I have begun addressing the issue of Mini mare not wanting to be caught. The technique I am using is to "walk her down", slowly driving her away with my posture and only allowing her to stop on my terms by releasing that pressure, changing my posture. In theory she SHOULD be turning to me, dropping her head and licking and chewing but boy is this witch STUBBORN.
She stops when I take the pressure of, and allows me to get within a metre or so of her before she walks of again, but does not turn to face me, has very little licking and chewing and almost seems to be avoiding acknowledging me. My question is to you horsemanship folk, would you keep walking her down until she really started to turn to me, really drop that head and allow me to walk directly to her head rather then having to come in from behind her.
It took me 45 mins last night to get to the point that her energy dropped enough that she would stand indefinately as long as I was still, and allowed me to catch her but she would not look at me at all and still came off as defiant but just too tired to bother anymore. She is a very alpha mare personality wise, and has been a breeding-machine for pretty much her entire life from my understanding, so its a given that she has had minimal handling.
I will walk her down again tonight, in theory she should take less time.
She stops when I take the pressure of, and allows me to get within a metre or so of her before she walks of again, but does not turn to face me, has very little licking and chewing and almost seems to be avoiding acknowledging me. My question is to you horsemanship folk, would you keep walking her down until she really started to turn to me, really drop that head and allow me to walk directly to her head rather then having to come in from behind her.
It took me 45 mins last night to get to the point that her energy dropped enough that she would stand indefinately as long as I was still, and allowed me to catch her but she would not look at me at all and still came off as defiant but just too tired to bother anymore. She is a very alpha mare personality wise, and has been a breeding-machine for pretty much her entire life from my understanding, so its a given that she has had minimal handling.
I will walk her down again tonight, in theory she should take less time.
