Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Sabine's next lessons

Once Sabine was leading well, she had a lot of other lessons to learn.  To be a productive part of society, she needed to learn to stand tied, be fly sprayed, have her feet handled and eventually even be ridden.  But we had to take things one at a time.

Before she could learn any of those things, Sabine needed to learn to be touched.  I started by rubbing her neck - the only place she would let me touch her.  If she needed to move or walk away, I let her but stayed with her, continuing to rub.  If she stopped moving and relaxed, I stopped rubbing her and moved out of her space for a minute.  Then I would go back to rubbing her.  Once she was good about one spot and would stand still and let me rub it, I moved further down her body.  The same rules applied - if she moved, I kept with her and when she relaxed, I stopped.

It took many, many sessions that lasted maybe 10 minutes spread over several weeks until I could rub her anywhere - her face,  her neck, sides, belly, and even her legs.  Once she was standing still and letting me rub anywhere, I repeated the process with a rubber curry comb and then with a stiff brush.  Each item went a little quicker, but it still took multiple sessions.

No comments:

Post a Comment