Deworming Rita the (still) Unapproachable Mule

Rita, the Unapproachable Mule that I’m working with in the Donkey Refuge is making progress! I still can’t approach her so close that I can touch her, but she comes pretty close to me now.

Husbandry skill: deworming

The herd she’s in (all donkeys, she’s the only mule) needed their deworming done. Rita hasn’t been dewormed in 6 years because there is NO WAY you can approach her.

They have tried everything and even tried to sedate her in the hope they could get her, touch her or approach her, but nothing worked…

When I started with positive reinforcement (May 2022), it was really hard. I had to learn Rita’s language (I never worked with a mule before and Rita was on top of that very, very traumatized. Still is!)

Anyway, two weeks ago the herd needed to be dewormed and Rita too.

The staff makes these ‘food balls’ with soaked pelleted and sweet food, in which most animal would eat their meds.

Not Rita!

We tried putting the dewormer in these magical balls because she did take them with her antibiotics last month when she got hurt!

Rita bit into the ball and spit it right out! Yak!

I thought, why risk damaging the trust by ‘tricking’ her into eating the dewormer paste?

Here comes Key to Success #1 for Trainers: Principles of Learning & Motivation!

Instead of tricking her, I made sure that every interaction with the food ball with dewormer was positively reinforced.

Instead of putting the dewormer in the inside, I asked the staff to put it on the outside… (Yes, they gave me a puzzled look)The Principle is, to train Rita to accept an aversive (with positive reinforcement and choice).

Choices in Training

I gave her choices: There was more to eat than just the ball with dewormer, she got treats (normal food pellets) in other food bowls and on mats.

The aim of deworming training was simply to teach her that the smell is OK. I put food around the edible “deworming ball”

t took a while for her to approach the deworming ball, since she was unpleasantly surprised before when she bit in one of them and got a (not so nice) surprise…

Next step in the deworming training

Reinforcing her to touch the food ball. Again, deworming was on the outside of this edible ball. That took also a few training sessions to teach her to touch it consistently. Goal was to make the smell (and later taste, too) familiar and to associate it with good things happening.

Then I reinforced ‘using her lips to touch’ it and also reinforced pushing it with her chin against the rim of the food bowl and so she squeezed it. At the end of our training she finally ate part of the ball!

Training after that, she ate part of the dewormer food ball, again.

Last training she ate the whole ball, at the end of our 1-hour training. The training after that, she ate it again. All of it. It took her a whole hour again!

Today she choose the food bowl with the dewormer ball first! Which was interesting!! And gave hope! Within the first 15 minutes of our training she ate the ball! WIN! 

Each ball has just a few ml of dewormer on it, but this is such a promising start!

I hope to get her dewormed within the next 3 sessions. I’ll keep you posted!!

What are YOU working on?

I would love to hear from you! What are you working on with your horse right now? I would love to get to know you. Tell me about your horse and your clicker training in the comments!

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Need help training your horse?

Are you a compassionate horse owner who wants to build a strong friendship with your horse? Would you like to understand your horse better and help your horse to understand YOU better? Get access to many online clicker training courses and a fabulous, supportive R+ community in our HippoLogic Clicker Training Academy. Check out the link!

Not sure? Start with a free clicker training assessment to get taste of what it feels like to work with me. When you have a specific struggle that you want to overcome, don’t hesitate to contact me. In this assessment you’ll discover what’s holding you back from accomplishing the things you want with your horse. After our conversation you’ll know exactly what to do, in order to move forward towards your goals.

Book here

Happy Horse training!
Sandra Poppema, B.Sc., founder of HippoLogic & HippoLogic Clicker Training Academy

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10 Benefits of Grass Training your Horse

What is grass training? Teaching your horse with positive reinforcement to ignore grass in training, leading and riding. In Grass Training you teach your horse to leave grass with a Stop Grazing-cue, and a Grazing-cue. It’s easier than you think, as long as you’ll use the right approach and don’t use R- or P.

Benefits Grass Training

1. Yummiest training ever for your horse! He will immediately pay attention to you when he understands there is a Start Grazing -cue. This will be the quickest learning of a cue.
2. By giving your horse something she wants, you immediately have her positive attention!
3. No more unsolicited grazing on trails! You can ride, lunge and train at liberty on grass without losing your horses attention!
   
