Now that the nice spring weather has arrived, the flies are also back!
Chewie and I have been doing some fly mask training. I think she will appreciate wearing a fly mask, as it will help keep the pesky flies off her face.
I’ve been using clicker training this week to introduce Chewie to the fly mask. My goal is to keep our training sessions short and fun and to teach Chewie that the fly mask isn’t something to be afraid of.
What are all the skills a horse needs to know to wear a fly mask?
My final goal is for Chewie to be able to wear the fly mask in the pasture and for her to be comfortable and happy while I take the fly mask on and off.
And, there are actually lots of smaller tasks that combine together to create this goal.
Rather than doing everything all at once, I’ve been working on some of these component pieces separately.
One piece we have been working on is the Velcro!
Many horses are afraid of the sound of Velcro. It sounds loud and potentially scary, especially if the sound happens unexpectedly and right below the horse’s head, as the person is trying to fasten or unfasten the mask.
I the photo above, I’m practicing fastening and unfastening the Velcro when the mask is NOT on Chewie. She’s being curious and investigating what I’m doing, which I love to see!
Also, I’m really appreciating all of the time that we spent earlier this year working on the BARTA agility course.
You can read about some of the BARTA training that we did in this post and watch the video of our submission here.
One BARTA task that we spent quite a bit of time working on was putting a towel over Chewie’s ears and face. Initially, Chewie was unsure about this task. But, she became comfortable with it as we kept practicing.
Wearing a towel and wearing a fly mask are similar in many regards. I think the training with the towel has helped our fly mask training go quickly and smoothly!
It’s a good reminder for me that many training tasks are related. When we take the time to patiently and carefully teach one behavior, this behavior will often help us with other behaviors later on.
You may also like the post that I wrote some years ago about introducing a young rescued horse named Boomer to a fly mask. You can check it out here.
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