I went down to the yard this morning to turn Bonitao out. I decided to do nothing special, just turn him out as anyone else would. I wanted to see what he would do after spending a night in his box (one theory is that he gets hungry and wants to get to grass quickly), and was just handled in a normal way.
So all I did was quickly change his rug, put his halter on and head off to the field. I guess the only thing I did differently to the yard girls was walk with authority.
I have noticed that because they are expecting him to run off they are a little tentative and rightly nervous of what he might do next. This uncertainty in their body language leads Bonitao to believe that he does not have a good leader in them. He is the type of horse that needs a good leader to feel safe, lacking one he gets nervous and takes the leadership into his own hoofs. He then does what he feels is needed to keep himself safe and gets from one safe place, the stable, to the next, the field, as quickly as possible.
But by walking purposefully I can give him that feeling of leadership and he happily plodded alongside me to the field with no suggestion that he was about to take off. In fact I walked so purposefully that he had to trot occasionally to keep up.
Adding energy to the situation is not something most folks would consider doing, but this is directed leadership energy which actually has a calming effect on a horse such as Bonitao. For other horses this would be the wrong thing to do, so one has to read the situation as it comes up and adapt accordingly.
So all I did was quickly change his rug, put his halter on and head off to the field. I guess the only thing I did differently to the yard girls was walk with authority.
I have noticed that because they are expecting him to run off they are a little tentative and rightly nervous of what he might do next. This uncertainty in their body language leads Bonitao to believe that he does not have a good leader in them. He is the type of horse that needs a good leader to feel safe, lacking one he gets nervous and takes the leadership into his own hoofs. He then does what he feels is needed to keep himself safe and gets from one safe place, the stable, to the next, the field, as quickly as possible.
But by walking purposefully I can give him that feeling of leadership and he happily plodded alongside me to the field with no suggestion that he was about to take off. In fact I walked so purposefully that he had to trot occasionally to keep up.
Adding energy to the situation is not something most folks would consider doing, but this is directed leadership energy which actually has a calming effect on a horse such as Bonitao. For other horses this would be the wrong thing to do, so one has to read the situation as it comes up and adapt accordingly.
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