Involuntary dismount ideas - revisited

[AliceG]

Some of you responded with ideas about my 'involuntary dismount' from my young gelding back in early December.
Well, after 3+ months of recouperation, I am finally well enough to start handling my horses again. Until this week, I had not touched a horse since first week in Dec. So, I am going into this with eyes wide open---instead of it being routine.
The gelding in question is definitely in need of de-sensitizing. He is very jumpy about most things. I can't quite ride yet, so I am using this period to work with him. Right now, I am getting him used to the end of the lead line, of all silly things. Seems if I move it too quickly, he jumps like a bunny!.
So, I started tossing it at him gently & can now toss it onto his back without him getting wonky on me. I do this a few times a day. This is such a weird behavior thing with him. It doesn't make sense because I can actually get this horse to stand on a tarp that is flapping in the wind, but silly little things make him jump like he is being attacked by lions.
I think that is definitely what happened the day I fell.
Any suggestions on things to do with him before I get strong enough to ride (hopefully in a few weeks)?
Thanks

[CarolU]

I would guess that his problem isn't nearly so much with movement and noise, as it is with sudden, unexpected movement. Since you've been recooperating and probably have a few pounds to shed anyway, I suggest dancing (big dances like the Jerk, the Twist, etc.,) and Jumping Jacks. Start by having him at the end of his lead and dancing/jumping away from him with him following. Do whatever you do until he relaxes and then stop. Go do something else and come back to it. Once he'll follow you dancing relaxed, start dancing around him until he relaxes in the middle, then dance up to him.

I'd desensitize to anything/everything that can happen suddenly that you can think of, an umbrella, a plastic bag in the wind, a tarp in the wind, a jacket going on/off. Noises, a pellet gun, a whip, a crack or pop, whatever you can think of.

Once you are riding him again, you need to do Spook-in-place training with him, where you are in the saddle, and have a helper on the ground walk past him with an umbrella, jacket or plastic bag. Always turn him to face the scary thing as it approaches and keep him facing it as it goes past. Gradually have them do the Jumping Jacks and dances.

[Barbwire]

...and don't forget to take videos of all your dancing and post them here. ;-)

[Brigitte]

...and don't forget to take videos of all your dancing and post them here. ;-)

We will NOT laugh, we will use them for educational purposes :lol:

[Got Brio?]

Good luck when you get on again! I cant think of any good ideas.

[cowboy ed]

alice, you have the right idea about desensitizing. you just arent doing enough of it. since you can flip that rope over his back, do it a lot. work your way down to his rump. keep it rhythmic, flip it over it his back, then drag it across, flip, drag, flip, drag, etc. flip the rope around his front legs, back legs, over his back, under his belly, over his neck under his neck, you get the idea. IF at anytime he takes off, just go with him, but dont stop flipping that rope, just keep it up with a steady rhythm.

follow carol's suggestions too. jumping jacks, skip up to him, jump around and just act silly. i do something i call "sticky velcro man". after i do the jumping jacks, run up and touch the horse on the shoulder, quickly, then rub him a bit. repeat several times. then i will run up to the horse, grab him around the neck and just kind of hang off him. if at any time your horse takes off when you are doing this stuff, keep hold of the leadline and go with him until he stops.

also, if you havent taught him lateral flexions, do it now, on the ground. then, later on when you are riding again, if he spooks and tries to do something stupid, you can stop him and get him relaxed.

[AliceG]

Thanks, all, and Ed, thanks for the better directions with the rope tossing. I haven't been 'moving with him'. But, I will do that next. He is getting more comfortable with it, but is still jumpy at the beginning.

He understands lateral flexing. If I had been able to get my other foot in the stirrup, I may have been able to settle him down!

I haven't tried the jumping jacks stuff yet. I'm still a bit ouchy and don't want to NOT be able to hang on. But, I will do that soon. I'm getting better every day!

[cowboy ed]

when i refer to lateral flexions, i mean gently pulling on the leadline until he will bring his head around to his side, relax and tip his nose toward his ribcage. as soon as he does that, release the rope so he can straighten his neck. do this excercise at least a dozen times on each side every time you work with him. if he has any resistance, do it even more 25 or 30 times on each side if you need to in order to get him to flex and give with a very light touch on the leadline.

[motorgypsy]

We're also in the middle of despooking a "spookhead". They can be challenging but our former spookhead is now our best ride so we have high hopes for this one.

WOW is our filly freaked about the leadline. Right now while she's eating I'm just standing near her with my back to her swatting all around on the ground with the lead. You may want to this a lot before you even touch him with it. Pat Perelli had a horse that was afraid of the hose and he watered the entire arena before he ever went near the horse with it.

