I have joined up successfully with my first horse, its a great technique and we have a fantastic relationship now. I have recently bought another horse, a very sweet but rather timid 16 yr old stockhorse and I want to join up with him.
The thing is, in the short time we have had him, we have reason to believe he might be blind or at the very least partially sighted in 1 eye. The vet is coming out in a few days to check him out, but in meantime, if it turns out he does only have sight in 1 eye (his near side is his 'good eye' side), do you think I will still be able to join up with him? Will he be able to fully appreciate my visual cues when I work him in both directions? I know horses use there other senses as well - has anyone else tried this with a '1 eyed horse?' BTW any issue he might have doesn't affect him out on the trails, he is so nimble and sure footed! But he does swing his head around a lot to look at things. Your thoughts and advice please :)
Hi Busybee
You are the second person to post regarding working with a one eyed horse. First let me reassure you that your horse can and will if given a chance perform as well as any fully sighted horse. You have already seen how he has adapted to being restricted in his sight.
When you are working with your horse it helps to use your voice as well as physical cues
For example my horse will beck on voice command or if he is not paying attention just picking up on the reins will do the trick. When I show him I have to use a very soft voice so the judge doesn't hear :D
When you work with your horse just remember that he is handicapped on one side so you need to keep in his sight if you are doing ground work at liberty. So you don't feel too bad about your horse I showed against a one eyes stallion in a stallion class and I was second and the one eyed stallion was first. There were ten horse in the class, so ridden by professionals.
Remember when you work your horse in a round pen or an arena that he may move away from the rail more that you think is right but he is just getting his clues. Once you establish a trusting relationship riding he will trust you to keep him out of trouble and will be willing to move close to the rail or wall.
Good luck, you are going to have a great adventure with your horse. He will teach you all sorts of things!
Cheers
Thanks Dennis, i was planning on using voice commands as well. I already do this when riding and I agree, so far it hasn't held us back in the slightest. He is a wonderful horse :)
Just wondered what you would perhaps tweak in initial 'join up' and 'follow up' for a 1 eyed horse? I was thinking of sending him away on his good eye initially and reinforcing body language with appropriate noises. The sending away stuff shouldn't be too much of a problem. He is very sensitive so I am going to use a fraction of the energy I would with my more confident and somewhat bolshy (but also lovely) youngster! Turning him around shouldn't be an issue but its then when he has his bad eye towards me, i was worried he might panic a bit and communicating fully with body language might be tricky. But hopefully by then he would have got used to having the wall of the arena for safety and navigation. We don't have a round pen, just a sand school but I am going to cut off the corners with jump wings or something to help make it round (ish!). The first time, I will wait for the signs then was thinking maybe I should to invite him in on his good side first time around so he can fully appreciate my body language. There isn't really a voice command that matches a passive, soft body position and looking at ground but maybe I could combine this with a soft sigh? Any other suggestions for how to modify 'Join-up' itself would be welcome! or maybe i should just do it as normal and see what happens...
Ok just to add it appears we have another 'issue' to work around. :)
Its actually a very endearing feature. I thought he would be easy to send away as he is quite timid in personality (or so I thought). However I think as part of his 16 years as a faithful shepherds horse, he was trained to never leave his rider's side if he dismounted to fix a gate/rescue a lamb etc. Since my last post, I just tried to send him away from me in the school and no amount of squaring up, eye balling, making weird noises, flapping my arms, rope, stamping etc would get him going! I can tell he doesn't particularly like all the flapping and commotion - looked at me like I was mad - but he just wouldn't budge, preferring to be right in front of me watching my every move. He kept whirling around to face me rather than going away no matter where I moved to, or on my right had side, next to his good eye. Maybe I should consider this joined up already?!!! I noticed this when I tried to send him away on a long line the other day. Think this is going to take some work....any tips?! he backs up great, is a joy to lead and is gentle as a lamb in all ways, but doesn't like to do anything from a distance. Maybe this is related to his eyesight issue as well - he probably already feels most secure when he is right next to his owner. It would be handy to be able to send him away in certain situations- long lining etc but maybe I am asking too much of him? Or just failing to find the right way to communicate with him....any advice please?!
Busybee
Do you think that you have a beneficial relationship with your horse? By that I mean, does he willingly do what is asked of him/ Does he remain calm and confident when you are working with him? Does he come to you when you either ask him or approach his paddock? Will he follow you around without a lead rope in the round pen or does he just ignore you? If you are answering yes to these questions, why do you want to do a join up on a horse that is already joined to you? You might ask one of the certified instructors, but to me you are already there and just need to remember how to use your body and breathing to reinforce this good connection
Cheers
Thanks Dennis, i was pondering this myself, he is a joy to handle but is new and we are still getting to know each other, so I thought join up might be useful. He doesn't come when I call him yet (although he looks up, ears forward, and watches my every move) and is a bit stand offish at first (doesn't run away but I have to come to him) but once I have a halter on him (which he always allows) he follows right by my elbow like a lamb and does every thing I ask - backing up, through gates, over stuff etc, everything apart from go away from me when asked! He sometimes follows me without a lead rope but not in that strong definite way my joined up youngster does now. I would say he is 'half joined up! I wanted to try Join up to help our relationship grow even more and also because under saddle, he can be a bit joggy and hard to stop without using strong rein aids (he was ridden 'hard' before I got him and has 2 speeds - jog or very fast canter up steep hills with a screeching haul back on the reins to stop at the end!!) so I was hoping to join up and then use long lining (amongst other things) to get him more used to voice aids, try to achieve smoother transitions and hopefully enable me to use softer aids in future. But as he won't go away from me at all on the ground I might just keep practising under saddle instead. Either that or if I try long lining again, I might get my husband (he wasn't available today and I was here on my own) to gently lead him out on a circle (with me in middle at the end of the lines), just at walk, to see if he gets the hang of me being a bit further away. Definitely not complaining, he is a wonderful horse! But I am just trying to figure out the best approach to use with him. He is such a sweetie though, love him to bits already :)