hi it's Josie and today I'd like to talk to you a little bit about desensitizing your horse somebody
in my basic horse training academy um told me that they have a horse that is scared of the Whip and I
do use a whip as a tool and it's a very valuable tool for me so I thought that I might show you
in here how I desensitize a horse to a whip and I thought I can't really show you what a horse
might do if they're not used to a whip because all of my horses are desensitized to the Whip and
um so that they're just going to stand there while I put the whip on them so I've brought
Grayson in he is 14 months old he has not seen a whip before and has not had one over him
he has had uh he's been bought in and out to have his feet done since he was born um and
he's been to the vet once when he nearly lost his eye bless him but other than that he has not had
a lot of handling he's in at the moment having his yearling work and I'm filming all of that for the
academy and showing um my members how I work on a completely green untrained horse so I thought
he may be a good one to show you because we may get a reaction that you might get to the whip
so all I've done with this boy is taught him to lead like he used to come in and out to get his
feet done but that wasn't leading that was just following me and so I've started I've started
teaching him to lead anyway if you want to know how I teach a horse to lead I'll link that video
up here for you and Grayson's on day four of that today I think but I'm going to show you
how I teach a young horse to or any horse to become desensitized to a whip now when you do
this it's not flooding the old term I'm not going to go into that here but that's basically where
you the horse has no say in what's happening to it and they just become inundated with what
you're doing and then they shut down I watch my horses when I do this and I try to pick up their
smallest cue that tells me they're a little bit nervous about what I'm doing and then I try and
deal with that from there you can see that he's a typical young horse and a colt particularly
he's very chewy on the rope and it doesn't bother me that he choose the rope as long as
he doesn't chew me and you will also see that he doesn't have a lot of understanding of what
he needs to do so he may move around I've done a tiny bit of groundwork with him but not a lot
so the aim of desensitizing a horse is to take notice when the horse tells you it's about it's
worried about what you're doing and then to stop there to not escalate that pressure anymore you
should stop the pressure when the horse gives you the slightest indication of he's worried and then
when he relaxes you should take that pressure away so you're rewarding the fact that he's relaxing
and then you build on that so we're going to do that today I'm not quite sure how this is going
to pan out so we're just going to see so I have a whip here and I promise you he's not he's been
patted all over by me but he's not been patted all over by a whip so there are three things that a
horse will normally react to and have a fright from and they are noise touch and movement and
when you're bringing something towards your horse to desensitize it you're approaching and they can
also be quite upset by approach because that's got movement and if there's noise involved with
that movement well then you're you're doubling the pressure so what I'm going to do is I'm just
going to try to I'll just turn him around here and I'll try to bring the whip up and touch him
and whatever reaction he gives me he gives me and we will deal with so I'm standing far
enough away from him and in the leading lesson I've given him he's learnt that he needs to stay
out of my space so if he has a little spook he's going to go that way and not over the top of me
so I'll just get my whip out here now I'm going to watch him he may not do anything I can't
promise you okay so he lifted his head up there so I stopped the approach of the Whip and then
when he put his head down I took it away so we do this again I'm bringing it here and watching him
his eye stopped and he was staring there he wasn't blinking so I stopped and when he blinked again I
brought it back and if he comes towards it I will take it away so I'm using pressure and release
here and I'm also allowing him to tell me how much pressure he wants when he comes towards it I take
it away I'm I'm rewarding his curiosity as well and if he went to follow it I would just move it
he's telling me that I can come in everything looks pretty relaxed there I look for his
facial features we learn all about this in basic horse training academy on what bits to look for
He stopped blinking he is a bit starey
he's blinked again so I took it away
and this takes as long as it takes guys so and he dropped his head slightly good boy
good boy
good boy good boy so he touched it then he touched it I didn't touch him with
it he touched it good boy so approaching he's touching I take it away now because
because we've done this a few times and he's a little bit better with it I'm just going to
start rubbing on his face I need to be on the same side of the of his body as I'm doing this
oops sorry mate that was fairly poor on your mother's behalf just going to use it on his body
rub him you can see he's got a he's got a little bit of tension there if
you know the signs you can see them I'm just waiting he's actually enjoying that
just waiting a bit I know he's a colt I don't want him chewing on it
and take it away there because he just showed a very small sign of relaxation good boy
I'm gonna come back in here start here move down his body and just keep myself on the same side as
my tool rub him rub him all over now if he was to move now I would keep this wherever
I had it on him here we go and wait until he stops all feet and take it away because
the aim of this is to have him stand nice and still whilst I can get my whip all over him
all right so coming back up here
just rubbing him all over with it coming down here he's obviously not too worried which I
didn't think he would be because I have rubbed him all over from the day he was born I want him to
stand still so I'm now going to take it away when all feet four feet stop because he did go to move
just a quick tip use a nice stiff whip you don't want a whippy dressage whip because
you could accidentally tickle him with it and we don't it's not the aim of tickling him now
the horses are going to be very good on the big meaty parts of their body when you move down
to the thinner bits they might if he was to sort of lift his foot up here he's I
would try to keep the whip on his foot when he put it down I would take it away so you always
have to keep in mind what your end game is am I end game is to be able to put this all over
him with him standing nice and still and that includes all over him so a very good
um place to actually handle sheaths and utters and ticklish bits here this bit's ticklish on a
horse you should be able to get in and rub around there he's just being very very good and up here
I can get in and tickle his sheath or not tickle it that's not what I want to do um touch it sorry
and he he wouldn't bother anyway because I have handled him as a young foal all over
what you do one side of your horse you must do the other side and just because he was good on
that side does not mean he's good on this side and you should start from the very beginning
again so I'll bring this up good boy he looks at it I take it away I'm going to bring this in he
looks at it I take it away gonna bring this in he looks at it I take it away going to bring this in
good boy he touches it I take it away bring this in
he touches it take it away good boy come in
start down this side of his body boy
so if he showed me a sign of tension I would stop well I wouldn't increase the pressure
anymore I would wait if he's enjoying that until he good boy relaxed and then I would take it away
would come up here good boy
rub him all over boy be able to touch everything he's obviously very relaxed there guys we can see
that and I should be able to touch him I should certainly be able to touch in the flank there
that's a little ticklish area of them where you can actually quite often get cow kicked
so that's how I desensitize my horse to the Whip or anything actually it's how I work
through desensitization not flooding letting the horse tell me when he's had enough and when uh
or when he's a little bit anxious and when I need to back off and when I need to move forward so I
hope that helps you and if you're interested in finding out what we do in basic horse training
academy don't forget look in the description of the video there's a link there where I'll
actually take you through and show you what we do thanks for watching foreign [Music]