All the Creatures

The one thing I have learned as a horse owner and trainer is that you can never start too early training young horses. Sure, almost everyone knows that you train a foal to wear a halter and lead them around. In fact most experienced breeders will have the foal use to having it’s feet picked up and have had their feet trimmed at 6 weeks old.

I have found another very useful training tool for foal and weanlings, the horse blanket.

Foal wearing Techno fleece blanket

By putting a blanket on a foal or weanling horse you would not only keep them warm and clean, you will also teach them not to spook at items rubbing against their bodies. The sight feel of fabric moving around them will help desensitize them for saddle training later on. Use the blanket as a training tool. I don’t want to hear you say “my young horses don’t need blankets”, but instead “blankets will help de-spook my horses, so I use them”

You don’t even have to leave the blanket on for more than a few hours a day it you don’t want to. In fact it would help with their training if they got use to having the blanket taking off and put on again everyday. I also like to take the blanket off over their heads so they get use to having something block their vision once and awhile. It also gets them use to having something brush around their ears and head, making them less head shy.

So will you be using a horse blanket as a training tool from now on?

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If you have not noticed, I would like to direct your attention to the tab at the top of the page. The one that says “the pet store” was just added a few days ago. I have been busy adding items to the store. Right now I have been featuring the large selection of doggy Halloween costumes. I will be adding a whole section on dog grooming supplies with everything from walk in tubs, shampoos to clippers. I have been noticing an increase of searches for reptile and bird items so I will be added them too. I’ll be also adding a section of ferret supplies. If you know of anything that you can’t find online and know the brand name or a description of the item just leave a comment and I’ll try and track it down.

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I had a blast today. Nice overcast weather that was not too hot but just right for horse training. I got Moe out (the miniature horse) of pasture and did a through groom job on him. I am so glad he is finally shedding out this year. Put the harness on him and led him to the arena where I had the cart waiting. I had hitched him up last week and led him around the property just walking beside him and he did really well. This time I ground drove him and waited until he settled down before hitching him up to the cart. I drove him on the ground after hitching him up by walking behind the cart. He was doing so well that I decided to stop him and get in the cart so he could feel the weight of the cart change. I did that a few times and he turned his head to look at me. Then I got on board and decided to drive him while in the cart. He did great. He is learning to turn the cart by pushing on the shafts to turn it. I trotted, walked and even backed him up in harness. I kept to working him in the arena and next time I plan on taking him out to a large flat area that we have that is the future home of our jumping arena. I have got to get some photos next time.

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