Yesterday we were doing trail training, I'll explain why we were doing trail training in a later post, and Sora was acting scared of the cars again. I swear we've ridden and walked past the same cars in the same place dozens of times but Sora wants to stop and look every time. This time, however, I had just read a very appropriate post about trail training on COTH where someone had trained their horse to target and then used it on the trail to get the horse to touch things it was scared of.
Because if that I decided to see if Sora remembered her fifteen minute targeting lesson from last year. She certainly did! All I had to do was march up to the car, point to it and say "touch it Sora". It took her a second but then she happily touched it and got a treat. I had her do it a few more times just to make sure it was really solid and then we moved on. On the way back from her walk I was mildly surprised and pleased when she led me straight over to the same car to touch it and get a treat again. That'll be fun when we're riding along a road lol!!
Today I took her out again and as soon as we started down the driveway she marched straight towards the car. I laughed and let her touch it once and gave her one treat figuring that I'd probably not continue with that car since she was no longer scared of it so I lead her forward and without any prodding on my part she led me straight up to a car we had never targeted before!
Of course she got a treat and then we went on our walk. I was ready for her to lead me to both those cars when we got back and I led her right past them. On our way back out into the pasture she tried it again and once again I led her right past but then Sora came up with an idea :D
She came right with me but instead of staying back and trying to touch the cars like I thought she might she marched right up to our ancient tractor (that looks nothing like a car) and slammed her nose into it. She then stood and looked very proud while I fished out a treat and gave it to her laughing. Little bugger sure knows how to work the system :P
And here is what our tractor looks like. Not much like a car, huh.
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