Horse Problem - Spooky Horse - Horse spooks at things in saddle - how to desensitize spooky horse (Contd.)

(Continued)

Tip: a hand on the horse speeds along learning by 60%. If he's having a hard time there, take your other hand and stroke the horse's forehead while you continue with the wand gently swinging over his head. Do not make eye-to-eye contact. This will help him digest that you're not asking anything of him, it's going to be okay, relax, I'm just swinging something over you, no big deal, so don't worry about it, is just silly me playing here.

Once he's all okay with that, you're going to want to make sure he can be touched all over his body with this wand/plastic on the end. The back where the saddle goes is usually the most acceptable first place to start with that for most horses. From there, to show you how we desensitize a horse to something touching them that they might initally be afraid of, let me direct you to this link on my site where I teach step by step how to do that (in this particular link I am desensitizing a wild horse to human touch/the hand after a round penning session, but it's all the same desensitizing method; you'll apply the exact same method/concepts with the plastic on the end of the wand)...and bear with me here...there is a goal we are going to aim for here, in the end, that is going to help fix this spooking problem, but we have to get these steps done first:

http://www.naturalhorsetraining.com/RoundPen8.html

After you can touch the horse all over, every part of his body with the wand/plastic, start raising the horse's bar there. Let the plastic fly all around the horse in various casual patterns, get creative! It's going to start patterning his brain that noisy things can fly all around him and nothing bad ever happens to him.

Keep a hand on him, when needed periodically, stroking him, and it will speed things along there.

Return to bonding step (as described earlier) at any time you see it start to fall apart, or better yet: before it falls apart.

We're not trying to force the horse here, we're letting him digest this in increments, slowly building up his tolerance (and confidence level) until finally: you can really let that plastic fly all around, underneath him, everwhere, even fast, and you get no reaction and the horse doesn't feel the need to move.

 More Despooking Horse Continued: