There are myriad reasons a horse has trouble being comfortable and cooperative, generally originating from physical, mental, and/or emotional discomfort (and frequently all 3).
Sometimes there’s a compromise between fully cooperative care and railroading a horse into a healthcare procedure, especially in a training situation where the procedure itself isn’t imperative. Such is the situation with Clio, here. I chose to show all of the actual foot handling (albeit in fast motion) to show the rhythm of doing and not doing. While I won’t go into too much detail, below are some notes on our training session:
- Using target as a focus other than her feet, and for high rate of reinforcement
- Target is set at a height that doesn’t require much head movement, so her balance isn’t disturbed, making it harder for the trimmer
- Starting in arena where there’s more space and reinforcement history
- Note where she changes focus to something outside, then comes back - the target gives her something she wants to focus on.
- Moving in and out of barn to keep anxiety from going over threshold
- Moving down aisle to extend time in barn without having to stand still (not shown for brevity)
- Starting with just picking up and picking out
- Moving on to hoof stand - a little movement of the hind legs to see if I can help a little with proprioception and to invite the muscles to relax
- Filing, but only a little just to approximate - future sessions could have more, but her hind end muscles are tight so her window of time is short before she’s uncomfortable. Since this is training and not actual trimming, no sense in pushing past discomfort. I can ask, but she can refuse.
- Giving breaks for her to just stand and target - keep behavioral and reinforcement momentum with low demand
In addition to this sort of “stop-gap” measure, other things that could be done to help Clio would be bodywork, work with mats and other variable surfaces, groundwork of various types, and other enrichment activities.
