Imprint Training

[persianhorse]

Dear all:
English is my second language.

How important is Imprint Training.
How many believe that it is crucial to imprint train a new born?
What are the effects of imprint training on the horse it self and us as trainers and riders?
What effects dose imprint training have on mares ?
Dose imprint training make good caring broodmares?

With regards,
Best wishes to all.

 

[Horse Guy]

I have only seen it done by Pat Parelli and Dr. Miller.
I dont believe in it. My thoughts are just leave them alone. Let the broodmare be a mother. Let the colt bond with its mother.
In a perfect world I would prefer weanlings to be running with other weanlings in a large pasture<think section of land 640 acres at least>maybe with an old gelding to babysit them. But with the exception of running them in for vaccinations or to get branded I would just let them be horses until they were 4 years old.

 

[msscamp]

Why 4 years old? Just curious.

 

[Scotty]

Why 4 years old? Just curious.

Becasue he has no idea what he is doing.

 

[msscamp]

Why 4 years old? Just curious.

Becasue he has no idea what he is doing.

:lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[Horse Guy]

When I start them I want to be able to really ride them without hurting them. Im a big guy and the topography is pretty rough around here.
Dont get me wrong, I will lightly start them at 3 years. Maybe put a few weeks on them. Keep the rides short. But idealy if I have other horses to be working with I will leave my colts alone until they are 4.
For me its just way better to be able to start at 4 years and not have to worry about hurting them. I think I can make just as much progress by starting them at 4 because then I can actually take them out and really do somethingwith them.
Example I can take a 4 year old out on a two hour circle and trot and lope the whole trip. By keeping the colts energy up and directing that energy forward at the trot and lope I can cover a lot of miles, get that colt used to a whole bunch of things and not get into a fight or get bucked off. For me I find this is a great way to let thehorse know what the deal is and what I expect from him.
See those first dozen rides are really important. Done right you can expose the horse to a lot and get him to accept a bunch of things that if I waited to ask him to accept say a month or two down the line. Well I would probable get bucked off for it. See there is a window of opportunity in those first rides for you to be able to get the horse o accept things. If you leave it go tell later on its gouing to be much harder for the horse to accept it.
Now if I tried that same circle on a younger colt at the walk with the occasional trot mixed in I would basically be sitting on dynamite and the whole ride would be a fight or turn into a fight because I wouldnt be able to get that energy up
and direct it out of fear of physically hurting the young horse.
Or say im just going to take a two year old out for a really short ride. Well what happens if the colt starts pretending he is a bucking horse or if we run into some type of problem. I would hate to cut the session short out of fear of physically hurting the colt. On a 4 year old we can work through the problem no matter how long it takes or how many miles it takes and I know we are eventually going to end the session on a good note.
There is more to my colt starting program than this. But this is just an explanation of why I personally like to start them at 4 years.
It all depends on what your doing with them. I can get my colts stopping pretty good in the first month. This puts a lot of stress on those hocks/pasterns.
A smaller/lighter rider who is riding in an arena and not interested in Reining<slide Stops> wouldnt have to wait until they were 4 YO to start. If you turn & burn/slide spin & win on those young horses their career is going to be short.

 

[Horse Guy]

Why 4 years old? Just curious.

Becasue he has no idea what he is doing.

:lol: :lol: :lol:

Yeah real funny. BYE

 

[msscamp]

Thank you for the explanation, Horse Guy, I appreciate it. I meant no disrepect, nor was I poking fun at you, but our horses were a primary part of ranch life. They were broke at 2 years old, by 2 1/2 years old they were making a 50 mile circuit every other day during the summer months checking water, by 3 years old they were well broke. I don't know anyone who waits until a horse is 4 years old to break them, and that is why I asked. It just seems to be a matter of different lifestyles, with different expectations - nothing wrong with that. Again, thank you.

 

[ETF]

Persian - I'll attempt to answer your original question. Imprint training, if done correctly, helps the foal be more accepting of humans and makes handling them easier. If it's overdone, you get a horse that thinks it's a pet, doesn't respect your space, and can become dangerous. We only imprint for the first three days after the foal is born and focus on two things - 1) having a lot of different people handle the foal and 2) exposing the foal to as many of the things they will see later in life as possible. For instance, we pick up each foot and tap the bottom repeatedly (like shoeing and trimming), put a halter on and off repeatedly, handle all parts of the body - particularly the mouth and ears, stick an empty wormer tube in their mouth repeatedly, spray with water from a spray bottle to simulate fly spray, run the trimmer over their face (not to cut hair, just to get them used to the sound and vibration), rub a saddle pad on their back, etc. Our mares are right there while we are doing this and don't seem to mind. Obviously you need to watch the mare and stop if either the mare or the foal is getting upset. We do this two or three times a day (typically 30 to 45 minutes each time) for three days, then just leave the foal alone. It won't change the basic temperament of the foal but will make it much easier for you to handle them. Dr. Robert Miller was the originator of imprint training. His web site has a lot more information http://www.robertmmiller.com/imprint-training.html and you could also search this board for a lot of discussion. Good luck.

 

[Horse Guy]

Thank you for the explanation, Horse Guy, I appreciate it. I meant no disrepect, nor was I poking fun at you, but our horses were a primary part of ranch life. They were broke at 2 years old, by 2 1/2 years old they were making a 50 mile circuit every other day during the summer months checking water, by 3 years old they were well broke. I don't know anyone who waits until a horse is 4 years old to break them, and that is why I asked. It just seems to be a matter of different lifestyles, with different expectations - nothing wrong with that. Again, thank you.

:) No problem/were all friends again :D haha Im touchy about hoses :lol:

My advice to anybody riding 2 or 3 YO is to be careful. Feel for heat in the pasterns/hocks. Watch for swelling. I know from experience that it doesnt take much to over do things.
Around here there are a lot of good horses that are worn out before they are ten years old. Lots of western aged event horses needing injections between shows.

 

[Alan]

Great post! It's been along time since I have seen a post on this horse thread that got my attention. Sorry to disagree with you horse guy, you sound pretty knowledgable about horses and truley respect and love them.... but.

I'm 100% for imprint training. Don't over do it, the mare and foal will need to bond. But I do imprint my foals, and think if you truly want a trusting horse your odds will be far greater by imprinting the foal. Imprinting, in my opinion, gains trust with the foal, gives me a far easier time training. If the foal trust me I can pick up feet, touch him/her wherever I want. The foal will come to me easier and faster. I'm getting too old to try to pick up the foot on a 3 or 4 year old horse for the first time, or cross tie (tie), or clean a seath, udder, teach to lead, halter, etc. Imprinting gives you trust and bonding, but you can not break the trust anywhere down the road.

I'm working my year old stud colt right now, he was imprinted. I can catch him in the pasture without ever having a problem, he cross ties, he knows to stay 2 to 3 ft behind me on my right side when I lead him. Stop when I stop, back when I back. I don't touch his mouth and his mouth doesn't touch me. I also turn him out with the geldings so he can be a horse and learn the rules and manners the horses demand.

I'm with you that I think a horse should never be riden before 3 (you said 4, I have no problem with that) and only light riding, but alot of the time it's not the way of the world.

JMO,
Alan

 

[OK Jeanne]

I appreciate the comments on this thread. My Peruvian
Paso mare is due to foal within a week & I have been
also wondering about the value of imprinting.

 

[Alan]

I appreciate the comments on this thread. My Peruvian
Paso mare is due to foal within a week & I have been
also wondering about the value of imprinting.

Nice looking mare, I love the steel grey color. post some pics when she has a foal on the ground.

I have a QH mare who's due date was yesterday, foal is still baking :D .

Alan

 

[persianhorse]

Dear all :
First we do everything on the mother before giving birth to the foal.
The mother have to know us has to have no fear of us present when she is foaling actually some one has to be present especially when the mares foal in a box because many bad accidents could happen especially if is the first or second time which the mare is foaling she has no experience how to go on the ground for foaling if she lie close to the wall of the box both could die the mother and the foal.

The mother is relaxed in the time of foaling and in the time that we are doing the Imprinting when ever the mother wants she smells the foal and touches the foal with her muzzle and she knows that we are no harm because we have been with her for weeks spending hours in her stable with her in most of the time night time and day time and riding too.

