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All about horses in northern B.C. Issue # 13: January 24, 2000 Published each Monday by Kristi McCrindle, editor Forming a bond with your horse can bring about all sorts of rewards. Just having a horse whicker a greeting at you when you go out in the morning to feed can be a heartwarming moment. Sitting bareback on your horse in the field while he grazes quietly, comfortable with you on his back, that can be a nice time for you both. Having a horse come to you from out in the field, just to see what you are doing at the fence, also gives you a sense of partnership. The more time you can spend with your horse, the stronger the bond you will build. Some horses don't WANT to bond with their humans. Many of them have been scared or possibly abused in their lives, and they aren't willing to trust a person around them. Without trust, it is really hard to build that bond up, but it can be done with quiet and patient handling. I've personally found it takes about two years for me to, one day, realize that a horse has done a complete turnaround in his attitude towards me. After the two years is up, I've found them to finally accept all aspects of their training, be it trailer loading, being ridden, standing tied, and they are ready to go on to another home. In her note on Horse Talk, Slider mentioned that some horses are just different in temperament than others and this is also true. Some horses can't bond with most humans, there is just something deep inside that makes them distrustful and they have a hard time moving past that. These horses tend to make the best progress if they are a one-person horse and receive a lot of attention from their human. I usually have too many horses to give that much individual attention to one horse, so for me that kind of horse doesn't work. One horse I bought never did come around, and to this day he remains spooky, distrustful, and in some ways downright dangerous. Sometimes you just have to recognize this and move on to an animal who you can form a real partnership with. I hope you have been having a chance to evaluate the bond you have with your equine partner(s), and maybe you'll be working a little harder at becoming a partner instead of a boss.~ Kristi : ) New!! Take a moment and fill out our Reader Survey ...and enter the Draw for a prized hiway16.com mug email to editor: kristi@hiway16.com (If you see error messages when viewing this page, your browser may be out-of-date. If you upgrade to a 4.x version, the error messages should disappear)

Tell us a bit about yourself and your horses in our new Reader Survey. You can win a prized hiway16.com mug Throatlatch adjustment Just a short note this week on bridle adjustment. We mentioned, two weeks ago, that the curb strap should have two fingers between the strap and the chin groove of the horse when the reins are at rest. The throatlatch, which is the long strap that crosses from just below one ear around the throat of the horse and back up to near the other ear, should have four fingers space, measuring with the hand sideways (same as for the curb strap). If this is adjusted too tightly, the horse may not be able to flex his neck properly. Too loose, and he could rub his bridle right off over his ears should he rub his head on something (don't laugh, I've had it happen!). Some bridles don't even HAVE a throatlatch; it is often missing from a one-ear western bridle, which is commonly used for showing. Many rulebooks will not permit a stallion to be shown without a throatlatch (for the exact reason of slipping the bridle off I mentioned above), and I wouldn't recommend trail riding with one - just in case! Is there a piece of equestrian equipment you'd like to know how to adjust correctly? If you have tips or questions on equipment care, purchases, fit, or anything else to do with equestrian equipment, please mail them to kristi@hiway16.com If you are new to Northern B.C. Horse, check out all the previous issues on the Archive page. Kristi is building a great knowledge base about horses, with the emphasis on our area of the world. We update the Events Page every week - so be sure to check often Western, English, Penning or Trail riding, all equine sports have a voice on Northern B.C. Horse.	Past articles are all available in the More on heated water troughs... In addition to the heating methods we talked about last week, I'd like to share with you Shirley's method for cutting down on heating costs. Shirley also has one of those Rubbermaid troughes with the heating element that screws into the bottom where the plug goes. She covers the trough 2/3 of the way across with a piece of plywood, and screws a board to the bottom of the plywood to keep it from moving around too much. This lid serves to keep a lot of the heated water evaporating, which cools the water, requiring more heat, as well as conserving on water use. Another tip is to coat the edges of the board with creosote or used engine oil to keep the horses from nibbling at the cover. Shirley also suggests putting timers on your trough heaters so they come for about 3 hours in the middle of the night. Then when it is warmer out, the heaters are not on all the time (some do have built in thermostats which prevent overheating as well). Thanks Shirley for these easy and helpful tips! If you have tips or questions you'd like to share with other local equestrians, please mail them to kristi@hiway16.com Northern B.C. Horse is brought to you courtesy of our advertisers including: The Tack Store Ridennoure Paint Horses Burns Lake Building Supplies Hoskins Ford Uniglobe Travel North Thanks to our advertisers for making this all possible... ...for information about advertising, email jim@hiway16.com	Clicker training- Continued As soon as he starts to get the idea, then you start looking for behaviours that you want to build on. Say you want the horse to back away from you to get his treat, instead of mugging you for it. You could use your body language to suggest the horse back up, or you could use a halter and lead, or a whip cue to help, just like you would in conventional training. As soon as the horse shifts his weight back, you'd click him. Then after a while, you'd get a foot to step back, and click on that. Soon the horse will expect to step back to get his click. Build on that a step at a time, just like we do in regular training and soon you could have the horse backing all over the place without you even touching him. Teaching the horse to back up for his treat really helps to keep them from mugging you! Clicker training is used in conjunction with other training methods. If you don't know how to ride, you won't be able to turn your horse into a champion dressage horse with clicker training, but you can use it to piggy-back the knowledge you already have. To shape a behaviour, you need to first decide what you want to accomplish, then break it into as many small steps as possible. The more steps the better, as it gives you an opportunity to reward the horse more often, which keeps him more interested in playing the game. And playing the game is exactly what you are doing - clicker training sessions should be short and fun. Ten to fifteen minutes at a time is all you need to start shaping behaviours, then go away and do something else for while. When you come back to it, you'll likely find that even a horse who had started to lose interest will be keen again. If you have tips or questions you'd like to share with other local equestrians, please mail them to kristi@hiway16.com

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