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Horse Behavior and Training

New Mustang

Hello! 100 lessons completed 150 lessons completed 200 lessons completed 250 lessons completed 300 lessons completed 350 lessons completed 400 lessons completed 450 lessons completed 500 lessons completed 550 lessons completed 600 lessons completed 650 lessons completed
I recently adopted a 6 year old, untouched  Mare from BLM. In the past I have gentled over 50 horses using Monty's methods with great success. I have even gentled 5 Mustangs, but all were so what halter trained. This new once was never haltered until the day we picked her up. At first she would not approach me and had probably never received grain. So I started by putting grain in  the middle of the round pen and leaving it for her to eat. Once she was comfortable with eating the grain with me in  the round pen I started moving it closer to me until she was eating it from the bowl in my lap. this took about 12 days. Since the she has touched my arms and legs several time and nuzzled my arm all the way up to my shoulder. I have been able to touch her nose several times as she eats. We are now on the 27th day she is much more relaxed while eating but I can't touch her any place but her nose. My question is where do I go from here as I can't get a dually on her to progress with the training. Any advise or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

JoHewittVINTA
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Hi Jack. I have no first hand experience of mustangs but in your situation I would use Join up to increase her confidence in you. Then you can incrementally build towards putting a normal halter on her, working towards replacing it with a Dually in due course. You could start with rubbing her neck, shoulder, face whilst having a short length of soft rope in your hand, gradually releasing it so it too touches her skin in an increasing floppy loop. Once she is comfortable with that you can move to put it over her neck & then sliding it around. The key will be using infinite patience. Working to achieve small advances, being really generous with your praise & having the self discipline to stop the session on a success high for you both - not just pressing on 'as she is being so accepting today'. There are mustang lessons on the Uni. I would revisit these repeatedly - your girl is not a domestic horse & deserves to be respected & appreciated for the wildness of her nature. Good luck & make sure you both have fun. Cheers, Jo.
ginahcalkins
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If you have a chute or a possibility of reaching thru something without being too close to her but she can’t escape from you, I would do that. I am gentling a wild 9yo gelding right now that was rescued from a kill pen. So he isn’t a mustang but I put a halter on him in the “chute” (makeshift with cow panels). 

I have been a Monty Roberts University student since 2011 but I wanted my married name on the university so I had to start over.  so I’m not talking from any experience other than JoinUp concepts. I have gentled a few horses also.