There’s a pony at the barn where I currently volunteer who is afraid of putting her face in a halter. She had been rescued from an abusive situation and is taking a while to warm up to the idea of voluntarily having something approaching her face. To catch her in the field, usually someone has to put the lead rope around her neck and hold that while wrestling the halter up over her nose. It’s far easier just to halter her when she’s in her stall.
I’m trying to teach her how to put a halter on by shoving her nose into it voluntarily and allowing it to be buckled around her face. This involves hay pellets, the halter, and a clicker. In this case I’m using positive reinforcement- a reward for doing an activity that I’d like her to perform. However, it also involves commitment to a task without an outcome. If things are going well, we may progress from looking in the direction of the halter to briefly putting her nose in the halter in one session. However, some days it’s an accomplishment to even look at the halter. If I continued to try to reach a predefined outcome in each session then it’s possible that the pony could reject the interaction entirely, even with the hay pellet reward attached. The entire process could even become aversive if pushed hard enough. Not only would the halter be unappealing, so would someone approaching with a clicker and hay pellets.
Whether hay pellets and a clicker are used, or a gradual approach and retreat with the halter, the attention and stress level of the pony in question always determines the best outcome of the session. We work on the task, but I always try to keep it below the point where the horse decides it’s too much and flees. The task is mine, but the outcome- that belongs to the horse.
Maeve Birch is the author of the memoir, Standing in a Field With Horses, available now as an eBook on Amazon and Smashwords.
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