Since I have been on vacation from work, it has pretty much rained. We had at least 2 days of crappy wet weather so I spent that time cleaning house and playing with Madison. This morning was better, partly sunny and quite breezy. I had to get outside and do something with one of my horses while the weather was halfway decent. I decided to get Chance out. She ran down to the gate when she saw me and I could tell she really wanted my attention. The poor thing hasn't seen much of me in a month and a half. I haltered her and brought her down to my tie up area.
I groomed her really well and then left her to stand tied for approximately 15 minutes to learn patience. When I am not touching her, she wiggles back and forth and paws. I let her figure it out and eventually she stands still. I head up to the arena to give her a lunging lesson. She has been doing really well at lunging. She knows her walk and trot commands and she definitely knows whoa.
I usually mix a little bit of other ground work training in our lessons. But today was going to be spent on continuing our clipper training. It has been a huge struggle getting Chance to accept having her bridle path clipped. I mean HUGE. After she was lunged, I pulled out the clippers and clipped her whiskers. Then we moved on up to the bridle path. She could care less about the clippers, that is not her problem. Her problem is she does not like the clippers cutting through the hair. I have tried every method I know to get her to accept that. (I have cordless Wahl clippers that are very quiet). I can clip her whiskers and fetlocks with no problem.
I have never had a horse at home, or at work continue to give me so many problems about clipping the bridle path. I deal with 15-25 horses every.single.day and a lot of yearlings too. I got really frustrated today. I know that is not a good thing. I had to take a breather and calm myself down before I continued on the clipping session. I can run the clippers up and down her bridle path with NO problem as long as I am not cutting the hair (I've been asked this before, and yes my blades are sharp and are lubed well.) I actually got to a point where I could get a couple hairs clipped and I shut off the clippers and praised her. But when I would go back to clipping she would immediately start to shake her head and walk away from me. I would follow her with the clippers running until she stopped and then shut them off and praised. I have been doing this for a year and a half. On top of other methods like when she threw a fit over clipping the hair, I would immediately send her off and put her to work on the lunge line (trotting and loping). Then I would start again with the clippers while she was resting, then when she threw another fit, I would send her off to work again. She needs to realize that standing still for clipping is her rest time, and if she doesn't stand still, then she has to work (this method has worked very well for me in the past with Brandy.) But this has not been working either. I really do not want to have to twitch her for clipping. But it might resort to that.
A lot of you might ask "Then why clip?" Well, I have my reasons for clipping and I want all my horses to be maintenance clipped. What if I do show her some day? I can't trim her bridle path for shows with scissors like I have been doing (she is okay with the scissors cutting through her hair, she fidgets a little and shakes her head, but it is not as bad as the clippers.) She needs to know how to clip. She is a smart horse and I never thought it would be this difficult to get a bridle path clipped on a horse.
I do not work on this every day, nor every lesson. I go through phases of working on this for a couple weeks, and it does not improve. Then I stop for awhile to give us both a break. But I go back to it thinking she will just grow up and get over it. That has not happened.
I am starting to feel very defeated. I should not feel that way, and I am not going to give up. Chance is so good with everything else. She picks up new things so quick, and maybe I am not going about it the right way. I have trained numerous horses to clip in the last few years and have never had such a difficult time. I think because Chance learns so quickly I feel that she should have learned to accept her bridle path being clipped easily and that is not the case. This is the only thing I struggle at with this horse. She is always so good, I think because of that I am getting down on myself about the clipping. Where do I go from here? Maybe somebody out there has a new idea, one I may not have tried?
20 comments:
Sheesh, sounds like you are doing everything I would do with a youngster! It can be really frustrating sometimes. Hang in there, she will get better with time!! She is still a baby.
Cant wait until we can see you riding her! She really is a beauty!!
The first thing I would suggest is clicker training. She sounds like the type of horse who would do really well with that.
If you don't want to do that I've read of someone using an electric toothbrush to desensitize them to the feel of it moving the hair around, but it was for clipping ears . . . so I don't know if it would work. Basically she rubbed them all over the head with the toothbrush turned off, then she turned it on and slowly worked her way up the face letting the toothbrush brush her face. Then she used the toothbrush on the ears and the long hairs in the ear. She said most horses got to where they loved that because it scratched the itches they couldn't reach in their ears. It might work with the bridlepath.
The only other suggestion I can think of is use the clippers on something that is like hair so she hears the cutting sounds further away from her. You could slowly get closer until she's comfortable with the cutting noise near her face. You could even try doing that and the toothbrush at the same time so she could hear the sound (from a distance) and feel the movement of the hair at the same time. If she's resisting that much just try breaking it down into tiny, tiny steps and reward her for being good. If she doesn't know standing still is good then she won't do it.
That's about all I know to try. I hope something helps. Good luck! I know you can get her past this because she is so smart. :D
Two ideas - break the task down into smaller pieces, and
And, if something you're doing isn't working, don't repeat it and hope something will change - think of a completely different way to do it - make it a game, or try something like clicker training - if sounds like she enjoys being good so figure out a way to reward her - praise, whatever - for every small step towards being good.
It's also possible that you need to just put this aside for now and come back to it later after an interval of several months - her attitude might be completely different by then and the problem may just evaporate.
Good luck - sounds like she's coming along really well!
Hmm. At this point I would probably try this:
Get her fave snack in a horsie cereal bowl and let her nibble at it, then start the clippers. When she backs away, stay where you are and make it clear that she gets the snack when she returns to the clippers. Then I would just try to accomplish a little bit of clipping and YOU choose to turn off the clippers and walk away, letting her have her "snack." Then a little longer next time . . . you get the drift.
