Some of you are familiar with Beau’s story. Beau is our big black and white paint gelding who was very badly mistreated and abused before coming to the rescue. When I first met Beau several years ago, he would turn and run if a person approached within 20-30 feet of him. When we could finally get close to him, he would still flinch or shiver if touched. Beau’s journey to trust people has been slow and many other people would have given up on him as hopeless. Early on, the rescue had a trainer who specialized in mustangs and problem horses work with Beau for several months. The trainer’s final conclusion was that it would be best to just euthanize him–he would always be a dangerous horse who was terrified of people.
However, even though we’ve been working in baby steps, Beau has made a ton of progress in the last year. Beau’s latest accomplishment is halter training. He still doesn’t know much about leading (which will come next), but this is still a huge step for Beau. The video below shows the third day where we worked on putting the halter all the way on.
Watch on YouTube: Beau’s Progress with Halter Training
This behavior was trained in lots and lots of little steps. I have video of some of the process, so I’m going to work on putting together a longer video showing some of the steps.
We do all of Beau’s training in an open pasture. It’s always his choice. If he wants to walk away, he always has that option. He participates in the training because he wants to. This helps build his confidence, because he never feels forced, threatened or pressured. It also helps us break the training down into tiny steps, because if we go too fast or do something that makes him uncomfortable, he’ll let us know!
You can read more about Beau on the rescue’s website here. The rescue is 100% volunteer run and relies completely on donations and sponsorships to support Beau’s care and training.