Days 22-24 - Hobbling and etc

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Side-line hobbles, one-legged hobble and regular hobbles

The end result? A soft eye patiently waiting.

I was pretty excited today to finally teach Sophie about hobbling. This is one of those lessons that is essentially hard to teach (at least for me!) but rewarding in the fact that you can see results pretty quickly if its done right.

I never understood the importance of hobbling, and unfortunately I had to learn the hard way that it is pretty dang important. You may wonder why I say that and I will paint you a picture to help you understand. Say you have a horse that has very little training and/or has never experienced ropes or hobbles and he stumbles upon some barb wire hidden in the sage brush. What would he do if he became trapped? Chances are he would panic. If that wire somehow got wrapped around a leg or...heaven forbid a neck, well. Let's just say you might not have that horse for very much longer. I have been around horses for too long to underestimate how stupid crazy they can be sometimes (and believe me, I've seen some crazy!) Which is why I believe that EVERY horse needs to be trained- at least to the point that if they DID happen to get into trouble, they would be smart enough to not struggle and to wait for someone to come save them. Sure, they might get hungry in the process, but I'd rather see that than a dead or dying horse the next morning I went out to see them in the pasture.

Which leads me to my lesson. The reason why I say it is hard to teach, is because I am essentially taking the horse's legs away from him. A horse always knows their instinct to run, and if something impairs their ability to run they think it is the end of the world and you may as well give them to the lions. It is my job to teach them that even though they only stand on 3 legs or are hobbled, they will survive if they think their way out. It really forces a horse's brain to search for an answer and to not use the fight or flight reaction so much. It teaches the horse patience and humbleness and it allows them to wait for a person to come save them. Essentially, in a world where the horse searches for us to be their leaders it also helps develop a mutual sense of trust and respect.

I highly recommend Clinton Anderson's Hobbling DVD if anyone reading this is interested in more information. You can see him work a couple of horses and you can see for yourself what the results are. It's just all stuff that a horse needs to know to be a good horse citizen. The more you know the safer you are.