No idea's here - just wanted to say she is really really pretty!
Kate~ I have just stopped doing it. I did not attempt to clip her from August until about a month ago thinking we just needed a break. I was hoping we could just "start over" after the long break. It did not help. But I can try that again.
Maybe she's thinking, "Hey! I'm a Mustang! Mustangs don't need no hair clippin'!" lol!
There might be something to that, though. Perhaps you could consult with someone who is more familiar with Mustangs. They do seem to learn differently and often require unique and special training.
I've never tried to clip Apache's bridle path because I don't have any clippers, but when I use scissors to trim her bridle path, I usually use a show-style rubber band to tie that specific 1" section of hair, and then snip! It's over in one snip with maybe another snip or two to catch any uneven areas.
See? I have no helpful advice. lol! But I just have to say, Chance has really filled out and is quite lovely. I love her dapples now that she's shed out. The sunlight just makes her glow!
~Lisa
I also just wanted to say that Chance is really pretty! Did you ever decide what color she is? She looks smokey black to me. I know there are genetic tests for that if you REALLY want to know. Regarding clipping. I've never really used clippers on my horses so I have no idea (I never wanted to spend the money on clippers when scissors work for my purposes). The few times I have used someone else's clippers, they are fine with it, with the exception of during fly season one summer, Chico decided that the clippers near his ears sounded too much like buzzing flies and he resisted. I never pushed the issue and I've not tried clippers since. Not sure how he's be now. I'd also say that Chance really is just a baby still and she has a couple more years before she might grow up mentally and get over it...but it could happen.
I don't think I have anything helpful. I feel your pain though. I had a mare who was horrible like this about being clipped under her jaw. I could do bridle path, legs and muzzle, but not under her jaw, where she grew this horrendous beard in the winter.
I took cordless clippers and duct taped them inside a halter, put it on in the round pen. She outlasted the batteries. Anytime I tried to clip those hairs she'd go nuts about it. Even with scissors. I never understood it and eventually she bucked me off so many times I sold her.
So I have no solution. Sorry :( I hope some of the other suggestions I see left here work.
Trying again without the spelling mistakes !
Sounds like you are doing everything you should and or can, she has a block about this. One suggestion which you may have already tried is instead of clipping front to back , or back to front on her bridle path , what about going from one side (base of her mane up, then the other ) should leave you with either a finished clip or a tiny Mohawk to trim. I did this with a filly who was holing her head a little too height to reach , she took it well, and actually dropped her head after . The reason I am suggesting this is you say she is fine with the clippers till you start cutting the hair , maybe it is a bit uncomfortable ,like petting a cat the wrong direction?
Only other thing is chiropractic if she has some torque in those top vertebrae the vibration might bother her? but you said she is fine with them rubbing just not the hair being cut ...
yeesh long winded tonight aren't I ?
I guess it's as bad as training kids! I can't believe how tall she's getting. Your new baby is adorable! Love the name Madison too, aren't kitties so cute. They can get awful frisky!
Hate to be the Debbie Downer but it may be something she just won't get over. My friend's TWH will stand nicely for clipping anywhere EXCEPT his bridle path, so they do it with scissors. (He's about 18-20 now)
Have you tried ear plugs? Our VERY experienced show horse hates having his ears done. The vet suggested three things, have a radio on really loud near where you are working, use ear plugs on the horse, and have a fan blowing on him while you work. The three act as pretty good distractions. Usually this works pretty well but sometimes at shows I don't have the option of blasting music or the fan and we do have to resort to twitching. Hopefully Chance will get over this sooner or later - she's such a pretty girl!
Does she let you cut the bridle path with scissors? Just curious if it's something about the hair itself.
Beautiful does fine with clipping the bridle path, it's under her chin she hates. Go figure.
I have the same frustration you do, but with tying. Sounds like Chance is doing good in that area.
Too bad you are having trouble - I don't really have any helpful advice to offer. I can trim Rusty's bridle path, but can't even come close to his muzzle with the clippers...go figure.
I'm sure you will figure something out - sounds like Chance is smarter than other horses and you will have to find a way to work around that! Not every training method works for every horse - so many respond to the work/rest thing...
Awww kiddo...don't let it get you down.
Just get yourself one of those squeeze twitches and give that a try. I have no doubt you know how to use one properly and know that it does not have to be 'inhumane'.
Chance just has a 'thing' and if you can take her mind off of her dislike of how it feels when the hair is being clipped a couple of times, I bet she gets over it.
When I used to have to show clip and had a horse that had a problem with a particular area, I used to clip half of them on all the spots they were comfortable being clipped, put the squeeze twitch on, clip the spot they were uncomfortable with, take it off and clip the rest of them. Usually once or twice and no more problem spot.
It is funny how she accepts the clippers most of the time. Some good suggestions from other readers -- I got nothing to add. I quit trimming bridle paths a few years ago. Windy doesn't have a forelock and I worked that bridle path into being somewhat of a forelock. The other horses don't get ridden enough to keep it up and end up looking like Woody Woodpecker. With that said, I think horses look so sharp all trimmed up. Hang in there!
Well...you know me...I agree with the treat thing at this point!!! BECAUSE she is so good with everything else I do not think it will harm her to learn clipping this way. Jesse has learned all of of "tricks" this way and now will do them all with out treats. Good luck!
This is no help, but,....I think she just LIKES her hair the way it is....You are lucky that this is her worst nemisis! She's looking soooo good!
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