I had to give in and get Mali a fly rug a couple of weeks ago. Much as I would prefer her to have a break from having to be rugged up, she was being driven demented by the horse flies so I bought a new fly rug - which of course was bright shiny white and a bit stiff and rustly. I'm sure I don't need to draw you a picture of Mali's reaction when she saw this

Okay, this is what I'd like your views on. I could have spent ages getting Mali used to the rug - rewarding her by taking it away when she relaxed, letting her approach it in her own time etc etc. Due to the limitations on my time, chances are I'd still be working on it. What I actually did was go into the stable with the fly rug, wait for Mali to settle a little, and then put it on as any normal rug in a very 'business like' manner. Mali was undoubtedly tense, but allowed me to do this. (Believe me she is not the sort of horse who will just let you do anything to her anymore - thankfully!) My perception is that once I was partway through putting it on, Mali kind of went "Oh, okay another rug, that's okay then." (Gross anthropomorphism I know, but you get the picture.)

So - did I shut her learning down by continuing when she wasn't comfortable and 'inflicting' the rug on her or are we sometimes guilty of tiptoeing round our horses when in actual fact we would do better to 'just get on with it'?

I've found this works well with my dogs in scary situations as well (e.g. guns firing nearby) - if I tiptoe around and try to reassure them they immediately realise something is up, whereas if I simply get on with things and act like nothing's wrong they take their cues from me and relax.

Did you shut down her learning? Yes or No.

I very much doubt that you did. I think you used your judgement and experience and got it right. If Mali had thrown a huge wobbler in the process, I doubt that you would have continued......

I am asking myself this very question about just getting on with it, at the moment. Slightly different circumstances i.e. now that Dragon Fly is almost fully restored to health, he is getting quite choosey about what he will and won't do and likes to think he's in charge.

Fortunately I have Ben to help me grapple with this problem this afternoon......!

Teresa

I also agree that you did the right thing. I feel that with things that need to be done we are often better off just getting on with it and not making an issue of it.

As for shutting down her learning - I would say that you taught her it was nothing to worry about. Had you broken it into little steps and shown her that it was a bit scary so we'll deal with it slowly then maybe she would have ended up thinking that if it was so scary then she was having nothing to do with it, slowly or not! So I'd say you enabled her to the learn the right thing.

I guess it depends on the horse but from what I've seen/heard of Mali it's probably best not to give her too much warning of a potentially scary thing!

Well done!