A friend of mine has had a couple of young horses who don't like to be caught. She moves her horses by herding them a lot of the time (lunge whip and dogs), so the young ones get a bit weird about it if they aren't handled a lot in other ways.

With the most recent one, the first couple of times I just pet him. I did loop the lead around his upper neck, but didn't halter him. The first time I haltered him, I took him out of the pasture, walked him over to my pile of stuff, fed him a treat, and put him back out and left him. The second time I brushed him a bit with a dandy brush, fed him his treat and put him back. I just did little things like that a couple of times, he got easy to catch pretty quickly. Once he was easy to catch I would catch him again to treat him after I let him go.

It's worked on all of the young guys really well. My friend did have an older mini mare who steadfastly hated humans (adults only, actually - liked kids). I never did end up convincing her I was worth hanging out with, and she was by far the hardest to catch. But I think if I had handled her regularly I would still have gone a similar route.

BigDreams wrote:
I am so never getting married. I've never really liked babysitting.
4Horses and Holding wrote:
You know, with sperm banks and handy-dandy machinery, there really isn't much use for men. I mean, most cats will kill bugs.
aakora wrote:
I think most problems in life can be traced to an incorrect ratio of men to cats.
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