From trainer Jay Westerbur:
More new things for this kid this week!
- Fly-spray
- Walking through the barn
- Starting to pick up feet
I was honestly expecting him to blow up when I first sprayed the fly-spray. Most horses that I’ve worked with do. But he blew me out of the water with his calm, all things considered, reaction. The bottle was filled with water and he decided that it tasted yummy lol.
We also tackled walking through the barn. Again, I was expecting a more extreme reaction from him. He wasn’t too sure about the big industrial fan that was next to one of the stalls, but after sniffing it a couple times and a lot of praise he was brave enough to step into the barn. Every “try” he would give, we would leave the barn and just walk around to let him calm down some before trying again. I like to stay under a horses threshold as much as possible when introducing new stuff.
(Sorry for the bad angle in the walking through the barn video, I had my phone in my back pocket to record, because I wanted both hands just in case.)