[sanhestar]

Matt,

I don’t know the legal situation in the US but in Germany, when there are several anonymous and unfounded complaints made to the state vets (the authority for animal cruelty here) you can request that the person making the complaints will be warned to stop this unfounded harassing.

Maybe an open letter to your local newspaper will bring more light to this situation… (I always try to act on “offense is the best defense” in this kind of situations).

[sanhestar]

I found similar information and pictures while I searched yesterday for informations about curricle and curricle harnessing (driving a two-wheeled cart with two horses, very much in fashion in the Victorian England).

http://www.humanist.de/rome/rts/dorsal.html

http://www.rjwalsh.com.au/i_dorsal.htm
this is much about sulkies but the historical references are quiet interesting

[sanhestar]

Jen,

THANKS!

[sanhestar]

maybe I’m different in that kind of things, but

we (as in people who use animals as helpers) do everything to gradually teach horses, mules, oxen, etc. to pull and gradualy add weight to the load to let them build stamina.

Why not the same amount of carefullness for a dog?

[sanhestar]

years ago I trained my two dalmatians to pull – they had a hell of a time. We mostly did show appearances on historic fairs with an old small waggon. I had to help them get the loaded waggon started but as soon as it was rolling they worked fine.

I used a regular dog harness for the pulling (it was one made of leather with a wide and padded breast strap and already had two rings worked into it to attach lines for pulling).

you can see a pictures of this type of harness here:

http://www.sabro.de/out/oxbaseshop/html/0/dyn_images/1/justin128_p1.jpg

They changed the harness in recent years and the pulling rings are no longer included.

here’s another way to harness:

http://www.zughunde.de/images/ausbildung/geschirr-richtig.jpg

http://www.zughunde.de/images/ausruestung/pulkageschirr.jpg

http://www.zughunde.de/images/ausruestung/sielengeschirr.jpg

I checked with german draft dog friends and they recommend to start a dog at the earliest with 18 months and after having hips and ellbows checked for dysplasia.

Weight: I found one reference that dogs can pull 3-4 times their weight, but I would stay on the safe side with less.

I use reversed horse halters when I train young goats to pull until I’m sure they will work in a harness (so I don’t have to buy different sizes of training harnesses). But it’s not optimal. You have to pad hooks and/or buckles and i wouldn’t use it for any longer periods of working.

[sanhestar]

hello,

thanks so far for your responses.

If possible I would like to here in more detail, if someone out there has trained mother raised calves/youngsters and compared them to bottle-fed calves.

I think I wrote already that I have experience in braking horses and taming goats, not yet with cattle. The horses I worked with mostly had the following background:

raised in a big herd on the mother, with as little human contact as possible (to keep them respectful against people). Taken in for halter training after weaning at age of 6 months for a few weeks, then turned out again for 3 more years. When they come in at age 3 they are rough, fairly wild but won’t challenge you much. They get roundpen training, join-up and then the basic training starts. I should also say that I talk about Icelandic horses which are in many ways different from other horses in terms of character and temperament. I also worked with adult horses from Iceland which didn’t have basic training before shipping and needed serious taming.

To get you more specific information on the background of my question:

I have the choice between calves from a dairy, bottle-fed, born in the last months or, at the moment only one in the herd, a 5 month old heifer, mother raised. She’s interested in people, comes up to the fence, starts licking my sleeve and is all in all very eager to make and hold contact (I stood in the corral for about 15 minutes and she stood beside me, whereas the other youngster stood back; she also seems to be very high in rank among the young ones). Other heifers of that herd are much more laid-back but all show interest in people with different grades of personal flight zones. When I visited a second time it took only a couple of minutes for her to show up at the fence and get in contact.

I don’t want to make the mistake to compare cattle and horses 1:1, so I appreciate any details I can get.

[sanhestar]

nothing funny but something to look forward to

I`m waiting with great anticipation for the first kids from my does. They are fresheners and I expect good kids from the bucks that sired them.

So, while I check everyday the goatish mothers to be, I happened to overlook that old grand dame “Dicke”, one of your sheep, is getting an enormous belly. Today I spotted her udder growing bigger and realised: the sheep kids might make the race 🙂

And then the look on the face of my buck Lukas after he spend five minutes on the ground after challenging me yesterday. Or the look of satisfaction from Nero, one of the wethers who has been pestered by Lukas a lot in the last weeks, seeing this impertinent youngster made feel small again.

