Horses are naturally wary of new objects in their environment. Their natural suspicion can be manifested in different ways – some of which can be explosive and dangerous if they are pushed too close or too fast.
Entering and exiting natural states of arousal is critical to building a horse’s ability to understand and tolerate unexpected events or objects. Experience with manageable anxiety can give a horse confidence in the particular situation as well as grow his tolerance of anxiety generally across all unfamiliar, stress-inducing situations.
Introducing them to a log on the trail, a mailbox on the roadside, a fallen branch, a ditch, a gully, a stream, or any other unusual elements in your riding environment is necessary for a relaxed and safe ride.
Desensitizing them to obstacles involves many of the same procedures discussed in the Squeeze exercise and discussed in The Spooky Horse Discussion.
Pre-Requisite Exercises:
Your horse should know how to line lunge and how to disengage his rear.
When approaching a potentially scary objest, pay close attention to your horse’s demeanor. If he shows resistance to forward progress, flares his nostrils, snorts, shys away, backs up, throws his head up, he is not ready to approach. Now we start a strategy of showing him that the object is not dangerous. Do all of this on the ground before you try to approach riding.
Step one is to practice the SEND exercise (which he understands from his line longing lessons) at a distance from the object that he finds comfortable.
Stand about 20 feet away from the obstacle if he seems comfortable at that distance. Place him to your left so that if he is asked to move right he will pass between you and the object. Facing him, send him to your right in a half arc. He will anticipate that he should move off and circle you in a clockwise direction. When he has walked or trotted past you and to the right, step in to ask him to stop and disengage his rear. He might be a little confused at the abrupt stop because he has always circled you 360 degrees and not stopped short.
Then send him to the left (back past you to your other side between you and the object). When he is able to pass either direction without stress, re-position yourself a little closer to the object. Gradually lessen the distance between you and the object until he will pass the obstacle in a relaxed and stress-free manner.
The Squeeze exercise in the video below demonstrates this procedure using the fence as the “object”.
Repeat this closer-and-closer lunge until he is trotting past the object up close in a relaxed way.
Then repeat the whole sequence on every side of the obstacle.
Since he is passing while moving, he has not had a lot of time to just investigate the object. Now is the time to introduce him to it in a more forthright way.
Step 2: Walk up to the object. Notice where he becomes nervous or wary. Stop at that point and back up. “Approach and Retreat” is a pattern of work whereby you approach an object, stopping just short of where he wants to stop, and then retreat backward. If you notice that he wants to stop at 10 feet from the object, you stop him at 11 feet. Then back away with him. Allow him to approach it and retreat from it comfortably, and allow him to relax and think between sessions of approaching/retreating.
If he shows interest in investigating the log or mailbox, allow him to reach out to sniff, lick, chew or otherwise get close on his own terms. Watch out that he doesn’t suddenly recoil and step on you. Sometimes his courage is more than he can take past a moment or two.
If you always stop him approaching before he is ready to retreat on his own, you keep control of the “game” and he is not forced to flee. His adrernaline is not raised and his mind remains clear to think the problem through.
The same procedures can be used to de-sensitize a horse to a trailer or a stream or water crossing.