From: Nancy
Jessica, Your responses have always been enormously helpful and insightful so here is a question/situation for your input. I have a horse, approximately 2 1/2 years old, who hates being hosed. He will gladly walk through water with no problem but becomes excited and agitated when you use a hose on him no matter how slow the flow of water. Recently he injured himself and had to stay at the vet's office for treatment. On the third day I happen to be there when he was treated. He stood for the shots fairly well with the support of a technician, although he didn't like it. When he was being lightly hosed on the injury he became agitated to the point of trying to escape from the chute used for treatment. He ended up with one foot hooked over the chest guard/gate after attempting to leap forward. I was embarrassed since he has never behaved that intensely (he was born on our property and I have done his training). He has shown a strong dislike of water, but nothing that exaggerated.
I plan to work on this issue, but am not sure how to start to assure he doesn't injure me accidentally as he reacts to the situation. Since I have done all his training I feel I have left holes in this area and am not sure how to defuse the situation. Help!
Nancy
If you think that he may react explosively to any situation involving a hose, wear your riding helmet. It's always better to be safe than sorry.
Don't try to begin his hose-desensitization training on a cold day, or indoors, or with your horse confined to stocks or tied to anything. Wait for a hot day - and yes, if it's winter where you live, that may mean waiting a few months to begin this process. Remember that your goal is not to force him to stand still while you run cold water on him ONCE - your goal is to help him learn that hoses and water are nothing to get excited about, and - eventually - that hoses and water are god things. Ideally, he will learn to enjoy the sensation enough that he will be happy when he sees the hose.
Like any other process of desensitization, getting a horse accustomed to a hose involves a quiet, gradual, incremental approach, with the environment and conditions controlled and set up for success. This means that you'll want to begin (on a hot sunny day) by setting up the hose in an area where the horse can move freely without putting himself at risk. This isn't something to do in a stall or wash rack or in the corner of a field near the fence - you need an outdoor area that would be big enough to longe the horse (i.e., an area that would permit him to revolve around you on a full 20 meter circle), and the footing should be grass, sand, or gravel, so that the horse will have secure footing and won't slip or slide even if he does a little dancing at first. When you've chosen your venue and installed the hose, put a halter on the horse, attach a long lead-rope to the halter, and take him out there. Bring his favourite scratchy brush with you - and a pocketful of treats. If the water flow from the hose can be controlled from the nozzle, you won't need anyone else's help. If there is no nozzle and you need someone to control the water flow by opening the tap a little or a lot, enlist the help of someone who will sit quietly by the tap and follow your instructions. No other person should be present - your horse can't learn to relax if he's being distracted or interfered with by other people who are trying to tell YOU what to do.
Begin by getting the horse used to the hose itself. Some horses are naturally suspicious of long snake-like objects that appear to move, and who can blame them? With the hose lying on the ground, hold your horse on a long lead and brush him. Walk him over the hose a few times, then move the hose around - over here, then over there, then somewhere else. Keep talking to him, keep brushing, and pretend that you don't see either the hose or his reaction to it. If he moves around, fine - go with him. If he won't stand still, fine - let him walk around. Don't try to make him stand in one place - he can think better if his feet are moving and he doesn't have to worry that he's trapped AND faced with something scary. Horses adjust to new objects remarkably quickly when handlers have the sense to make it clear that THEY aren't worried or even interested. Your lack of concern will tell your horse that the hose is harmless.
If he jumps away and you react, either by yelling and yanking the leadrope to bring him back, or by rushing to his side and trying to comfort him, he'll have good reason to believe that the hose is actually scary. After all, in the first scenario he saw the hose, jumped away, and then was yelled at and jerked - PROOF, to a horse's mind, that the hose WAS dangerous. And in the second scenario, he jumped away and was petted and reassured and cuddled - which, to him, is proof that you WANTED him to jump away, since you rewarded him for doing it! Your job is NOT to react in any particular way. Just keep your horse connected to you by the leadrope, but don't hang onto his head. He needs to feel that he can "get away", even though all that's likely to mean is that he will take several steps in the direction away from the hose.
Now you see why he reacted so strongly at the clinic. He was in an unfamiliar environment, confined in stocks, held and handled by someone he did not know, AND faced with something that scared him. With his apprehension running high, it was almost a "given" that he would panic when faced with that hose. Everything combined to create a bad situation. At home, for training purposes, you'll start by setting everything up to create a good situation, and then you'll introduce the hose and water a little at a time, first the hose alone, then the hose with a trickle of water, then a stream, but always giving the horse time to accept it, and always moving the hose away from him BEFORE he becomes truly afraid.
When you begin, start with a trickle of water - a real trickle, not a full-bore blast of water, but not a drip, either - going through the hose. Let the horse inspect it. Hold it in your hand and continue to talk to the horse. SLOWLY, bring the hose forward so that the water comes out near his front hooves. Then let it run ONTO his hooves - and don't worry if he starts walking. Sometimes horses need to walk around you several times before they realize that the water on their hooves isn't some sort of attack, so give him all the time he needs to find out that the water (a) goes with him or near him wherever he goes, and (b) doesn't hurt him at all.
If he is very anxious, he may even trot, at first, in which case you should let him trot for a moment, then bring him back to walk and allow him to walk whilst you direct the water onto his feet. Since your horse has already had a bad experience with the hose, he may want to trot very fast. Don't chase him with the water - get him back to a walk first. The paradox of horses moving and thinking is that whereas slow movement allows them to think without feeling trapped, faster movement makes them excited - so keep your horse at a walk, and talk to him.
If he's in a nonthreatening, familiar environment, free to move about, and if you, his trusted friend and handler, remain relaxed and continue talking to him calmly, he will eventually learn to relax too. As he becomes more relaxed and learns to stand quietly, you'll be able to lift the horse and direct the water higher and higher on his body. By the time you reach his neck, he should be bored with the whole situation. It may take you several sessions to get this far - that's fine. The important thing is to get there eventually with a calm horse, not to get there right now. Just be sure that you NEVER get water in his ears! Don't spray him on the head or in the face, or at the very top of his neck where he will worry about getting water in his ears. Always begin with the hooves and work your way up slowly, even when your horse is comfortable with the idea of a bath. Any horse is likely to flinch or leap if you bring out the hose and suddenly direct a great stream of cold water onto his back or croup!
Here are two more elements you can add to your lessons.
Horses learn quite a lot by watching other horses. If you have another horse that either has no objection to being washed with the hose, or that actually ENJOYS it, it's not a bad idea to let your horse watch that horse enjoying a nice bath on a hot day. Just as foals quickly learn to enjoy baths if their dams enjoy being hosed down on a hot day, older horses can learn from watching one another's reactions.
And speaking of hot days, if your first few hose-training sessions take place on truly hot, humid days when the flies are biting, try this - it's a technique that has always worked very well for me. Give your horse his regular exercise, but do NOT put any fly-spray on him. When he's damp and hot and the flies are annoying him, he may still be apprehensive about the water coming from the hose, and he may still dance for a moment and then want to walk around you, but if he is like most hores, he will quickly figure out that the water feels good on his lower legs AND it makes the flies go away.
Jessica
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