{"id":632,"date":"1999-11-16T17:13:23","date_gmt":"1999-11-16T23:13:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/?p=632"},"modified":"2010-09-30T17:13:56","modified_gmt":"2010-09-30T22:13:56","slug":"jrs-journal-first-day-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/jrs-journal-first-day-home\/","title":{"rendered":"JR’s Journal – First Day Home"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
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\"Journal.gif<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"\"<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n\"JR\"<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
At five months old, how do you train a weanling.\u00a0 JR arrived knowing how to lead.\u00a0 He was imprinted at birth and can be touched in most places on his body.\u00a0 OK, I didn\u2019t try all of them the 1st<\/sup> day. I left some excitement for later.I used our first day together to walk around the pasture, so he would know the boundaries.\u00a0 During our walk, he got to learn respect for my personal space.\u00a0 I used the walk as an excuse to play “the games” with him.\u00a0 We did lots of friendly games with my hands though out the entire day.\u00a0 I tried to find all the spots where he enjoyed being scratched and I rubbed most of his body with by hands. \u00a0 I put my fingers in his nostrils\u2026pretending to clean some muck.\u00a0 I put my fingers inside his mouth. I got his upper lip and then his lower lip between thumb and finger and circled his lip.\u00a0 I tapped on his tongue.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
We moved hindquarter and forequarter using pressure from my fingers.\u00a0 My goal was one step underneath with the rear turn and one step across with the front leg.\u00a0 After I got what I wanted, I instantly released the pressure and rubbed the spot.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

When JR wanted to run or walk through my space, we took this as an opportunity for a driving game.\u00a0 I drove his forequarters around or his hindquarters, depending on which body part was pushing against me.\u00a0 To drive his rear around, I swung the tail of my rope and he had to move out of the way of the swinging rope.\u00a0 To move his forequarters around, I used my hands\u2026starting out with flicking my fingers and ended up with palms out flat in and out at his head.\u00a0 If he didn\u2019t move his head out of the way, eventually, he would run into the flat of my hands.<\/p>\n

I discovered JR has the same habit as Velvet\u2026rooting with the nose.\u00a0 Since this rooting has caused me a lot of problems with Velvet giving to the bit, I want it nipped in the bud for little JR.\u00a0 Every time he pushed me with his nose, I put my thumb and 1st<\/sup> finger against his nose and put pressure on his hair to move backwards.\u00a0 When no response was made backwards, the pressure was upped to skin, muscles and then bone.\u00a0 JR learned very quickly to move backwards when I touched the hair on his nose with my thumb\/finger combo.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think we are done with the rooting behavior, but it will be fixed the next time out.<\/p>\n

We tried the circle game.\u00a0 JR\u2019s initial “circle” was rubbing against my body.\u00a0 When he invaded my space, he got pushed away with my fingers, or he ran into my swinging rope.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t take him long to realize comfort was at the end of the rope.\u00a0 We didn\u2019t continue this but for a few minutes, as he\u2019s too young for anything but walking around in a circle.\u00a0 He got the idea to go to the end of the rope, but the concept of a circle hasn\u2019t yet hit.<\/p>\n

We tried a little sidepassing, but since he doesn\u2019t have a good idea of turning forequarters or hindquarters, we didn\u2019t make much progress.\u00a0 I\u2019ve found this to be the hardest exercise for the horse\u2026both on the ground and while mounted.<\/p>\n

We did the squeeze game too.\u00a0 I sent him over a few logs and between some tight spaces.\u00a0 He got the idea just fine.\u00a0 Later when we went through gates, I held the gate open and sent him through first.\u00a0 This is the pre-trailer loading exercise.<\/p>\n

For another big part of the day, I sat in a lawn chair while he grazed.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t rescue him when he got tied up in the rope until he was completely twice wrapped.\u00a0 He spent some time fighting the rope and learned how to get out of some snarls.\u00a0 This will come in handy if he ever gets his legs wrapped in wire.\u00a0 He shouldn\u2019t panic.\u00a0 Plus, we spent some nice time together.\u00a0 He got to eat and relax.\u00a0 I got to watch him and relax.<\/p>\n

I reflected on the far away time that I would be trusting him to carry me through some scary situations.\u00a0 I decided to be a nice as I possibly can to him now.\u00a0 When we took our afternoon walk, he didn\u2019t invade my personal space and seemed to be content with following me.<\/p>\n

I turned him out with the rest of the herd.\u00a0 They erupted into galloping snorty horses.\u00a0 JR ran over the pasture, changing leads when necessary.\u00a0 All the other horses had to drop to a trot and then change leads.\u00a0 JR looked like he was soaring across the pasture. They all got tired and decided to eat grass.\u00a0 Velvet tried to run him into the bonfire pile.\u00a0 She made a half-hearted attempt to scare him with her back foot.\u00a0 One of the little hackney ponies hates him.\u00a0 That little pony put his ears back and ran at him with teeth bared.\u00a0 When JR was fresh he could easily leap out of the way. He was tired after the long gallop and the pony was able to bite him a few times.<\/p>\n

The transition was made. JR is now the low horse in the herd\u2026but at least, he\u2019s in the herd!<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 At five months old, how do you train a weanling.\u00a0 JR arrived knowing how to lead.\u00a0 He was imprinted at birth and can be touched in most places on his body.\u00a0 OK, I didn\u2019t try all of them the 1st day. I left some excitement for later.I used our first day together to walk around the pasture, so he would know the boundaries.\u00a0 During our walk, he got to learn respect for my personal space.\u00a0 I used the walk as an excuse to play “the games” with him.\u00a0 We…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":635,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632\/revisions\/635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}