4. If you do fun stuff, your horse will trust you, looking out for your next visit. It’s a great foundation for friendship between you and your horse
5. It will give you incredible results. You’ll notice how annoying and frustrating it was, once you’ve solve it.
6. Your horse won’t snack on grass during at liberty work, leading or riding!
7. Your horse will become easy to get of out of the pasture. Simply call his name.
8. You both stop being frustrated while grass is available during riding or training
9. It will improve your communication
10. It will enhance to bond with your horse

Join the HippoLogic’s DIY Grass Training and get some fun and useful training time done.
Happy Horse training!

Sandra

Grass Training (online course)

 

 

 

Make a hoof wrapping in 5 easy steps

When Kyra stepped into a rusty nail her foot got infected. My barn manager taught me how she wraps hoofs that need to stay dry and clean.
The hoof putty was used to pull the infection and the vet gave me poultice pads to cover the wound when the infection broke through. So that’s instead of the putty.

Step 1: removing the nail

Step 2: Prepare

I gathered everything I needed to soak the hoof, dry it and wrap it before I started. These every day items are good to have in an equine first aid kit:

• Warm water
• Epsom salt
• Rubber bucket to soak
• Paper towels to dry
• Iodine to disinfect
• Hoof packing + rubber glove to keep hands clean
• Poultice pad
• Paper from a paper feed bag
• Small diaper
• Vet wrap (1/2 roll)
• Duct tape (the outdoor is very heavy duty. Not in the picture)

Step 3: Soaking

In order to clean the entry wound as good as possible I soaked her foot in Epsom salt and dried it and put iodine on it. It wasn’t enough and got infected. Lesson learned.

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Step 4: Preparing the packing

The packing needs to be kneaded and warmed up to form to the hoof. I used a plastic glove for that.The paper helps keep it in it’s place.

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Alternative step 4

A few days later I used a poultice pad to put on the skin where the infection had broken through. These pads are nice an d thick and covered with a plastic layer on the outside.

They are decent size and I could cut them in 3 for Kyra’s hooves. So easy! I never had seen them before (no need).

Step 5: Wrap the hoof

I learned to apply 3 layers and if you do it right (and are lucky) it stays on for 24 hours. Kyra was outside in the paddock. Some days it stayed on, some days it didn’t. The duct tape is not sturdy enough. I used Kyra’s softride boots (meant for front hoof when she had laminitis) and a few days I later bought another poultice boot to cover it up.

• Wrap the packing with a small size diaper
• Use vet wrap to keep the diaper in its place
• A layer of duct tape to reinforce and keep moist out

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Space shoe is ready!

Now Kyra’s space shoe is ready. Only a few more pieces of Duct tape to cover up the vet wrap.

I learned so much this week. I was grateful Kyra already is really good with soaking, holding her foot up and wrapping. Preparation for emergencies is smart! You never know when you need it. I taught Kyra to keep her foot in the bucket with clicker training. I also gave lots of reinforcers to keep her foot up.

Next day….

Next blog

I hope this was useful. Please leave a comment!

In my next blog I will talk about how you can administer larger amounts of oral medication (like antibiotics) without spilling it. I learned a nice technique to do that this week. So many learnings for me this week.

What have you learned out of emergencies at the barn? I bet you have a tip that for other horse lovers.

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Sandra Poppema, B.Sc.

Helping horse people to bond with their horse and get the results they want.

 

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Rehabilitating Horses with Clicker Training

Rehabilitating Horses with Clicker Training

Husbandry skills: hoof care (part IV)

In this series I will keep you posted on the young horse I am training in order to prepare her for the next farrier visit. I will call her A. in this blog. A was scared to let people touch her legs, especially her hind legs. She kicked out whenever she felt something touching them.

I promised to keep you updated on our clicker training sessions. We had another session since my last post. Progress might seem slow, but I know from over a decade of clicker training horses that slow is the way to go.

Improvise

Due to circumstances I had to improvise last time and it went well. This time I started training in her stall, without protective contact (a barrier). I started the lesson with a repetition of where we stopped successfully last time we trained. With her left front leg. I stroked her shoulder and clicked her for standing with 4 hooves on the ground.

The next step was stroking with my hand along her leg and clicking for lifting her leg. A did so well! She remembered exactly what she had to do. She would hold her leg up (by herself, without leaning on me) for a second. I made sure I clicked very soon, so it wouldn’t turn into a jambette this time.

