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Posted by Sammi Jo
on 4/17/2009, 5:10 pm
66.82.9.54
I thought I would start a new thread here, since several of you have had great input on this subject in the past.
When most people look at haltering, they simply see the act of putting on the halter. To me, it isn't just getting the halter on, it is teaching the animal to accept haltering, that is the key point. You have to break it down into each separate "ingredient" so to speak and then put them all together for the finished product.
The ingredients include:
*Close proximity and therefore physical pressure from a human
*Movement by the human (a small, but very important roadblock for many)
*Acceptance of sustained physical contact from that human
*Visual acceptance of ropes
*Acceptance of the sound of the buckles (I have found that rope halters are good to use to avoid buckles)
*Acceptance of the sight of a rope, or part of the halter out of the peripheral vision
*Acceptance of the physical contact of a halter
*Acceptance of the increased pressure of the halter surrounding neck and head.
*Yielding to the pressure on the halter
These are many small ingredients to successful haltering, but many people rush it. You must add each ingredient one at a time and be completely successful with that one before moving on to the next. If you try to slap a halter on your zebra when he is nervous about seeing things out his peripheral, you will fail. Failure doesn't mean you don't get the halter on, because you might. Failure means that you failed in your ultimate goal. What is your ultimate goal? Surprisingly, it is NOT your goal to get the halter on your zebra. What?? I thought that was the whole purpose? Sorry, hate to burst your bubble but that should not be your goal. Your goal should be to make it easier to halter your zebra NEXT time. In keeping that goal in mind, rather than thinking about what you are accomplishing for today, you build a more solid foundation for what you will do tomorrow.
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