Hi, all!

I hope everyone is having a wonderful, sunny spring. So, as of May 4th, I've had my lovely PMU filly Freya for 5 months now. Ahhh, how time does fly. She probably just turned two years old (the farm she came from wasn't sure about her exact birthdate but said it was sometime in April/May) and she's blossoming beautifully. Her haunches are sitting at about 15 hands right now, so I'm really interested to see how big she turns out to be (she's mostly draft, but doesn't really look that much like it).

Anyhow, back to the subject at hand. In five months, I've learned a lot about rescue horse training, and I figured I'd share the major points with y'all. Had I known some of these things prior to adopting, it would certainly have been helpful.

Just to give you a bit of background on myself, I've been a lifelong horse person -- been riding, showing, and training since I was a wee one and I'm in my mid-20s now. I've trained young horses before, but Freya (my PMU filly) is the first completely untrained horse I've had. The others were at least halter trained and people-friendly.

Prior to Freya's arrival in December, I dutifully read everything I could on natural horsemanship training and gentling methods - John Lyons, Clinton Anderson, Tellington-Jones, you name it. I'd talked to a lot of PMU adopters, too, so I had a pretty good game plan worked out -- or so I reasoned. Most unhandled horses, with the right techniques and a lot of TLC, will come around in a matter of days, weeks, or even a few months.

Freya has been a different case and certainly more of a challenge. I'm not really sure what happened to her back at the PMU farm, but I think it's safe to say that whatever it was, it was pretty darn ugly. She is absolutely terrified of any human contact. When I first got her, she wouldn't even come over to eat from her hay feeder if there was a human standing even remotely near the outside of her paddock. Back then if you even moved a hand -- even if it was just a move of the wrist next to your hip -- she would cower and shake in fear, thinking she was going to be hit. It's really sad to see, because she is such a sweet girl! Doesn't have a mean bone in her body, and she so wants to do the right thing!

While she did make some steps towards progress, she could never get over this fear of being touched. I could get her to eat hay out of my hand and touch her nose when she was eating, but that's it.

So, I tried all the usual techniques. I spent many, many hours sitting in her pen, just hanging out to get her accustomed to my presence. I tried press and release exercises to get her to "join up" or "hook on" -- whatever your preferred term is. She would come up to me, and she'd even follow me around, but she was still terrified of being touched. She's a very smart girl and learns quickly, but she simply couldn't forget whatever it was that happened.

Living in a "horsey" community, there was no shortage of people wanting to chime in with advice. "Did you try this?" "Yes." "How about this?" "Yep, that too." "Well, you must not be doing it right!" Nope, it wasn't that... A nice couple at the barn where I board has helped me extensively with her... We've worked with her using natural horsemanship methods, and despite their extensive experience with rescue and abused horses, nothing we thought of changed Freya's mind about people.

Finally, a trainer who works at my vet's office and I came to the idea of trying bamboo pole gentling on Freya. It's a technique that a lot of mustang trainers use on horses newly off the range. The basic idea is that your horse becomes accustomed to being touched by this long bamboo pole (or you can use bamboo fronds or anything lightweight and as non-threatening as possible). The horse figures out that the pole won't hurt him/her, then you progressively move in closer until you're the one touching the horse, not the pole.

Most horses come around using the bamboo pole method in a matter of days or maybe weeks. (If you want to learn more about bamboo pole training, I strongly recommend checking out trainer Kitty Lauman's videos on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/laumantr. She goes through the entire process of training a mustang from start to finish, and I found it incredibly helpful.)

We've had to go a lot slower with Freya due to her "issues" but I'm happy to say that as of this last Wednesday, she has decided that it's OK to be touched by the pole. In fact, being scratched by it feels pretty nice This is the first time she's ever felt good about being touched by anything, and I couldn't be more pleased. I'm hoping that in a couple weeks, maybe we can progress so that she's being touched by me. We'll see... But after 5 months, I've learned that some horses just need to move at a different pace.

Here are the other major points I've learned through my work with Freya:

• Get to know your rescue horse really well. If you can "read" your horse and his/her reactions, you can determine what's working and what isn't.
  
• Don't be afraid to ask for advice or help, but don't be afraid to disregard any of the advice that doesn't feel right. Some people tried telling me that lunging Freya and pushing her harder and harder was the way to get her to come around. It wasn't. That didn't feel right to me. I know my horse the best, and I'm not going to do something that feels wrong for her.
  
• If the rescue organization your horse is coming from tells you that they need to put a halter on your horse before shipping, make sure they use a *rope* halter tied fairly loosely. A HUGE concern I had with Freya is that she came with a too-small nylon halter that they forced on her while she was in a chute at the PMU farm. She's a growing girl, and I was seriously afraid the halter was going to grow into her face before she'd allow me to take it off. This isn't a problem for probably 95% of adopters, but it your new rescue horse ends up needing more time like my Freya, it is much better to be safe than sorry. Thankfully, Freya managed to get her halter off herself, but if she hadn't, it would have gotten scary.
  
• Understand not all horses progress at the same speed! I kept on wondering why it is that it's taken my filly so much longer than others. Is it me? Why can't I fix this? Don't come in with set expectations, because that can lead to disappointment when it really shouldn't.
  
