February 23, 2016

Continuing to work with Benelli daily with haltering and picking up front feet. We were able to halter him in the arena for the first time yesterday. He’s still scared when you first pick up his front feet and then after one or two tries calms right down. He is still learning to pick up his back feet without trying to kick. He’s worried about why we are asking him to pick up the foot. He lets us rub it without issue. We’re going to work with him with a rope to see if that can help him understand why we are pulling on his leg vs. just rubbing it.

February 18, 2016

Benelli has been working great. Today we worked on desensitization including asking him to tolerate me grabbing his tail as I would if I were going to brush it. We also worked on picking up front feet and leading. Worked on desensitization around his ears, poll and hindquarters. Should be able to start asking him to pick up his back feet by the weekend.

January 9, 2016

Benelli has been off due to the rain storms we’re having. Was dry enough to work with him today. We practiced approach and retreat and leading. He was very good and remembered everything well despite the time off.

January 1, 2016

Quick video of a refresher training session for Benelli. His training has been hit and miss since the holidays. I probably could have went ahead and haltered him but didn’t want to push my luck since it had been a couple of days since I had worked with him on that. He’s getting lighter to lead and just starting to learn how to come forward. Also worked (off camera) with touching is legs and back with the lead rope in preparation for learning how to pick up his feet.

December 16, 2015

1st haltering accomplished! For the next two or three days he will wear a drag line to learn about giving to pressure. We’ll work with him in coming days to teach him to lead and once he is doing good we’ll pull the drag line off of him .

December 15, 2015

Focused today on building Benelli’s confidence. He is really good about me petting him so now I focused on him following me and petting him in different spots in the corral. During his whole training session this evening I held a rope halter in my hand. Over the next couple of lessons I’ll use it to start teaching him to halter.

December 14, 2015

Yesterday was cold, nasty and rainy so Benelli had another day off. He sure does retain his lessons though! Here is a short clip of video from tonight. We are working on building confidence and allowing him to choose to stay with me. So far so good!

December 12, 2015

Worked with Benelli again after a couple days off. He was great. Was able to quickly come back to where we left off on our last training session. We worked on lots of approach and retreat / petting on the left side. Hoping to be able to halter him in the next couple of sessions.

December 9, 2015

Big change for Benelli today. The lash was no problem. Decided to throw my soft rope on him and see how he would give to the halter. He was VERY soft. I expected him to get worried, instead he relaxed. From there I was able to approach and rub him on the left side of his neck and withers with my hand while he stood quietly, relaxed, with no pressure on the line. Thinking it was a fluke I took the rope off, asked him to move off and approached him several more times. Each time he stayed quiet and relaxed while I touched him. Ended on a very positive note.

December 8, 2015 – Off

December 7, 2015 

Worked with Benelli today with more touch. We were able to end on a positive note with me being able to touch him with the lunge whip on both sides while he stood facing the inside of the pen.

December 6, 2015 – 

Worked with Benelli briefly on touching with the whip again. Started asking him to stay facing the inside of the pen as I approach and raise the whip as if to pet him. He wasn’t quite ready for me to touch him with it today while turned to the inside.

December 5, 2015 –

Worked with Benelli again with touching with the lash of the lunge line. He was able to settle much faster today. He is still wanting the lash to only touch him when he is standing sideways up next to the fence. Our next step will be to see if we can’t get him to accept being touched while he is facing towards the inside of the pen instead of hiding on the rail.

December 4, 2015 

Was able to work with Benelli today on facing up again, turning to the inside. We also introduced touch by gentling using the lash of a lunge whip to touch him over his back and hindquarters. At first he wanted to try and run from the touch but he quickly figured out two important facts: 1) It doesn’t hurt and 2) Running doesn’t make it go away. He settled very nicely and almost got brave enough to let me get close enough for him to smell my hand. A few more days and he’ll get there!

December 3, 2015 

Worked with Benelli for about 10  minutes just on facing up and turning to the inside. We kept everything low key and quiet and just asked him to look at us and switch directions to the inside both ways. He is super smart and did very well. We had anticipated he might be a little flighty and he wasn’t. He thought about what was being asked of him, processed, and made calculated decisions. We think he will come along nicely.

December 2, 2015 – Arrival Day
Today we just did a quick 3 min evaluation of Benelli’s temperament. It is absolutely normal for mustangs to come in scared, worried and flighty. Benelli was worried and running around the large pen he was in a little bit but we anticipate he’ll settle within the next few days. For now we’ll do very short sessions focusing on getting him to maintain eye contact and watch us. Shorter sessions will give him the opportunity to settle in and get used to us and the new facility.

At the Corrals