Priorities in training

I don’t know. Do you think that herbivores and carnivores might be hard wired by evolution in fundamentally different ways? Why do you think it is such a challenge for most everyone to train draft animals in particular?

I couldn’t agree more.

However, the point about learning how to use the plow is that you also need to have an understanding about the work that you will be training the animals to perform. Working with any animal is about conditioning, but it is also about leadership.

Using draft animals that whoa, back, stand, etc. is important, but if you lead them into work that you are un-experienced with, or nervous about, then your leadership will be compromised, and they will not perform as well. They will only work as well ans the handler.

The other part about spending time with those that are doing what you want to do, is that you become conditioned. You will learn to see the response and demeanor that you should expect.

Certainly find a way to learn as much as you can about the animals, but don’t dismiss the value of learning the work at the same time.

Carl

You need to think how that animal is thinking and as a teamster see a situation before it is a problem.

this is important, think ahead!
But your imagination can only provide you with clues if you had a chance to get some lecturing from a seasoned team and a teamster, both willing to share experiences; only with enough background will you have a chance to build on your own practical know-how; theory is crutches…
“listen” closely to what the animals say, often enough I found myself thinking, they had told me long before, I just didn’t understand 🙁

Carl I agree with you 100% and I did not intend for some one to go out and buy a team and expect the team to teach them to harness hitch and drive. I do think you need to work hands on with a mentor with or with out your own team to practice with at home. The main point I am tring to make is learning to be a teamster is the most important part of working animals. You just have to understand the way they think, act and react. That in my opinion cant be learned from a book it can only be lerarned from spending time with the animals. A book might show you how a harness is supost to be put on a horse but will not prepare you for putting a collar over a horses head that has never had it done before. You can sit on a wagon yell gee and haw pull the lines right and left but that dose not make you a teamster a monkey could probably be trained to do this you need to understand the animal you are working. I was in my buddys barn the other morning at morning milking, his father is in the prosess of selling the development rights to the state, wen a surveyior came in waving a roled up set of maps over his head. Needless to say he had never been around cows and thare was quite the comotion in the barn that morning.

Don’t take it that way. We all need to learn our own way. I have a couple of dog-eared work horse books that I read before I bought my first horse, and have referred to many time over the years. Everyone is built differently, needing to know things in different ways.

Just be aware that when you do start learning from a mentor, that you don’t keep saying, “I know, I read that in a book”:D

Carl

theory is crutches…

not meant to be negativ; sometimes it needs crutches to get going; it is in my view only a basis, a basis even to be turned back to if problems arise…..

I, for one, actually like your chart and it seems to make sense to me in general. You might want to be careful about what lessons you and the animal might learn when it is not trained and/or not working. The food will be different, for example, as will probably the foot care. It’s hard to imagine how one would even provide exercise for an animal without some degree of training and work. Likewise, maintaining a leader position would be difficult without some training and work helps alot here as well. Of course, to do any training you have to have an idea of what pleases and displeases the animal. Trust is an important thing also, but for an animal to trust that you won’t attack it in the field is easy… Them trusting you to handle them in close quarter doing things that are unusual to them is much more of an accomplishment, but that requires training as well. Trusting that strange objects won’t hurt them is the same way. You won’t get much desensitisation done without leaving the pasture… The point is that even though it is interesting to understand these aspects of animal care, all these aspects are all so integrated into working animal care that I do not believe there is much value in working on some aspects at the expense of others. To use a dog example, I really doubt there would be much learned by a dog owner who decided to lock a border collie up in an apartment (giving it no training and no job) and simply spending time in the apartment to learn what a dog is like. My brother had a border collie with no job and he mostly learned mostly how to cope with the neurotic and erratic behavior that comes from having a working animal with no job. Is this a fair assessment of these working animals??? At minimum, I think everyone would agree the dog needs a walk (and preferably some sheep to herd), but even a simple walk takes training if your animal weighs 5-10 times as much as you! I know some of the absolute worst horses that I have dealt with were ones that had no job. Mine gets alot of attention but still gets little hot if she’s off work for more than 2 days in a row. I know it’s not exactly the same case, but I really believe working animals need to be worked to display thier true charactor.