• Not all training exercises work on every horse. True, there are some that more often work than others, but different horses just react, well, differently. Strangely enough, Freya has been OK pretty early on with having her feet and lower legs touched with the bamboo pole, whereas most horses (even a lot of trained ones) would completely freak. Most of the time, you start at the withers first with bamboo pole desensitizing, but that just wasn't working for her.
  
• Learn to improvise! Many exercises need to be adapted to fit certain horses
  
• Fencing matters - big time. Part of my early problem was that the area Freya in was too square. I recently got new panel fencing for her, made it a slight smaller enclosure and rounded it out, and it's made a huge difference on our bamboo pole work. Horses tend to get panicked in corners and not know what to do, so making it round was a huge step in the right direction. Steel panel fencing is nice, too, because you can move it around relatively easily and customize it for what you're doing.
  
• Most importantly, take life as it comes and have fun! Were there days that I was a little down when our progress was slow? Sure. But I've come to appreciate the little steps in the right direction.

I hope that's helpful for some of you. Experiences differ between people, but that's just what's worked for Freya and me. More than anything else, I wanted anyone out there who may not be having the easiest go with a new rescue horse to know that you're not alone. You *will* find something that works with time, patience, hard work, and dedication. It hasn't always been the smoothest journey for me and Freya, but I signed on for an adventure when I adopted her, and that's what I got. You know, I wouldn't trade it for anything. I love my PMU rescue horse and would do it again in a heartbeat

Happy spring,

Kristin

Hi Kristin,
If it helps any, my colt was about 15 hds. at a year and he's about 18 hds at almost 4!! Sounds like she's going to be big. Good thing you got her now so you can get her through her fear issues before she's bigger

I think our experience was more typical. Cody was basically halter broke and would tie but he was very fearful, we had to move slowly, touch him gently and be very careful around him. If he wasn't already caught, we had to herd him into a stall. He would flee as soon as we got within 5 feet of him and run back and forth, threatening to jump over the 5' fence at the PMU ranch.

Once we got him home, we put him in a small corral with no other horses around and did the hanging out with him, giving him lots of treats and when we could, scratching him. Within a week he was significantly better and by 2 wks. he let us just walk up to him. I don't think he ever had any bad experiences really, just not much experience with people at all.

He's a big puppy dog now, a really big puppy dog. I hope your filly comes around and bless you for being so patient with her. We have a POA pony who was obviously abused and had to use many NHS techniques to gain some trust but I don't know if he will ever totally get over his past. I think he is mostly happy now, not terrified anymore though so I'm good with that.

Do you have any recent pictures? I bet she's changed a lot since you got her!

Dana

That was a great post. I am sure there are adopters that can use this information!

Thanks, Dana and Aprylsnow. Freya's been progressing VERY nicely this month. I'm happy to report that from the bamboo pole, she moved on to be touched by the handi-stick (wow, are those ever great - just like having an arm extension), and now she's being touched quite comfortably by me!! I couldn't be happier! She's a little edgier about having her neck/face touched, and we're working on her issues with having her right side handled, but she has sure come a long ways. I can come up and scratch her on the rump and she actually enjoys it!

Yesterday (Saturday, May 25th) we had our first ever grooming session with the curry comb. Today she was curried and brushed. She handled it like an old pro - never even batted an eye. Here are some more recent pics of my lovely Freya. The first one is her just hanging out in her stall (boy, did I ever have a heck of a time taking her photo by myself -- all she wanted to do was follow me around!). Next one is of her first ever grooming yesterday, and the last one is Freya doing her favorite thing -- being fed treats by mom.







Cheers,

Kristin

Kristen, Freya is a beautiful filly. I am so glad you have progressed so much with her! How is she doing now?

What a good post, and what a beautiful filly! How is everything going now? I found your post really helpful.

Great! I'm glad y'all enjoyed it Freya is such a cutie. Her color keeps on changing, too. She's really a black horse, but she got all bleached out starting in spring and is now starting to turn black again -- go figure.

Anyway, she's been coming along really nicely. I think probably the most important thing I've gained from owning her is the ability to gage a horse's reaction, so I can tell from subtle hints she gives how she's responding to cues and adjust my approach accordingly. I've figured out it doesn't work to try to push a horse past what they're ready to learn, so we do things at a pace that works for her. Ahhh, patience is a virtue I'm learning all about.

She's doing really great now. We're still working on the whole halter training thing (she's tweaky about having anything put around her face due to past handling at the PMU farm, but she's getting better every day). So, I've been working her with a loose rope around her neck instead with great results. She's learning to yield to pressure and starting to figure out what this leading business is all about. I think the best part of the process is that she enjoys our lessons, so is a willing partner in what she learns. She ADORES being groomed now and comes out to stand absolutely still for me when I'm grooming her. I can brush both sides of her now all over -- even legs -- and she just eats up all attention. It's almost impossible to tell now that her right side was her "uncomfortable" side; she's gotten over most of those issues. Sometimes I just stand there for a while and scratch her all over thinking, "wow -- this is the horse that couldn't be touched for months!" It's been such a rewarding experience, and I'm really glad I adopted her.