Apache the Wonder Horse is in retraining due to a bad incident I had late last year in which I fired a .45 of of his back and ended up plowing up the riding arena with my chin. I brought him home for Miss Debbie to work on which she did to great affect. She began very gradually with a cap gun, firing off a few rounds while he was eating. He soon got used to this and she moved closer and closer to him with the cap gun until he would no longer flinch. Then she took him into the riding arena and walked him around some balloon poles while firing the gun. After each 'pop' of the gun she would give him a treat to reward him for not jumping. Pretty soon she was able to move up to a starter pistol and through gradual exposure to the sound she was able to inure him to this weapon also. The training technique worked brilliantly. Instead of bolting when he heard the pistol, Apache would stop and wait patiently for his treat. Eventually, we were able to bring him back to the fort to continue his training. The old cavalry had a specific technique for training horses to put up with gunfire. They would have a couple of soldiers fire their pistols as the horses came in to the barn to feed. I figured I would use a similar technique at the stables and would walk around the horse pens firing the cap gun while the horses ate. Apache didn't react to the sound at all but I found out I had at least three other horses that were reacting quite a bit. Each day I fired the cap gun the three horses would start jumping around and were getting worse each day. Obviously, this was not what I wanted to do. So, ceasing this technique and selecting one of these jumpy horses, I embarked on an 18-step training plan with the assistance of another trooper. I figured if the horses didn't get used to gunfire they would at least be cured of alcoholism. Well, we started the training and it is working really well but I discovered a flaw in the technique that Miss Debbie had been using. Each time I fired the cap gun while riding Apache, he would stop to get his treat. While I appreciated the fact that he wouldn't start bucking or rearing while I fired the cap gun, I didn't want him to come to a complete stop either. It took a while but finally today, we managed to break through that little unintended consequence of his initial gun training.
Cool- gunfire training is one area I'd like to work more with but unfortunately, where I stable my horse, it's impossible due to the proximity to other houses (and being Los Angeles, people get paranoid).
ReplyDeleteHopefully in the spring I'll start mounted shooting and they offer a number of clinics. I've taken my horse to some reenactments and he seemed to do pretty good- firing off of him may be a different matter though.
The strange thing on reenactment events is that my horse was more concerned with people running around than with actual gunfire. :-)
Gun training can be a tricky business. As the saying goes, "You can always fire off a horse once."
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