Tell me about ear poms

[Marigold4]

I have a young horse who is very spooky in an indoor school. I go twice a week to the same school and he's still hesitant about the sand and fibre surface - will put in an emergency stop from time to time but better than he was. He has developed a real thing about the spectators' gallery and won't go past it, especially now there's a xmas tree in it. Today started napping rather than go past. He's been to this school tens of times and I'm beginning to lose my sense of humour about it. He seems worse when he can hear noises outside such as leaf blowers.

I have a pair of ear poms but have lost the instructions. How do you put them in? Do they have a calming effect as they claim? Any other suggestions? ?

 

[Flowerofthefen]

With the poms you just squeeze them and push them down the ear as far as they will go. If your horse isn't used to their ears touched you may have to desensitise first. Have you tried ground work around his spooky places in the school?

 

[Marigold4]

With the poms you just squeeze them and push them down the ear as far as they will go. If your horse isn't used to their ears touched you may have to desensitise first. Have you tried ground work around his spooky places in the school?

Thanks for the ear poms advice. I'll give a go. Yes, we've done hours of groundwork in this school and he responds well to it, but it's a different story ridden. - he doesn't seem able to transfer what's he learnt on the ground to the saddle. I had entered an intro dressage for Sunday but I think I'll pull out - there's not a lot of point if we can't get within 10 feet of E!

 

[Annagain]

Is he better with a nice calm horse to help him? It might be worth going H/C and getting a friend to stand in there with him if you can.

 

[LegOn]

They can help - I've used the lambswool ones before cause they are easier to pull out! And my horse is very ear twitchy!

Sometimes they need you to be braver than the thing though - have you tried talking or shouting really loudly while riding to totally distract him and bamboozle him a little bit into not focusing on one spooky thing! And when he settles and starts trying to focus on you, when go quiet and give him some rein - he will soon learn you are more annoying than the thing he is scared of!! I worked really well with my horse when he was younger, still does but he is less anxious now thankfully but that only came with age really!

Also give him lots of extra work in the area he can work in and when he comes to the spooky end, relax & give him rein - so he associates the 'spooky' side with being allowed to relax and not with work! Reverse psychology

 

[Marigold4]

Is he better with a nice calm horse to help him? It might be worth going H/C and getting a friend to stand in there with him if you can.

Nice idea and that would be lovely, but even if you are entering HC, you still have to obey BD rules so I wouldn't be allowed a friend, sadly.

 

[Marigold4]

They can help - I've used the lambswool ones before cause they are easier to pull out! And my horse is very ear twitchy!

Sometimes they need you to be braver than the thing though - have you tried talking or shouting really loudly while riding to totally distract him and bamboozle him a little bit into not focusing on one spooky thing! And when he settles and starts trying to focus on you, when go quiet and give him some rein - he will soon learn you are more annoying than the thing he is scared of!! I worked really well with my horse when he was younger, still does but he is less anxious now thankfully but that only came with age really!

Also give him lots of extra work in the area he can work in and when he comes to the spooky end, relax & give him rein - so he associates the 'spooky' side with being allowed to relax and not with work! Reverse psychology

I like the reverse psychology thing! I'll try it. I think he'll be a great horse when he's about 20 - age certainly does play a big part in this silly behaviour. Even if you did very little with a horse, they'd mostly be more sensible a couple of years later

 

[nutjob]

I wouldn't be allowed a friend, sadly.

You should be allowed a friend to go in and call your test for you. They cannot always stand where you would want in an indoor however. Unless the rules have changed you are not allowed to put anything in your horses ears for dressage. You are allowed the acoustic ear covers though, these made a massive difference to my horse.