We never interfere with the mother and foal relation .

Actually we wont prevent the foal from standing actually when the foal try to stand we help her/him in the technical way.

We do our work in the time that the foal is on the ground and we do not stop the foal from standing we stop on positive ground and we carry on the next time we never rush on anything.

The main point that we do this is the moment of birth we want the foal to feel our breath before her or his mother and we want the foal to see us standing tall just like her or his mother (as I said on lie down a horse) to establish the bound somehow close to the bound with her or his mother.

An Imprinted foal becomes a good mother and father and will pass the good behaviors to her foal this is very crucial for future all the foals that I have Imprinted they are good mothers and fathers.

What is SENSITIZATION ?

You all remember Pavlov's experiments , do you ?
Pavlov was one of the firs scientific behaviorists.
He conditioned dogs to a bell which he rang at feeding time.Initially the food not the bell caused the dogs to SALIVATE just by ringing the bell. What had happened ? the dogs were now responding automatically. Pavlov had conditioned their subconscious minds to respond to the bell and cause saliva to flow even in the absence of food. Even if the dogs had wanted to, their conscious minds could not prevent the salivating because the subconscious part of the brain over rules the conscious part.
All of us humans have many conditioned responses .
For example when I say vinegar your mouth starts to flow with just a word which is vinegar is just like the time you have vinegar in your mouth.

These are the conditional responses that I want and each can be taught in minutes if it is properly done I do these in the first or the second day when the foal can stand up on his/her feet properly:
We can establish a conditioned response.

1- To pick up each foot when asked.
2- To be halter broke. (this means the foal will follow the halter lead rope without resistance and the foal will not pull back against the halter when he/she is tied (we do not really tie the foal) we do it in a way that the foal thinks that he/she is tied.
3- To move the hinds laterally when cued.
4- To back up on command in respond to chest pressure.
5- To move forward in respond to butt pressure.
We can establish a conditioned response.

I hope that I have explained what is SENSITIZATION .

I can explain many things on these subjects is you like.

I hope we do at least 5 foals in this way and see how they behave in future when they become mothers and fathers then we judge the most amazing and magical method of training.

I wish you all the best.

 

[persianhorse]

Is it possible that if I bring solid fact you change your mind but with positive debating not negative arguments ?

This method can prevent many accident from happening especially if comes with knowing the body language of the horse.
Dear all:

This a long and intellectual science subject I wish we could have a good and positive debate on this method.

This method can save 99% of horse and human problems .

This method is even good for humans too.

This method is good for other animals too.

We can save life , accidents and many other things that are very crucial and we can make the world a better place for horses to live in and I think this is the main goal of every IH horsemanship .

I wish you all the best.

 

[persianhorse]

Hi :
By this method we can do many things like stoping in a high speed on a losse rein.

Please keep in mind that a 2 months old horse is like a 20 years old man the foal is mature right after birth it is not like a dog which is blind and helpless at the time of birth .
The foal stands and drinks the mothers milk but the dog has to put the milk into her newborn mouth.
If we want a horse to be highly trained for world competitions we must start at that moment.
We believe we can not train a 2 years old horse for that purpose a 2 years old horse is a grown up horse just like a 20 years old human you can not teach a 20 years old human the way that you could at beginning now days we give a child a pen in very stages of life or paper and many other things so he/she could get use to what we call learning and educating for future.

My best wishes.

 

[persianhorse]

Dear all :

These things are done because of us as humans if we where not in favor of using horses to our need then non these would be needed we do all these because we want horses to serve us better and in the same time we want to use the non violent systems which is not common around the world in many places horsemen use violent actions towards horses .

For Example when we desensitize a foal to shoeing and the sound of iron hitting the foals hoof this foal when becomes a 2 years old horse no one has problem of shoeing him/her but is she is not desensitized towards the shoeing many people use violent actions to shoe the poor animal and many other thing that work this way.

First I have to say that we do not interfere between the mother and the foal the mare is standing by an she smells muzzle to muzzle when ever she wants therefore they wont get separated like human baby.

If you read my posts I did say that we have to Imprint Train the mare (mother) first so when she foals at our present she wont feel any negative towards our present and this is very much crucial if we wont do that the mother could attack us very easily and she will not be comfortable about our presents.

