Horse Problem - Wand-Training Fear - Horse fears training wand with plastic/How to desensitize (Contd)

Once he can handle all the previous, you're going to go for a walk with him on the end of the 12' lead rope that is attached to his NH halter. Have your back to him, do not face him. Just mosey along going for a walk (this is "retreat" in the horse's mind).

Start slowly swinging the extended wand with plastic around you in a circle, but slightly in front of you. Ignore the horse's initial snorting's of fear, just mosey along nonchalantly and keep slowly circling it out in front of you, horse behind you. He will slowly digest, and then decide, "okay...this is just some weird human thing she's doing up there, but...she's not looking at me, not facing me, not asking anything of me really, so...guess I'll just follow along as usual, probably not a problem to me."

A high head is a tense/on alert horse; a lowered head is a more relaxed horse. As you go for your walk (preferably in the round pen) just casually swinging the wand with plastic in circles ahead of you, and as you make your turns, notice out of the corner of your eye the head position of the horse. If the head is still high, he's still tense about it. But soon, the horse's head will lower and that's your cue that he's ready for the next step.

Now start letting the wand swing in big circles high over your head, but still keep walking away from the horse, on the end of the lead rope, on "retreat" mode.

That brings the plastic & wand closer to over the horse's head (make sure you don't whack him there!! Always look out of the corner of your eye with your peripheral vision to keep tabs on that!). And again, his head likely will shoot up high as he digests this happening closer to him now. But...it's being retreated repetitively away from him there and you are retreating as well with your walk/your back to him, so he will handle this better.

So...though he might be scared at first, he'll quickly realize it's not a "predator attack" like his last experiences were with a "thing" that looked like this (usually a whip) and that it's actually harmless to him. Keep doing that until you see a visible change in his demeanor and he starts accepting that stage better. Use feel  there to intuit how fast/slow to go in this entire process. Follow that particular horse's lead there, listening to him carefully. Never go too far too fast, read the horse well.

Soon that's no big deal and he's ready for the next step...

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