A round pen is a very useful piece of equipment. I use them for a safe place to introduce a horse to horsemanship, starting liberty and riding techniques. They can be any size you want and I’ve found that you can ride safely in them when you are unconfident and then progress to riding the outside of the pen when you are more confident. Two pens near each other can help create a perfect figure of 8 pattern for transitions, SLC’s and FLC’s and four in a symmetric square shape helps when learning the clover leaf pattern. They’re easy to put up or move and handy if you need a small place to graze a horse at home or when away. I’ve made many hundreds of round pens over the years and here are a couple of ways to make them easy to put up.
A lot of horses have unwanted behaviours around worming time, their heads go up, they backup and the try their best to resist eating the nasty tasting wormer. These behaviours are instinctual but we can change them if we take time to help our horse relax and understand what we want.
Worming had not been a problem with our horses as we’ve been giving them the tablet form and they all took them like treats. Now we are syringe worming I’ve discovered that Solly has some negative behaviour with it all. He throws his head up so high I can’t reach him, he’s turning away and if I didn’t have a halter on him he’d be off. So instead of getting upset, I thought, what a prime opportunity to do a Training Tip Video of me teaching him how to take a syringe wormer with relaxation and positive reinforcement, and here is the first part….
So, I have done three practice sessions of worming on Solly (and the other herd members) and have progressed to not treating now and doing it at liberty. Here are some pics from our 4th practice today.
Pic 1) is of Solly looking at the syringe, I’ve placed it in the area I want his head to be.
Pic 2) is of Solly sniffing the syringe…smell is a huge part of this so it will be interesting to use the real wormer with him!
Pic 3) is of Solly taking the syringe himself .
Pics 4&5) are of him taking the apple sauce…all at liberty.
Pic 6) is Stormy taking the syringe for some sauce.
Pic 7) is Tara smelling the syringe.
Pic 8) is Tara taking the sauce, I held my hand on the outside of her head to encourage and sooth her, she could move her head that way and I wasn’t forcing it all, she just needs more support and love.
Beginners: start online in walk then trot
Intermediates: go to neck rope in walk or trot
Advanced: work at liberty in walk, trot or canter
Fun: try riding it (w/t/c)
Challenges Online/Liberty/Ridden:
Front feet & back feet in hulahoops (or walk over)
Trot over poles on tarp
Trot/canter through scary corridor
Jump
Trot through weave pattern
Transitions through narrow corridor (walk in/halt/backup/trot out)
Walk/trot over bottle bank
Walk/trot fig 8
Walk/trot through curtain
Trot through arch or jump hoop jump
Sidepass over or near an obstacle
Walk through water feature
Ground tie (immobility/halt) and extreme familiarisation with objects around horse
Liberty with Solly
Ridden with Solly
Tips:
Try and test all the obstacles to make sure you and your horse know what to do at each one, make sure you reward for the slightest try and as you advance you do more with each obstacle, either stay longer, transitions or all at a higher gait throughout.
Once you know what to do with each obstacle then put them together as smoothly as possible as a course (if online then keeping a ‘smile’ in the rope as much as you can).
Set it up the best way for your area so it doesn’t need to be in this order or this shape.
Do not push your horse through or over things, accept what he gives you and teach him more as you go along. Repeat as often as you can for a horse that is a slow learner and make sure you mix it up often for a horse that gets bored quickly.
Remember it’s supposed to be fun….for you AND your horse 🙂
