Hey y’all, it’s Krista with SaddleBox and for today’s video, I’m going to give you a few tips for bonding with maybe a new horse or a younger horse or a horse that’s just not used to people in general.
So one thing you don’t want to do when you’re trying to bond with a new horse is to go in and just try to walk up to them and catch them right away, you kind of want them to come up to you. So you want to draw them to you and kind of spark their curiosity, making them comfortable to where they can if they want and of course they don’t have to if they want.
So the horse I am using for this video is a foal. Really, this applies to any horse no matter the age. The difference with babies is they probably have a little bit less of an attention span than an older horse might, so you want to give them more breaks. But basically it’s all the same principle of approach and retreat.
So I’m not just going to go straight up to him. He’s had a few human interactions, like I’ve pet on him a little bit, but I’m not just going to overcrowd him and make him uncomfortable, I’m going to let him come to me if he wants. So I’m going to walk this way, see how he’s looking at me right there? So I walked out of his space. He’s looking at me right now, so I’m to walk over here, just like that. And if I feel like he’s comfortable enough and I’m comfortable enough, I may just offer a little pet, and then I’ll walk away.
You don’t want to do what I call “overstay your welcome” and just pet on him and him get uncomfortable and walk away, because then the interaction didn’t go well and you want to make every interaction with your horse go as you walking away from them and not them walking away from you, if that makes sense.
I may just kind of come up to him, rub him for a second, and then I’m going to walk away right there. And so see how when I walk away, he’s kind of curious about me, he’s like, where did you go? And right here, he’s going to come right up to me, so I’m going to kind of pet on him for a second, he seems to enjoy that, and then I’m just going to walk away because again, I don’t want our interaction to end with him walking away from me, I want to make sure that I’m kind of in control of the situation and he doesn’t feel like he has to run away from me.
You always want to end on a good note when you’re doing this kind of thing. Don’t have your horse run away from you and then you leave and teach them that yeah, okay, that was good. You want the interaction to always end on a good note. So if I were to end here and kind of walk up to him a little bit, reach out my arm, pet him, and then I’ll walk away.
Alright y’all, that’s it for this one, I hope you enjoyed it and I’ll see you in the next one. Bye guys!