Her other front leg went well too. I decided to try her hind legs. She is used to me stroking her hind legs while working with protected contact. But today, without the fence between us she was startled and she kicked straight out. Not to hurt me, if she wanted she could have! She is so fast. This was clearly too much for her. I was ‘lumping’ instead of splitting.

Solution

Back to splitting the behaviour again. I used my pool noodle on a stick again and clicked and reinforced heavily for ‘standing still’. I stroked her bum, hind legs and then her fetlock. Each time she stood still I clicked and reinforced. I made sure I kept her below threshold, so that I didn’t trigger the urge to move away or kick out. I studied her face for signs of tension: wrinkles around her eyes and nostrils, eyes opening further or her head going up a few millimetres. None of that.

One step further

The next step was to repeat the same sequence of touching, but using my hand instead of the pool noodle. Hand on bum: OK. Click and reinforce. Hand on hind leg: OK. Click and reinforce. Then a click and reinforce for something very easy and relaxing for her: touching her withers. Then back to her hind leg and stroking a bit lower, her gaskin and I could even touch A’s hock while she stayed relaxed!

Feeling successful

This was a wonderful moment! These are the moments you feel successful and you want to do ‘one more thing’. That is usually my cue (the thought of that I can take it one step further) to stop. She was so relaxed and confident, it was really tempting to do a bit more that day, but I didn’t!

The reason is that when I started touching her hind legs this session she was afraid. A few minutes and a few clicks and reinforcers later she was OK. I didn’t want to ruin that for her!

It was already a successful training: lifting both of her front legs without a jambette and touching her left hind leg with my hand while she was confident and relaxed enough to stand still. Especially the staying relaxed part is really-really important!

Read more:
Preparing your Horse for the Farrier with Clicker Training
Husbandry skills: Hoof care, part I
Husbandry skills: Hoof care, part II
Husbandry skills: Hoof care, part III

Sandra Poppema

Are you inspired and interested in personal coaching or do you want to sign up for the next online course ‘Set Your Equestrian Goals & Achieve them‘, please visit my website

Leg lifting for trimming

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Husbandry skills: Hoof Care (part II)

In this series I will keep you posted about the young horse I am training in order to prepare her for the next farrier visit. I will call her A. in this blog. A. is scared to let people touch her legs, especially her hind legs. She kicks out when she feels something touching her hind legs.

In my last blog I wrote how I started her training. She is now used to the clicker. She knows that a click is an announcer of good things coming her way: appetitives (in this case treats). She understands my end of session signal that tells her that there are no more treats to be earned.

Training Tools

Besides a clicker and treat I use a target stick that I made from a piece of pool noodle on a stick. I chose a pool noodle because they are soft, light weight and cannot hurt the horse accidentally.

I did not start with nose targeting this time. I used the target to touch A. The aim is to teach her that touching her hind legs is safe, will lead to appetitives (something the horse likes to have, such as a treat) and that she is in control (no force or coercion) about accepting her body to be touched. For obvious safety reasons I still work with protective contact. A. is allowed to kick the pool noodle in case I go too fast and nobody will get hurt.

Introducing the Pool Noodle

I already knew A.’s favourite spots to scratch her, so I kept those in mind while training.

I introduced the pool noodle by holding it in front of her and click and treat her for looking at it. I am still working with protective contact (a barrier between her and me). She wouldn’t touch the target in the beginning.

Then I held it a bit more to the left on my side of the fence, still not too close, and clicked and reinforced A. for ‘standing still’. Then I held it a bit more to the right, near her withers and so on. Clicking and reinforcing every little step in order to give her confidence that standing still is what I want from her. Nothing else.

Little by little I could hold the target closer and closer until she could touch it. I haven’t clicked and reinforced much for touching with her nose or sniffing since my goal is not to teach her to touch the pool noodle with her nose. She wasn’t afraid of the pool noodle target by the way, just curious.

Training logbook

After 3 sessions of each 5 minutes I could touch her with the pool noodle on the withers, her chest/throat/mane and her bum. If she moved away, even a little weight shift, I went back to the previous steps when she was still relaxed and OK with it. I would take a step back and continue a bit slower. In positive reinforcement training you mark the desired behaviour. If A. wants to move away that is OK. I just wait until she is ready to come to me and present her body close to the fence so I could touch her with the pool noodle again.

I don’t keep the pool noodle on her body until she stops moving. That would be negative reinforcement (strengthening the behaviour (standing still) with taking away the aversive (the thing she wants to escape).

