Ever attempt to clean a new horse’s ears? Just as people have sensitive parts of their bodies, horses have parts they wouldn’t simply let you touch. The issue is, when putting a horse thru equestrian training—or even if you simply wish to rear the horse and not make him go through equestrian training—you’ll also must look after her health and overall welfare. This entails cleaning and applying medicines and ointments on spots she may be too shy to let you touch—like her ears.

During your equestrian coaching regime you’ll discover that you have got to apply 3 things in order to teach your horse whatever it is you need her to learn: Restraint, Reward, and Repetition. Actually as early as now, when you’re only acclimatizing your horse to her new environment and what’s to become her usual routines for holistic care, you already need to apply these three concepts.

For the most part, your horse won’t let you touch her ears because she’s innately wary of you wounding her. The key to making her happy with such routines as cleaning the outside and inside of her ears is to allow her know that you’re not going to harm her. To be in a position to do that, you both need to be in a safe enclosure where you can work on her ears. Begin by placing your hand on a part of her face she lets you touch. If you have been into horse riding for ages now, you should know which parts are okay and which would simply make her turn away from you. Stroke her face in a way that naturally brings your hands close to her ears. Your action would then transition into a stroke that goes beyond her ears. You’ll notice the slightest touch can make her move her head and her ears away. So on your side; you want to brush your hand over her ears quick enough such that you move your hand away before she will react. Do this frequently until you think you can do it slower and slower still until she understands that you’re not going to hurt her or her ears.

Then you’ll have to target doing pretty much the same thing only this time you want to touch the outside of her ears, starting from the tips. Then work your way to the inside of her ears. Eventually, you must make her cosy to the feeling of both your hands essentially firmly but carefully holding her ears and touching its insides.

The restraint, reward, and repetition cycle is always at work when you do this—restrain her gently if she moves away and put her back to the first position she moved away from, reward her every correct response (in this case, every time she does not move away) by praising her, and repeat the process until she feels the entire routine is safe, and finally, expected. Also, do not expect that you can just walk up to your horse and grab her ear the next day—you’ll need a few days or even up to a week of this to make her feel completely ok with it.

Before you introduce a new horse to the fundamentals of equestrian coaching or horse riding, you will have to ensure she’s kept healthy and well. And even before that, you need to let her know she needn’t move away from you whatever part of her that requires cleaning or tending to.

Horses are Heather Toms’ passion and she enjoys sharing her extensive knowledge through her 100’s of articles with other horse lovers… like all things about stable rugs