The first month with Enzo was hard and full of long hours of patience...
Imagine an ex-wild stallion, coming off the trailer and into a new, unknown environment, with a weird human that keeps trying to get close to him.
Yes, that's right. My very first goal for Enzo was to be able to touch him, in order to later put a halter on him and jump on to all the other steps of training. He did already have a halter that was put on him while he was forced in a chute, but I could reach out and grab it to clip a lead rope to it.
But Enzo was so afraid of me and even more more of my hands. He was afraid of rapid movements and always kept the same, big distance between him and I.
I tried some round-penning and join-up techniques, but he got so frightened I was afraid he would jump my fences. No matter how long I made him run around me, he would NEVER come to me in the middle to rest. Eventually, I was able to walk slowly up to him and crouch there. But at the slightest movement from my hands, he ran away.
One day, I was finally ablt to come close enough to touch him on the shoulder and he reacted as if I had given him an electric shock. He bolted and ran for a long time and then refused to have me even close to him for several days...
I made tons of reseach, because I knew we were going nowhere like this. I decided to try using positive reinforcement techniques, which is usually quite frowned upon in the world of horse training. I just didn't see any other solutions!
I introduced to him a bridge signal, which automatically meant that he was going to recieve food soon. He understood the concept in only 15 minutes despite his great shyness and suddenly, his curiosity was piqued. The only food I used for his training was hay, as he was too afraid of my hands to even touch them with his lips, so I couldn't give him grain or carrots. He also had no idea what grain or carrots were.
In one day, using these new training methods, I was able to teach him to touch my hand with his nose. This is what I called targeting and he was quick to understand the concept. After almost two weeks of not being able to touch him, this was almost a miracle to me!
After using the targeting cue to help him gain confidence around me, I was able to teach him to target his halter. This is how I taught him how to dive his head into the halter himself.
Once I was able to put a halter on him, the next step was to teach him how to lead. In order to properly lead, a horse has to know how to yeild to pressure at the poll (behind the ears). Or that's what I thought, anyway... I had no idea there was other ways!
Enzo did NOT like feeling that pressure on his poll. His instinct was yelling to fight the pressure and escape.
But with lots of time, patience, and compassion, he did eventually learn how to lead peacefully and politely.
So that's what the first month of training my wild horse was all about : first touch, putting the halter on, and learning how to lead.
This was in the middle of December 2023 and the weather didn't allow me to traing Enzo every day, so overall, this was 25 days of training.
If you liked this article, or if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to comment!
Bellow is the recap video of our first month together :
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