Brumby has no halter on for the first time in over 12 months! Taking Halo's halter off
This brumby had the same halter on for over 12 months after being trapped from the wild. I cut that off and replaced it with one that is softer on her face the other day. Today I took it off totally. So she is halter free for the first time in a long time.
I groomed her to the base of her tail, her stomach and down the back of her legs. Will work on her back legs tomorrow and then to her tail in a few days. I'm doing this, as she will need to have her feet trimmed and I want her to be comfortable as possible with being handled, so I can pick up her feet and so the farrier will then be able to do the same.
The goal is to get her to trust me enough so I can put her in a paddock with other horses asap and still catch her. She is lonely and I feel sorry for her. A wild horse kept prisoner by humans and now I'm her latest captor. I don't know what she can understand when I talk to her, but I'm trying hard to be consistent and predictable so she can rely on what to expect of me.
It's ridiculous that people would "train her", regard her as "green broken" and yet the horse doesn't lead (she doesn't know how and her attitude is I'm not going anywhere you ask me to, cos it means pain), cannot have her feet picked up and basically couldn't be touched without being terrified. So I'm working on making the experience of me touching her all over and handling her to be a tolerable thing. For now I'm using plenty of hay, so I'm halfway pleasant for her. The idea behind this method is just to give her an incentive to approach me, as her experiences with humans is to stay away or be chased in a round yard to a point she has to give in. I don't want her to give in to me, so much as think it's not so bad hanging around with this human. She doesn't hurt me, she scratches my hard to reach places like another horse and she feeds me. She doesn't chase me or scare me.
She is so terrified of the lead rope I'm having to get her used to me using one, just hanging it around her neck and not expecting anything of her. Her rewards are food based, using my words, voice and body language to teach her to get to know what to expect of me. Which is not a lot. I want to approach her and her not to feel terrorised and to grow with an expectation that is may even be advantageous to hand around this human, as it results in good stuff, not pain and fear.
It will be interesting to see how she is with me, when she's back with some other horses. I'm her only company right now (she has horses in parallel paddocks). It makes me sick that's she's been so isolated and mistreated. The biggest obstacle now is she doesn't lead, so getting her to the paddock with my horses at the back of the property is a challenge. It will require me having a second person walk about 10 feet behind us to provide pressure so the fear of going forward is less than the fear of staying put. It pains me to even have to do that. I have confidence, with time, she will grow to trust me. All of my horses (except one other brumby still in the stages of being handled) have come to trust me as their human. They readily come up to me, as I'm a yummy food source! And I give pretty good scratches, and remove ticks and things that bother them. Overall the net result of hanging around with me is better than not.
I am aware I'm an interloper in their horse lives. They spend all their time together and I come and go from those lives. This poor girl needs her horsey friends.
She has scars on her face from the rope halter and the bit the mongrel used her broke her in. Deep, deep regret with allowing him to touch her.
Today I did kiss her on the nose, usually where I appear to be kissing her, I'm actually sniffing her and just getting her used to me being up close to her without anything bad happen, like being hit. Well having me up in her space is bad enough.
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