Donovan Needs a Home

this is donovan he is a just about 20 years old a 15 hand gelding he is actually the one that i auctioned kick tawny and he's doing really well so we're going to show you kind of the things that we've brought him through he's calmed down a lot since he first came so it's nice to see that he is coming around and being happy and wanting to work and have a job when he first came when he first came out of quarantine and we were working with him you couldn't even brush down his legs pick up his hind feet without him wanting to kick you so it's nice that he's really progressed with that since he came we pulled the shoes that he had on so now he's barefoot and he's pretty sound footed boy if you hear a lot of noise in the background with him today our vet barn is being built but i don't mind because that gives him something to kind of have in the background a new oh noise so when we were first working on his feet when you would feel down his leg he'd he'd kick out as you can see now he doesn't do that his left side was a lot worse right when it came to having to feel around him and down his legs [Music] oh boy we move over oh good boy what a good boy show you guys some of the stuff i've done in the round pen with him and then i'll saddle him and show you some of the stuff i've done riding that's just in the ring kind of round pen work rather than showing you everything he's done outside because we've brought him down to the river we've taken him down the road on the trail we've done all of that with him too so when i started working with him i started with the round pen stuff so it's just driving him forward at the hip just like this and then i have a couple turns i do one of them is an outside turn i step out in front and he changes to the outside a lot of people don't like to do an outside turn because it's thinking of their horses turning their butt away from them but i like doing it because to me it's yielding their shoulder away rather than moving their butt towards me i just asked for a couple of those turns and he's very soft with it i don't have to do too much i just have to kind of step out where i need to be what a good boy oh boy i use a kissy voice for the join up rather than to drive him forward that kissy voice is kind of like hey give me your attention rather than moving forward so i'm just going to give him a little kissy voice good boy just to say hey i'm ready for you to give me your attention and there's a lot going on so he's okay if he's nervous he's allowed to be nervous but as long as he pays attention to me that's the only thing i'm gonna have him follow me around with nothing on i just want to make sure his focus is where i want it to be good boy good boy so that kind of turn like this is the same thing i did on the rail except i'm right next to him instead where i'm just asking him to move his shoulder away from me it's the same thing as the turn on the haunches or anything similar to that that you would do riding or your pivot when you're in showmanship anything like that so i'll do the same thing and i'll saddle him up just like i would when i was first starting to work with him so i don't i don't necessarily have to do any more round pending with him when i first start with him but i'll show you kind of guys what i went through with him before he kind of showed that he was ready to just get on and ride so i just put the saddle pad on from both sides just to make sure on both sides he accepts it because their brain doesn't connect very well in the middle good boy put it on from both sides good boy then i'll ask him to walk around with me with the saddle on so if at any point he wanted to kind of go off i would just pull the saddle off as he's going off and make him go back to work in the round pen so a lot of horses don't always stand still when you saddle them or brush them or anything so this is one of the things that i like to do is just get them saddled brushing doing their feet with nothing on them they choose to stand rather than forcing them to stand [Music] and this whole time he's keeping his focus on me which is really nice so he lost his focus he kind of went off so i'm just going to put him back to work go back to doing some of those turns so i'm associating the work with the wrong answer that he decided to give good boy [Music] and with him i just use a full cheek snaffle because it has the same effect as a halter would if you think of a halter on their face right here pushing this way as you're pulling this rain and pushing this way as you're pulling that rain the full cheek does the same effect it pushes right here as you're asking to steer that way pushes right here as you're asking to steer this way boy so being a tennessee walker and what we think was a big lick horse a lot of them tend to be nervous and spooky and they don't stand to mount very much so one of the things we worked on with him was getting him to stand when i'm out so working on getting him to mount instead of pulling his head to the side when you pull his head to the side it's going to disengage his hindquarters and it's actually going to push it that way so instead i'm going to hold both my reins at the same length so if he goes to walk forward i can easily put a little bit pressure to ask him to stop and then if he does that i'll associate a backup with it because backing up is a lot more work than going forward do the same thing good boy wait for him to settle and then i'll get off and i'll do the same thing wait good boy so horse it can take 200 times for them to begin to learn something and 2 000 times before they really start to know it so the more you can do something with the same repetition the better it is for them there we go it's nice that after three or four times he actually finally stood and didn't dance afterwards good boy and he's one that i can kind of ride on a looser rain which isn't something you typically see with many tennessee walkers a lot of them are really go go go so you want to hold but this heat is very happy with a loose rain even when you're riding down the road i can put him on the buckle and he just walks along but some of the things we've been doing in here is just kind of fine tuning working on a little bit of bending so i'm just going to hold with my left rein i'm going to push with my left leg and i'm just going to ask for him to give me this eye and move a little bit laterally to the outside where my outside reign is just going to keep him at the same speed boy and he's not going to be perfect at it yet but he's beginning to learn it so i'm just going to hold i'm going to push he gave a little bit of his eye and then he moved over laterally so i'm going to give him the release do the same thing if he goes to speed up i'm just going to use this outside hand to hold him and give him a little bit of speed control and then i'll do the same thing the other direction [Music] and it's nice to do it in a round pen or somewhere where i'm on a circle because he's constantly on a circle to be able to ask him to do it so i'll kind of hold with my right hand i'll push with my right leg wait till he gives me his eye there we go so it's more to start where his body is rather than where his head is so as his body learns it his head's going to start to come down he's going to start giving a little bit more being softer in the mouth and you'll see when he does give it right with his body his back lifts up his hind end comes a little bit deeper and he might take a little bit quicker of a step but that's just because he took that further step in his hind end and you can see that he's giving it a little bit easier each time and it takes less hold and less push to get the response with him and it's just one of those fine-tuned things to work with him on to get him to be a little bit softer and be able to deal with the pressure good boy one of the things being a tennessee walker a lot of them don't necessarily want to stop they want to keep going so with him sit and you see a little bit of hand and just say ho and he's ready to stop and it's really nice that he has those good breaks a little bit moving that shoulder over if you think of a horse they have their head they have their neck shoulder body and their hind quarters and you can separate all of that into different things that you're going to ask them so i can ask him to move his shoulder i can ask him to lift his barrel i can ask for his hind end to come a little bit further underneath of him and i can ask for a headset with his head but i want to get the body first before i go to the head for stuff so i'll just ask a little bit more of that lateral good boy you can see his head's kind of coming down he'll do some lateral motion too and when i do that one i'm just going to hold with both hands and just push with this left leg good boy oh good boy he's very happy to have a job and he does gate being the tennessee walker [Music] good boy he does it pretty well he's not one that's going to take off i can put my hand down and if anything he's going to want to stop rather than keep going which is nice to see and then i can just sit and he comes back to a walk good boy [Music] good boy do a little bit one of the other things we started doing is a little bit of a turn on the haunches with him good boy good boy so my leg just comes a little bit forward to push him good i can ask for a little side pass over good boy good boy good boy good boy so that is donovan and hopefully we can find someone to be a perfect match for him and continue his training and kind of give him a home where he can relax and have a nice person to bond with that's gonna love him for the rest of his life hopefully someone that watches this can find him and give him that home [Music]

Channel: Horse Plus Humane Society

Views: 24,172

Rating: 4.9844255 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: C09_Or-bIMk

Length: 15min 45sec (945 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 19 2021