I know it took 3 sessions because I keep a training logbook. I keep track of time, how many sessions we do each day, how long the sessions are, how long the breaks are (usually 2-3 minutes), where we train (A. lives in an in/out stall and sometimes we train outside, sometimes inside) and how much progression we made and also what startled her or what body parts he becomes anxious. I also wrote down the next steps of her training.

I end every session with an end of training signal. Sometimes A. keeps standing aligned to the fence in the hope of getting scratches, sometimes she walked right back to her hay to eat.

In the next blog I will tell you more about how A.’s training is progressing.

Read the previous blog: Husbandry skills: hoof care (part I)

Sandra Poppema, B.Sc.

Are you inspired and interested in personal coaching or want to be a part of my HippoLogic Clicker Training Academy in which we have weekly group clicker coaching, clicker courses and a private online R+ community take action! CLICK the links to learn more.

Leg lifting for trimming

I accomplished my ‘shittiest’ goal ever!

Yes, this will be a very shitty topic. Sorry about that. The topic is… house-training my horse. In May 2015 I started house-training Kyra. I am a lazy horse owner, so I taught her some tricks to make my life easier.

Here is how I started House Training Kyra.

Thinking ahead

I always, always reinforce Kyra with a treat if she poops or pees when she sees me. If I call her in the pasture and she doesn’t come to me, it usually means that she wants to relief herself first.

The beauty of clicker training is that I can use the bridge signal, the click (‘this is the behaviour I want to see more of, and your reward is on the way’) from a distance and then walk toward her of simply wait until she reaches me so I can give her a treat.

I also give a treat when she poops or pees in her stall before I take her out.

Time saving habit

I never have to clean up after her on in the hallway where I groom her. Kyra never has to poop or pee on the cement floor. That is also the reason why she almost never poops or pees under saddle, she already went. Win-win-win.

Other shitty goals

As you can read here, I taught Kyra to only use a specific area in the arena to poop in. The beauty of it is that she can clearly communicates when she has to ‘go’. She simply walks over to that corner and I wait until she has done her business.

She has learned to poop right next to the manure bucket, even when I am not around! This is due to the clicker training. She simply made a positive association with pooping in that corner.

This means I never have to walk around the arena looking for poop after a ride. I used to walk twice with the bedding fork between the manure and the bucket. It’s a good thing I don’t have to do this anymore, because I used to forget this. I used to think ‘I’ll do this later when I’ve brought Kyra back to the pasture,’ . Only to forget about it. Now scooping her poop takes me less than a minute.

Goal achieved? No…

No. Not yet… I would like her to poop in the manure bucket or wheelbarrow. Like I said: I am very lazy so this will save me another minute. Yay!

I must say I had to wait over a year for the opportunity to click Kyra while she was pooping and I had the opportunity to place the bucket or wheelbarrow right behind her in order to catch it.

I accomplished my shittiest goal!

This week was my lucky week: I captured the behaviour twice! Shitty mission accomplished! I even have this on video, believe it or not!

Kyra has now been positively reinforced twice to aim for the manure bucket/wheelbarrow. I hope I can ‘catch’ it again. With the wheelbarrow that is.

If you want to train your horse to be house-trained, I can help you. Just contact me. Every horse, barn and set up are different so is every training. This blog is how I did it and your situation probably need tailored adjustments to help you succeed.

This was my shittiest goal ever accomplished! 

Sorry for the smelly subject. If you’re not blessed with a visual mind, here is the video.

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Next time a more decent blog.

Need help training your horse?

Are you a compassionate horse owner who wants to build a strong friendship with your horse? Would you like to understand your horse better and help your horse to understand YOU better? Get access to many online clicker training courses and a fabulous, supportive R+ community in our HippoLogic Clicker Training Academy. Check out the link!

Not sure? Start with a free clicker training assessment to get taste of what it feels like to work with me. When you have a specific struggle that you want to overcome, don’t hesitate to contact me. In this assessment you’ll discover what’s holding you back from accomplishing the things you want with your horse. After our conversation you’ll know exactly what to do, in order to move forward towards your goals.

Book here

Happy Horse training!
Sandra Poppema, B.Sc., founder of HippoLogic & HippoLogic Clicker Training Academy

Join us!

https://mailchi.mp/5d676526ba5a/clicker-training-academy