05/07/2025
Day 1, bath training.
Ideas on teaching a horse to accept water hosing & baths.
It's been a while since I've posted, and both Silvio & Aura have been "pasture ornaments" for 1.5yr. They are quite happy about that! Freeloaders! 😆 j/k
The weather is warm today, and that makes it a perfect day to work on hosing the horses down. They were previously wild for many years, so they've stood out in rain storms hundreds of times in their life, without shelter. The feeling of water droplets falling onto their coat isn't a new feeling.
However, seeing the water come from a concentrated stream from a human's hands (or from a long, "snake-like" object) is really scary, especially if you just turn the hose on full blast and hit them with it. With domesticated horses, we are often taught to start spraying the water on the hooves first, and work our way up the legs to the body. And, eventually, that's the goal here. But, not today.
With previously wild horses, aiming something scary directly at their feet can result in a big spook or even striking-out or bolting. Their legs are their flight, their method of survival. So, I definitely don't want to hit their survival mechanism first. Instead, I point the hose up in the air so it sprinkles down on them like a light rain... A feeling they are already familiar with.
Each session after that, I work on pointing the stream of the hose more directly at them, in a give and take motion, so they don't feel the need to escape it. All it takes is 5 minutes a day, progressing a little more each day, and before you know it you'll be able to just walk up, turn the hose on and drench them for a bath. Some horses end up loving it so much during the hot summer months that they come to you while you fill the water through, to ask for a hose down.
A couple side notes:
Aura is super skeptical and skittish about anything and everything "new" or "different" in her space or in her daily routine. And, since I am aware of that being her built-in first reaction to everything, I use Silvio (aka Mr. Curious Investigator) to increase her exposure to things without being so direct with her. She's able to observe that he's fine with it. So, if you have a calmer horse that is a pro at getting baths standing near the horse that needs to learn, that definitely helps.
Also, the reason I put hay out while doing this is because it's a really great test to determine how comfortable the horse is with what you're doing. You can see that Silvio is clearly ready for me to take the next step in this training, because he is eating the entire time. A horse that is in fight or flight (like Aura is in these videos) will not eat. So, I'm letting her learn more about it by hiding behind Silvio, but still being exposed to the water in the tiniest of ways.
Aura does have a nervous p**p and then she left the barn. And, that's fine... I want my horses to stay with me because they want to, not just because I have them trapped/tied/forced to stay with me. I recognize that it's stressful for her, and that she wanted to add space between the water and herself. That's fine, and she may even do that for the first several days of these water sessions. She did turn around and start coming back toward the barn in curiosity. That's great. The repetition of it will teach her that she's fine and nothing hurt her, and she'll eventually stand there to eat hay, like Silvio is doing.
Have you tried this technique before? Or, planning to try it?