[sanhestar]

Don’t progress too fast. Keep working on the basic obedience and responding to your commands.

Change places and situations, make it a little bit more difficult every time.

You can retrain a horse but depending on the impact of the experience it can surface later again when the same trigger occurs again.

In your case: it’s likely that he will try to bolt in the same situation/at the same location again until the behaviour has been erased by training. It’s also likely that the response will become more severe shortly before it will vanish.

This is a kind of defiance: before an old behaviour will be replaced by a new behaviour the old behaviour will try to keep established (I think that has to do with brain chemistry). Karen Prior – I think – described a similar phenomenon in people: if you try to light a match and the match won’t catch fire the first time, most people will try again and again until the match brakes instead of just taking a new match.

So before your pony’s brain is able to form new neural connections (that costs energy), it (the brain) will try to keep the old connections in place with all might.

[sanhestar]

great, thanks for the update.

[sanhestar]

from my point of view two weeks isn’t enought time for a good bond to develop between the two of you.

I would wait, work in familiar surroundings and build trust and getting to know each other.

I think he will let you know when he’s ready to work with you.

[sanhestar]

found a lot of interesting information here

http://www.animaltraction.net/Harnessingandimplements/HarnessingandImplementsch3.pdf

on page 7 several types of withers yokes.

[sanhestar]

@Rod 4699 wrote:

Very good video. What was the man with the hammer nailing into the cord wood ends?

An owners/byuers mark, I suppose. If my assumption is correct, there is a kind of stamp on the business end of this hammer.

Here they use spray paint to mark the logs.

[sanhestar]

Wolfgang,

the idea of using rattan is great.

Do you have plans/pictures/blueprints of your yokes for “third world” use?

I’m checking ebay right now for cow collars. Got a nice one for 1 EUR plus freight (no leather work but wood and metall parts in good order still), I don’t think I will be that lucky again.

[sanhestar]

let’s see…

but how do horses learn?

They connect action and reaction, read body language, body posture, voice. The respond to praise, treats and pain.

when do you start training them?

you should start halter training with foals very young. I did so at about 8 weeks of age, in combination with the mother and other training steps (being handled, taking up the foot, etc.). Reinforcement of that basic training after weaning with 6 months, now including tying (shouldn’t be done before because of possible injuries to the neck) and more extensive halter and leading training. Introducing to cars, tractors, other equipment, different situations.

Letting them think and grow for a year or two. With horses, longer periods of not training, just letting them be horse in a group, have the benefit that the taining will “sink in”, if it was understood correctly before.

Advanced leading, ground-driving, maybe longing at around age 2,5 years. If you want to plow and pull, ground driving should be done extensively. In a pen, around obstacles, outside, later with a load to pull and voice commands as well.

what degree of understanding the horse’s natural behavior must i have before i start breaking(ugh ugly word, i prefer train) the horse to plow?

You should keep in mind that a horse will first run and then look if spooked. They have good side and rear vision, remember details (also in their environment) and apparently process fast movement as little flashes of light in their brains.

what are guidelines for training of horses?

Patience, time, conistency

how do you train them, step-by step?

yes!

how do you teach him the commands?

Ask an action, combine with command, repeat, repeat, repeat – don’t forget lots of praise.

how do i make the horse cooperate without using excessive physical force? how do i show the horse i’m the dominant person? what to do if it refuses to cooperate?

oh, that’s a whole sack of worms. If you train them young they most likely won’t challenge you because they learned that you are stronger.

Dominance: don’t allow it to overrun you. You go first through doors and small spaces, horse follows (you can establish it working in front of you later). Asking the horse to back up establishes dominance. Being a competent and trusted leader, does so, too. Don’t misuse the trust placed in you by endangering the horse.

Depending on your position in relation to the horse you can excert dominance:

you in front = you control movement and speed – very dominant
horse beside you = that’s the position a foal would have beside the mother – trust building
horse slightly in front of you (one head length ore one neck length) = builds confidence in the horse, will become more independent
you beside the horse at a position near its flanks = a stallion would position himself there to move a mare. A position of high dominance because you ask for movement AWAY from you
you behind the horse = the horse is independent, lots of trust between you, because you could chase or attack and the horse could run or kick

do they tend to get bored and hard headed from too much repetition? mules do.

Well, their concentration will give out.

[sanhestar]

Hello,

well, let’s start with yokes and/or collars.

I don’t know of anyone who would built yokes in Germany, think, I will have to import from the US or ask a friend who is a carpenter, to make me one.

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