Baby Steps- Learning to Lead
Now that I could touch Remi and had she had halter on her face, I decided it was time to teach her to lead. I am a self proclaimed impatient human, I have a tendency to act now and review later so I wanted to start going on walking adventure with my little pony’stang ( her new nickname, having stood next to my little midget mare at this point and found her wanting a bit in stature). I had done a lot of research into different methods for teaching a wild horse to lead and settled on one that I thought was the most effective and least stressful. I learned that if you can teach a horse to follow you with their shoulders before teaching them to lead, they progress quicker.
I do this by stepping back and looking away anytime they face me, then when I step forward again and they move off, you find the sweet spot in the pen, where you know they try to stop at. When they turn to face you, step back and remove pressure, and let them rest. If they are threatening with their back end, I get them to move their feet again, then give them the opportunity to stop and face me again. Soon they’ll figure out that when they face you they can just stand there.
When I was teaching Remi to lead, I would have one end of a 20 foot rope on her, the other end on me, then she would go around in the pen. Again with the same theory, when she hits a corner I knew she liked to stop in, I would apply pressure on the rope and when she turned, immediately released it and took step back. Before long when you apply that pressure and step back, they start following you. You need to build on it with the lovey words and rubs where they allow it. They’ll slowly get accustomed to your voice and touch.
Once I got her to start following me around the square pen, making small turns this way and that, we stepped into the large corral. Staying near the square pen at first I began teaching her to follow me around the more open space. There were a few times when she decided she did not trust me enough to stay near with me in the larger area. She would bolt, pulling the rope from my hand, I never try to hold onto a bolting mustang during the first few weeks of in hand training. I would quietly go collect her and we would began walking again. When she got stuck in her feet, I would move to the side, gently applying pressure and when any of her feet moved forward, or sideways release the pressure on the rope and step away.
Nearing the end of October 2017, when Remi was progressing well with leading, we began working on leading outside my bigger arena, inside the enclosed spaces on the farm. Out in the open, trusting is harder, when they are not enclosed and can see the open spaces and a chance to get away from you. You want them to see you as a safe place, to build their trust in you, you have to stay calm and never give them a reason to fear you. Just keep the sweet talk up and the reassuring rubs.
It took a couple days before she would follow me outside in the open fields without question or bolting. It is a bit nerve racking to see my horse galloping off into the distance, but usually she would run back to the mustang herd and her “safe” corral. Every time the bolt would happen, (Remi only ran away from me once), I thought “dear god, don’t let her run into a fence or trip in a badger hole” luckily, she has a good brain and I was spared from those fears. I would not even bother to hold onto her rope. I would let it pull from my hand, safer to just let her run and quietly catch her before we started again. Once she saw me as a leader and started choosing to stay near me when she was scared rather than running, we started to go on longer walking excursion around the farm property together. After the initial bolting incidents, Remi never bolted during our trips further a field . She would “start” a few time during the first few walks, just the little jumps where all 4 feet slam to the ground at once, than look to me for reassurance.
Building on the foundation you created for learning to lead takes consistency and patience, some days your going to get frustrated, “can’t we just have a walk and not bolt/spook and runway?” dealing with the fear and panic can be exhausting some days. I have been there, I have experienced days (with other mustangs) where they spook every 2 minutes during a walk training session.
