Luke . . .

This is a beautiful and challenging 6 year old gelding who came to me with a variety of behavior problems Spring of 2006.  We loaded him on the trailer to bring him home for training by making him think he was escaping us by getting on.  Once home, he traveled the 100 yards from the trailer to the barn on his hind feet, rearing and striking all the way. Important note: He was scared and upset, striking at the rope holding him, but never aiming directly at me, a finer point I was very appreciative of!

In the next few days that followed, Luke taught me that he was scared and angered by pressure. He'd rather leave than stick around for the lesson, and if it was a fight you were going to bring, he'd give you one.  I used techniques that I have learned through studying a variety of natural horsemanship trainers, and what was successful for Luke, was breaking things down into tiny, non threatening pieces. That, and short study sessions, to start with.  The first successful day, we worked for 15 minutes, in which time he let me touch all the way back to his flanks . . . a HUGE improvement!  During other, less successful attempts, he dismantled my round pen, a couple of times, and said, absolutely no way am I going to trust you, give you my ears, eyes or anything except my heels, leaving!

Every so often, I would see a glimpse of what wanted to be a gentle, responsive horse, and I built for that.  I didn't know if it would work out or if he would even survive the experience, so strong was his flight or fight responses ingrained in him.  I later found out that his farrier had never managed to trim all four feet at one setting, even with the horse thrown and tied down.  Luke once took the farrier and two other grown men who were attempting to subdue him backwards over a cattle feeder and down a hill.  Look up "heart" in the dictionary, you'll probably see the big fellow there, it was just all pointing in the wrong directions!

Fortunately, I got to have Luke for a little over 90 days.  In that amount of time, he learned to give his trust and stick around for the lesson. Once that happened, we discovered his sense of play and he became my favorite student.  Saddle training came relatively easy for him (he'd had 30 days as a two year old) and he never attempted to buck or bolt from the first time I sat on him til I sent him home to his owners.  The entire secret was getting him to consent to becoming a student, gaining his respect and trust and building from that point.

He is now being ridden by a 14 year old boy and mom's report is on my testamonial page.  I even offered to buy the horse from them, but they love him too, and rightfully so!

Gentle, no nonsense persuasion, patience and kind handling did the trick with this sensitive and talented horse.  We pet 'em, but we don't spoil them and we don't take "no" for an answer.  We do reward progress and "catch the horses doing stuff right . . ."