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I have been enjoying a new horse for
a couple of years. He is just great about everything, except crossing
railroad tracks. It's so frustrating. He just will not cross. I have
tried getting off and leading him across, even bribing him with treats.
Is there anything else I can do? The best and safest riding is in the
river bottoms--across the tracks.
Jane, Missouri
First, the good news is that your horse
is great about everything else. This suggests that he can easily learn
to comply with novel or threatening situations and tasks. Otherwise,
there would likely be some other aversions in his domestic life. It also
suggests that he is genuinely fearful. If he is one of those characters
who is just "testing you," it would have shown up somewhere
else by now. As with helping an adult horse overcome aversion to
anything, such as trailer loading, bridge crossing, stocks, clippers,
blankets, injections, feet handling, rectal temping, and so on, the
training is usually more effective if done as an independent teaching
project, where there is no big pressure to complete the task. The focus
can be on the training procedures and on how much progress is made with
each session, rather than on the fact that he failed to cross again, and
in doing so ruined your nice ride. It's also amazing how little time it
takes to gain compliance when that one task is all you are doing.
So, what exactly would you do? Well, it
sounds like overcoming this problem is pretty important to you and might
be worth some initial time and effort for an almost guaranteed good
outcome and continued compliance. I would get some railroad ties and
rails, then set up a mock railroad bed somewhere familiar to him on his
home farm. It's good to place the obstacle where the horse must pass on
his way to somewhere he likes to go, or at least is used to going.
For example, most horses like to go out
to pasture, or at least are familiar with the procedure and safety of
the pasture. If that is the case for your horse, you can set up the
rails and ties on the ground at the gate into the pasture. If he won't
lead across for you, make a safely fenced chute or pen enclosure leading
into the pasture gate. Just release him into the chute or pen, close it
up behind him, and let him cross over the rails through the pasture gate
in his own time. If he hasn't crossed after a few hours, increase his
attraction to the pasture. You can do that by putting water and grain
just a few feet inside the pasture. Or if he has a favorite horse
companion that is not afraid of railroad tracks, you can bring the other
horse or horses up near the gate or you can walk the other horse back
and forth through the gate (over the mock railroad bed). This will
entice your horse to join the others and reassure your horse that
"it's no big deal." (Be sure to familiarize the companion
horses to this novel gate railroad arrangement ahead of time so they
don't send any fear signals to your horse.)
Use your imagination with the goal of
staying with the "carrot" and away from the "stick."
Some horses can learn while being pushed, but most just seem to conclude
that the feared obstacle really is bad, and thus get worse with
pressure.
If you need help, get people who can be
patient and see this as a fun training activity. If your horse is a
stallion, you might get a good crew to help you or creatively arrange a
safe way to use an estrus mare as the carrot. Most stallions with good
libido typically appear to forget about minor novel obstacles when a
breeding opportunity is on the other side.
You can expect that the progress will be
mostly steady, but you also can expect some periodic temporary
regression (setbacks). Sometimes the regression comes right after a day
of great progress, so if you're not expecting it, you can be very
disappointed. Just return to the last step at which he was compliant or
relaxed and proceed from there. Setbacks are almost always temporary,
and the day after a setback typically has excellent progress. Your job
is to try to accept the setback as part of the progress. Human
frustration and discouragement can rub off on your horse. Your
relaxation and quiet persistence toward the goal will enhance the
positive progress.
If you just can't set up a special pen
or chute, ordinary round pen or lunge line training can be a useful
venue for acclimating horses to "feared obstacles." You can
have the obstacle set up near the outer perimeter of the line or pen.
You can get the horse going inside, then gradually work out to the
obstacle path. With the round pen it is also possible to use a companion
horse.
If at first you make too little progress
with a full mock-up of an obstacle or aversive situation, you can back
up to presenting each of the various elements of the obstacle alone or
in partial combinations for several days. In this case, I can imagine
that there are at least three elements to a railroad bed that might
contribute to the novelty or aversion--the rails, the ties, and the deep
crushed stone or gravel bed. So, you could start by just laying the
railroad ties, then just the rails, then just the gravel bed, then the
gravel and rails, then the entire mock-up. Advance to the next element
or combination after he walks comfortably over the obstacle for several
replicates.
Another tip for getting horses to more
readily cross ground obstacles such as grates, hoses, "steps,"
or railroad tracks is to cover them lightly with some familiar material,
say some bedding or a rubber mat. I don't think it's as much to hide or
disguise as to reassure with familiar material. Have him cross that
several times, then gradually remove the familiar material. I have gone
so far as to use feed to disguise the obstacle, moving the meal a few
inches farther away each day so that the horse sooner or later has to
step onto the obstacle to reach the feed.
Once he is going over the ties and rails
on his own, then lead him back and forth across. Never pull at him. If
he won't follow you at first, get the grain bucket. Once he comfortably
follows you, then try riding him back and forth. Once you are confident
riding him back and forth, you can move the training to the real
railroad. Remember, this is training, not an outing to the river bottom.
Be prepared for some regression, and have all your training options at
hand. Take him there when he's hungry. Be prepared to repeat the
progression through whatever was useful back at home--the hand-leading,
the bedding to dribble lightly near the rails, the lunge line, the
companion to lead him across, the grain, or whatever you found most
useful back at home.
Now, some people ask why go to all this
time and effort. Why not just use more forceful measures so that he
learns "Who is the boss." Well, in the end, the time, effort,
and expense of patient, clever, positive reinforcement-based training to
overcome genuine aversions is usually not that great. The payoffs last
for the life of the horse. This approach usually gets the horse to
appropriately negotiate obstacles, rather than jump over them. This is
no minor consideration, since someday he might see the obstacle before
you do and leap through the air unexpectedly. Very importantly, since
you have added no fear of pressure or punishment that might carry over
to the next novel obstacle, the next time he encounters a novel or fear-
provoking obstacle, he might just trust your judgment and take you or
follow you across the first time. Also, the same methods can be adapted
for any problems with natural or acquired aversions, which after all
represent the most common type of problem we have with our horses. It is
a great feeling to believe you can just relax while peacefully guiding
your horse through any of them.
Good luck, and keep us posted on the
wonders of the Missouri river bottoms.
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