Missy's Foot Battle

I have had the, um, pleasure (?) of turning around my 1000 pound Thoroughbred mare when it comes to having her feet handled. She has taught me the most about clicker training and how it can change your life.

Missy was an abused and terrified animal when she came to me over 15 years
ago. She was 3 years old and hated humans with a passion. I was a horse-crazy 15 year old kid and I spent my entire summer just bonding with her. She had been started very badly in respects to handling her feet, to the point that her hip had been fractured. It took me over two years of daily handling to begin to feel safe while handling them. She would snap her feet away, kick them back at you, bolt over the top of, fall down on top of you, basically anything her body could do to prevent you from holding her feet.

So after two years I could handle her, but it was still an absolute nightmare
when the blacksmith came. I had an ulcer for the entire day leading up to the appointment, often sobbed through the appointment, got in blow out fights with blacksmiths who wanted to beat her into submission, fired many blacksmiths and got charged "inconvenience fees" by the rest. It was awful. I finally began sedating her out of desperation, things were only marginally better. She also had one "monster foot" that 3 out of 4 visits, the blacksmith never worked on, so it looked pretty bad. She has never worn back shoes.

As a side note, it is still mind blowing to me the amount of unsolicited, and
just plain bad advice you get when something is going wrong. I had more people come over and tell me to hit her, put a chain under her lip/over her gums, knock her down, sell her.... Scary.

At Clicker Expo in November of 2004 I attended Alexandra Kurland's talks on
c/t with horses. The day I arrived back home I had a blacksmith appointment.
My blacksmith is a great guy, and as he walked in I explained I had something
new I wanted to try and I was not sedating her today. He smiled and nodded,
and I could tell he thought I was nuts and he was going to die! :)

That was the most amazing training day I've ever taken part in. After 12
years of terror, panic, and pure hell Missy was a different horse. I c/t every
single time she had 4 on the floor, even if it was just to cross over to push
off again. Because I had a steady stream of food flowing I could watch her
breathing. I noticed that I had about 1 second after she stopped breathing to
prevent a blow up. She would stop chewing, I'd call her name, and even if she
moved her jaw a tiny bit, I'd c/t again. The tell all moment was when he got to her "monster foot" and he was able to pick it up, *put it on his knee* (a
first!!!), and trim it! I had *never* c/t with her until that morning when I
started with less than 5 minutes of targeting to get her used to the game.

When he finished he looked at me with this shocked look on his face, admitting that he thought it was crazy, but he had to believe what he just saw. We have had him out every 4 weeks since and her feet have never looked better, and I've never seen her so relaxed, I also now click her for head down and soft eyes. I *almost* wish I had not c/t that day, but videoed her old ways, then c/t the next time, but then I take a reality check, I do not want to ever see her old ways again!!! :)