common sense combined? Anyway, I'm sure you'll do fine - I always find colts are very quick to want to interact.
 
I would put him in with a very people oriented companion and let him learn that human contact = pleasure. I haven't yet met a horse that hasn't learned to enjoy a tasty treat.

ETA, I certainly wouldn't try join-up, he's wary enough already.
 
That's a good point, his hooves are not in the best condition to be honest up close, I'm not sure if he was ok being led off the trailer because he was ok or terrified to be honest, but he definitely does seem to expect to be grabbed, I know he definitely has not been handled a lot because he really hasn't got a clue about anything, I think the likely thing is he has been sedated to have feet done but before hand he has been caught and wrestled with to be held onto, he just seems flighty so you may well be right about the grabbing thing, I will start heading down with a book and see what he does, at least he doesn't just bolt off to the other side of the field when I sit down near him, I can walk (backwards) to within about 2 feet of his shoulder without him being too skittish and then if I sit on the floor he will graze near me of his own free will so i have some hope, it'll just take a while I suppose to even be able to touch him, we will see, yesterday when I let go of his headcollar a couple of times he would still stand by me and even after he walked off if I headed towards him again he would let me touch him, I think he knows he's impossible to get near without a headcollar on :):) but I want him to want to come near rather than feeling like I am forcing myself on him, if this fails to work in a few weeks of trying I will see if I can borrow a stable from somewhere :) thanks so much xx
 
hi - good luck with your new boy! I too would not recommend Join Up - to do it with entires you have to be extremely experienced. (apologies if you are but just pointing that out in case not!). There is a great book by Sarah Weston called 'No Fear, No Force' which takes you step by step through handling a foal. Works best on completely unhandled foals, yours sounds as though he has been a bit scared by handling in the past, but definitely worth purchasing for about £16. Hope you have great fun together. Oh, and I too would recommend putting him with company - he will be far less generally stressed and his brain will work better for you.
 
Put them together the shettie will put the colt in its place and because it is timid it will not fight him as a stallion would, it will give him more confidence too, and make joining up easier as shettie is human friendly.
 
I would normally say to someone who was interested in clicker training to look at Hannah Dawson's videos on hard to catch horses - and I would definitely recommend you do that once you're over this stage :) Your problem just now is what's technically called "salience". Food is definitely a reward for horses and is a powerful tool in training - but currently he is too frightened for the food you offer to override his desire to stay safe (the food available to him in his field, when he feels safe, is still clearly rewarding and comforting both).

Another person who uses clicker/positive reinforcement, but who's less well known in the UK is a lady from Denmark called Ellen Ofstadn. She has a whole series of videos on "catching" an uncatchable horse - who is too frightened to be motivated by an offer of food. If you have a look, the techniques are quite simple and you could use them (you already have been using some of them :) ).
This is a link to the first video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D01tT8iLx-0

If you can make progress there, you can teach him to accept food (start with something he will recognise as tasty - carrots may be unfamiliar to him) - those long weeds with the purple flowers (rosebay willow herb) are all over the hedgerows just now and horses seem to love them - he can learn to take that, as well as a shallow bucket with a little tasty feed. Once he is confident enough to accept food, you can use it in training (and not only that, it helps build a positive association with your presence).

I would also agree with the idea of getting hold of Sarah Weston's book - but while waiting for that, Ellen's videos are a useful start.
 
Lots of good advice on here. Kindness, time and patience is all you need, I would echo getting him a solid companion, it would make such a difference to him and also Sarah Weston's book and use it as your bible.

ETA he is gorgeous!
 
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micramadam said:
Another one who says find yourself a good book and go sit in the field with him. It will take time (some take days, some take a couple of weeks), but eventually he will get curious and come closer. Slow and sure will win his trust. Don't be in a hurry because the time taken now will pay off later.
I did this with a feral yearling filly and she ended up trusting me 100%. This was most apparent when out riding on a busy A road (years ago!) and army tanks came rumbling past us something that was out of the ordinary. She didn't turn a hair and she was only 5 then. Was very proud of her.
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This! (And the earlier post that said something similar). Take things at his speed, not ours, then trust will come. A sound investment of time and patience now (to the point of meditation!) will pay dividends when you move on with his training. Frustrating I know, we humans want everything yesterday :) Enjoy the quiet time.
 
cheeryplatypus said:
You could try a couple of things. I think my preferred option would be to just hang out with him in his small section (presuming he is on his own). I'd just sit in his field and totally ignore him, not even look at him, until he comes up and touches you,then get up and walk a few yards and sit again. Don't try to trick him into getting the head collar on or he will lose more trust (unless you have to get it on fast for some reason). Eventually you will be able to offer him a rub and then leave. Building it up gradually.

Try to sit it out in the first instance probably nicest way forward.

Remember the best reward for a horse being a prey animal is to be left alone, food is more a predator related reward.
Click to expand...

I was going to put this. It's pressure and release. You being there is pressure, if he approaches you you release the pressure by moving away a little. He learns how to control the pressure, eventually the quickest thing to make you go away is to come straight up to you and let you do what you want to him :) But by then you're not scary anymore
 
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