The grand plan

After reading about my dilemma with Alan, Billie over at camera-obscura directed me to the Diary of DaVinci, a fearful horse who didn’t want to be touched. From reading through that, and thinking back to Victoria’s story of clicker training her horse Siete, I have come up with a training plan for Alan. And after our first session this morning, I’m very optimistic.

For my clicker-training target, I am using an object that he has never seen and has no reason to fear. It’s a Chuck-it that has very good karma, as I used it to launch a bazillion tennis balls to my beloved yellow lab Annie.

Alan picked up on the touch the Chuck-it/hear a click/get a treat concept in about two seconds. The treat is a tiny piece of carrot or a pellet of equine senior that is so small he has to lick it out of my hand. Once he’s completely comfortable with the Chuck-it and associates it with only positive things, I will use it to scratch his neck and keep progressing until I can scratch him all over. And some day, of course, I hope to be able to rub him with my hand instead of the Chuck-it. I’m committed to three short training sessions every day, and I’m confident this is going to work.

Shorty the farrier was here this morning, and George behaved like a seasoned veteran for his third trimming. Then I had Shorty hold the lead rope while I gave George his spring shots. I was shocked to discover how thick a burro’s skin is compared to a horse’s. I had to really push to insert the needles. But George was a trooper and stood quietly for all three injections. I can only hope that Alan will do the same eight weeks from now.