Our is also afraid of having you touch her legs. I've also gotten her to the point where I can rub her neck and down her shoulder without her acting like I touched her with a cattle prod. So I'm currently working on her allowing me to pick up her feet since she needs a trim in the front. Initially she'll rear when I touch her leg with the ceiling duster. The funny thing is she'll sniff it and allow me to touch her head and neck and shoulder with it with no reaction bit she freaks when you touch her knee with it. It's very soft and fuzzy. She's not tied but I have the end of a lead that is around a pillar so I can tug on it if I need to but she scared me a bit so I fussed at her for the rearing and finally after about 50 times she just picked the foot up when I touched it with the duster. But how many weeks will it take before she retains it overnight? Who knows because she is young an immature. But she leads wonderfully well now, is easy to catch, comes when asked to come and moves her butt over when we ask her to so litlle by little!

[CarolU]

Something else on rope tossing, I learned this from Jamie, is to push when you toss the rope. It's kind of hard to explain, but if you just flip the rope around, it'll snap the horse and hurt a little. But if you toss and push the rope as it's just touching the horse, it won't snap or hurt. Practice on yourself and you'll get the hang of it.

And I thought I might add the next step of the spook-in-place training is that once the horse is desensitized to the person (or car, tractor, whatever) approaching from the front and side, do it also from behind until the horse doesn't react.

I would make sure I had trained this far before ever taking a horse out on the road or in a parade. They need to be completely desensitized to cars, trucks, rattling trailers, etc. With the foundation of trust you have built doing this, the horse will follow your lead and trust you when something new and scary comes along - like a tank or float, or firetruck.

[AliceG]

Thanks, CarolU, I think I've probably been smacking him with the rope just a little!

[motorgypsy]

One other thing - get yourself some good safety equipment. We've been saved many an injury by our safety vests and helmet and now have the hip pads in the pants. Yes it makes your hips look a bit larger but if it keeps me on a horse - I really don't care. The safety vests are cheap - under $50 many times. Helmets are as low as $25 and you can find them used but new for less. Also wear full seat breeches, riding boots and cage stirrups are really great to keep your feet in those stirrups.

Western barrel saddles are great IF the horse doesn't buck. Don't ever ride a horse that even thinks about bucking with a Western. The horn is a killer then. Aussies are great if the horse does buck on occasion and if you put a grab strap on them. Use grippy stuff under your saddle pads or use the grippy saddle pads. Be sure your saddle fits correctly and won't twist. NEVER apply showsheen or Vetrolin shine or like products to the saddle area. We did it and sure enough the saddle twisted and Kyle fell under his mare who stopped totally until he got free and he was uninjured because of the helmet and vest.

It's quite amazing how well you can ride with the proper equipment and the right saddle and right length stirrups.

[Edurne]

how do the hip pads keep you on the horse? :-?

[GeorgeGuns]

We drag a lot of things around here - buckets, feed bags, milk bottles with rocks in them, etc, anything you can think of to desensitize. When you do this though, it helps to start with a helper dragging the stuff ahead of the horse so they can follow it, get confident and curious before dragging along side, or behind.

Up here static electricity can make touching an exciting affair, esp with Bri - I wet my hands first to stop the charge. I don't expect a horse to desensatize to this, heck if I can't why should I expect him to? It drives us both nuts, lol.

[motorgypsy]

:lol: :lol: :lol: The hip pads keep you on the horse because you can concentrate on riding rather than worrying about falling off because you've got on your body armor and you'll just bounce if you hit the ground! ;-) ;-) ;-) When you have osteoporosis you can't hit the ground or you won't be riding for a very long time - maybe not at all - so anything we can wear to keep us from getting injured - we're all for it!!!

A list of our previous falls

Horse was stopped in a speed show event where you had to get a carrot out of a bucket before proceeding. She would get no closer to the bucket so I leaned waaaaay out to get the carrot and just overleaned and fell right off infront of a couple of hundred people. I grabbed the carrot but Chinook thought it was time to run for the finish line so she ran and I ran behind her, jumped on her back and said "Do I get credit????" They were all laughing so hard they gave us a finish and we got 5th place!

Sultan was asked to turn and he did - a really quick turn - and then he stopped. Kyle just plain lost his balance and very very slowly toppled off on to the ground. Sultan waited until he was clear and took off but we caught up with him and remounted a short distance away.

We were so dumb we put Vetroline shine on one mare before we saddle her. We didn't know it was like showsheen. Kyle got far ahead of me because his mare is so fast so he quickly turned her to wait for me. The saddle twisted and over he went, saddle and all. He dropped from the saddle onto the ground very painfully since he was riding with three broken ribs but his helmet and vest protected him and we were able to ride out in about 20 minutes.

So you see - when we fall our horse is at a dead stop so we'd better have some padding. We were not injured in any of the above incidents. He got the broken ribs when it was raining and his size 13 boot slipped on the bumper of the pickup when he was reaching inside the rear and he came down on the tailgate edge on his ribs.