Goose – day 10

 Spent a lot of time working on catching him. He would let me touch him in the big pen but not let me catch him. So I ran him into the round pen and we worked on catching him. He was very hard to catch it first, I have a thought that maybe he doesn’t like men. We spent an hour touching him, give him a little snack and walk away. A lot of rinse and repeat on this. He is still pretty twitchy about being caught, but getting better. At the end of about an hour on the ground, he was standing, let me walk up to him, put the halter on him, touch him all over and I could do this repeatedly.

But, I wondered if I could catch him back in the big pen. And he taught me a lesson about finishing on a good note. Because once we got back in the big pen, he would have nothing to do with me even for food. I think sometimes the horse gets a win too. And tonight was goose‘s win. I do believe that he will be better in the catchability department tomorrow, but I think maybe it’s gonna take a lot of time to get him used to being caught. And a small pen might be in his future for the ability to catch Him.

Goose – day 9

 Two posts in one day because I forgot to post yesterday. Today was a lot of the rinse repeat rinse. Repeat with the catching game. Tested my patience pretty good because he has had nothing to do with the feed or me touching him. So I arranged the gates and ran him in the round pen. If he turned his hind end  toward me in the round pen, he got a spanking. That only took a couple times before he realized it was a whole lot easier to do this with his head facing me. And because he’s food motivated, I started rewarding his good behavior. We finally got to the point where I could walk up to him, catching and bend his head around, and put a halter on. I repeated this for about an hour.

Goose – day 8

 I work today on a little bit of a catching game. He’s hard to catch and I wonder if he hasn’t been roped to get caught. So I went out there with the feed and I didn’t let him have any until he came to me. I rubbed around on him and then took it away and rinse and repeat for 45 minutes to an hour. I did all this in the big pasture that we have him in right now, so of course he had plenty of room to get away from me.

Goose – day 7

 Today with goose, I worked on just getting him caught without him being all snaky on the ground. Spent a very long time, catching him, turning him loose, catching him, turning him loose, catching him, turning him loose. And then I caught him and went ahead and put saddle on him, and a little Tom Thumb bit. And went and led him up to the mounting block and got on. I really thought he was gonna break in to, at one point, because he looked at a shadow and saw those long reins trailing down by his shoulder and just started trying to run backwards to get away from him. Once he got used to seeing that though he was just fine. I believe that goose is fairly well broke. I think his biggest problem is that he is scared to death of ropes. Going to spend more time on foot around him going forward than riding.

Goose - day 6

 With two days off, Goose was pretty jumpy and buggery. He acted like we hadn’t been doing anything at all. Caught him up, rode him a bit. But I wanted to try something new today. I know he’s afraid of the ropes and anything moving up around his head. So I went and got my lariat, and as soon as I walked into the round pen and he could hear that rope slide, he turned into a quivering mess. I spent the rest of the time standing on the far side of the Round pen away from him just swinging that rope around my head. We eventually got to the place where he allowed me to touch him with it, and I rubbed him all over. But we’re gonna spend a lot of time going forward getting him used to ropes so he doesn’t have this great fear. 

Goose – day 5

When I went out to catch goose, he seemed like he wanted to be around me. I went to put the halter on him and he lost his mind for a few minutes. I think this all stems back to that fear of ropes. So we started with groundwork. When he wanted to to booger and leave, I put pressure on him and made it uncomfortable for him to be away from me. And when he wanted to be still, I  rubbed around on him and let him know this is where I wanted him to be. After a bit he calmed down, and I caught him. Thre the saddle on him, no issues. Since I didn’t know how he would react to a bit his mouth I rode him with a bosal today. Going to Ride with a bit going forward. He’s fairly broke as much as I could tell on this first ride anyway. All in all, ended on a good note. 

Goose – day 4

 Ended up on a good note today with goose. But he started out pretty buggery about Lead ropes and halters and me touching him. So we worked on a little bit of a catch me game. I put pressure on his hip and pushed him and pushed him and pushed him until he looked at me, and then I would turn around and walk away and try to get him to follow me. Took a little while, he got pretty hot and sweaty. But he got there. I spent a lot of time flicking my long line all around him on the ground and up over his back, and around his legs. It’s gonna take a lot of of this to get him over being afraid of ropes being around him. but we ended on a good note, he was calm and semi OK with the ropes being flicked around him at the end.

Goose – day 3

 It was a good day for goose. Not a lot of pressure on him this morning, he was snorting and blowing at everything. Combination of his natural snortiness and it being a little cooler this morning. We worked on getting him used to external pressure. Yesterday I mentioned that I thought he belonged to a roper, and today I took a long line and basically Walked away from him, flinging it all over until he got used to it. And then I would get closer to him and do it, move further away and do it. Basically I was just desensitized him to that rope. It was a good workout for him because he did not like it. But by the end here, he was doing all right.

Goose - Day 2

 After yesterday, this day wasn’t so hard on goose. He was still pretty snorting and blowy, and didn’t like the rope touching him. But from the time that I started putting pressure on him until the time he started looking at me was much shorter. This was sort of a repeat of what yesterday was. It was pressure pressure pressure on the ground, until he tipped near at me. And then we release the pressure. I rubbed all over him, tossed my rope over his back around his legs up around his head. He didn’t like that too much, back to my thought about him belonging to a roper. It was another good day. 

Goose - Day 1

 Day, one was pretty intense for goose. He immediately didn’t want to be caught, which I’m OK with. But it was a workout for him. I immediately put pressure on his hip and drove him away from me and pushed and kept pressure up until he wanted to tip that ear to me and start looking at me. It took probably a good 35-40 minutes for him to give in and start looking at me. Once that started, I took some of the pressure off of him. But we spent the next 20 minutes or so in an approach and release type game. I would approach him, and if he stayed still, I would walk away from him. If he moved, it was back to pressure on the hip in circles in the Round pen. 

I wonder, if he belonged to a roper. He was really snorting and blowing about the rope, touching him anywhere. And he does have scars all around his legs like he was tangled in a rope or a wire.  

All in all a good day.