One of my favorite horse agility obstacles is the noodle walk.
It’s a fun obstacle, but also a practical obstacle. This obstacle can help a horse learn to be calm and confident if something unexpectedly touches their side or bushes up against them. In these types of situations, may horses are quick to spook, panic, and run away!
Several years ago, I taught my Arabian gelding, Apollo, to confidently walk between two pool noodles. We went slowly and carefully, as Apollo was often afraid of new things. You can see some photos and videos from Apollo’s early training with the noodle obstacle in this post.
Several months ago, I tried introducing Chewie to the noodles, and I could tell that she just wasn’t ready for this challenge, yet.
She was interested in engaging with me near the noodles, but she was not curious about the noodles and did not want to engage with them. She was convinced that it was a much smarter decision to walk around them than to touch them or to let them touch her.
I think we could have continued attempting training sessions with the noodles, but I could tell that the training was going to be slow and difficult. So, rather than trying to keep pushing forward, we took a break and waited several months before attempting the noodles again.
In the meantime, we’ve spent a lot of time working with flags. And, Chewie now thinks that flags are really fun. You can read more about how I introduced Chewie to the flags in our flags are fun post and you can see a video of Chewie walking confidently between two flags as part of our March 2026 agility entry.
Flags are different than noodles. But, many of the features that make flags scary are similar to the things that make noodles scary. Flags are brightly colored. They move unpredictably. They might touch you. They move when they touch you. And, they feel funny when they touch you.
Now that Chewie is curious and confident about flags, I thought that it might be a good time to try introducing her to the noodles again.
Chewie meets the noodles
We started by doing some explorations with the noodles in the barn.
I set up several noodles in various places and at various heights. Then, we spent time hanging out together in the barn. If Chewie wanted to explore the noodles, she could! If she didn’t want to investigate them, we practiced other behaviors that she knows well, with the noodles nearby.
As we hung out together, I would periodically move to different parts of the barn. This allowed Chewie to practice casually walking near the noodles and gave her more opportunities to investigate them, if she wanted.
Next, I arranged two noodles so that there was a wide space between them. We practiced walking back and forth between the gap. Chewie had plenty of space so that the noodles did not touch her. She could also walk out of the barn and round the noodles, if she didn’t want to go through them.
Over time, I gradually made the gap narrower!
As the gap got narrower, the noodles began to touch Chewie as she walked through them.
We went slowly at first, so that she didn’t get startled or loose confidence.
In our past several sessions, Chewie has made a lot of progress.
She can now push between two noodles and is comfortable letting the noodles touch her body as she walks through them.
I’ll post more next week as we continue making progress with the noodles.
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