I just compared the human with horses but it is not the same.

The NATURE :

If the mare would foal in a herd in wild and we did not have anything to do with them and we did not need the horse for many purposes yes it was much better to leave them alone and let the nature to do its natural work.

The HUMAN interfering:

First we bring them from the wild and jail them in a box this is especially very bad for the horse eye because the horse eye works like a binocular and most of the horses when they come to indoor environment they mostly get eye problems they mostly go towards blindness unless the stables that when the horse brings his/her head out could see the far distance.

But unfortunately its not like that we are going to interfere in their life from the first day to the last, we need them for :

1- Riding.
2- Jumping.
3- Dressage.
4- Polo.
5- Endurance.
6- Long and Short distance running.

In old days we used them for :

1- Sending the Post around the world.
2- We used them as heavy horses for wars and battles.
3- Use them for heavy artillery.
4- Use them for transporting us like Trains, Buss and Airoplane.
and many other needs of human.

In that situation we need to train them for the things we want them to compete in we have to find out which horse is good for what kind of our needs for example the horse A is good for cutting, the B horse is good for jumping we should find out these in the very early stages of life we can not let the time pass and in 2 years old decide for what kind of job this horse is good for.
these are the training which we have to in early stages of life if we want the poor horse to become good at.

Imprinting a foal is not just manipulating the foal it is :

1- Bonding.
2- Habituation.
3- Sensitization.
4- Dominance.
5- The Mare (how we should Imprint Train the Mother because of the needs in the future).
6- Immediate Postpartum Procedure as first session.
7- The second session.
8- The third session.
9- Teaching the foal to Tie.
10- More Halter Training.
11- Advanced Halter Training.
12- Teaching Performance Basics.
13- Reinforcing Responses.
14- Preventing Problems.
15- Effects of Imprint Training On Mares.(Very much Important and Crucial).
16- Imprinting the MULES are a bit different with horses.


All the resistance to the Idea of training foals are coming from the race horse people , there is a belief that if a young horse is taught to be well mannered and obedient and if he/she is not flighty he/she will not run well this is the main reason behind all that and the other reason is because they do not know the Training.

I wish you all the best and hope we open a positive debate on the Imprint Training of the new born foal and be well informed about the things we want to post on this thread so in the end many people which want to know about this could use this thread and this thread could help them in any way relating to horse training in early stages of life and be well informed about the benefits for the horses , the mothers and the owners .

We are trying to make the world a better place for them (Horses) to live happily,no fear from man and no pain either mentally or physically.

With my best regards to all.

 

[Horse Guy]

What would you guys say if I suggested that the broodmare has a lot to do with how the colt will be? Example If you do a good job at handling <training> the mare before she foals, well when she does foal she will imprint a certain amount to her attatude to the foal. Say if you do a poor job with the mare and the mare is nervous of you, will she will imprint <teach this to her foal>.
Also what about DNA? Some horses are just way easier than others. I have bought colts from breeders who claim to imprint. I have bought colts from breeders who dont imprint. Honestly colts overall seem to be individuals. I cant state that all the colts that were imprinted were better than the ones that were not imprinted. But then again I dont know for sure if the breeders who claimed to imprint were actually doing it right so this might be part of it.
Like im not saying im against imprinting. Im just questioning the value of it. I dont think its necessary.
I know when I saw Pat Parelli doing it to a new born foal. Well it seemed to take forever. The foal wanted its moma. The Moma wanted its foal. After 3/4 of an hour I was thinking to myself For Gods sake Parelli just let the poor foal suck!
Another thing
I dont like horses that think they are a pet. There are a lot of "handled" foals out there that are annoying to be around. Example they follow you everywhere and are in the way most of the time.
Its annoying trying to work at your truck with a colt in your way trying to play with your wrenches or walking over your legs when your under a vehicle. Or trying to put feed in a building with a colt following you. Haha One time I was doing this and it was following me into the building from the truck back and forth and it was in the way so in the barn I tried to scare it with an empty feed bag. Haha Colt just grapped the bag in its teeth and took it outside and chased the other horses around with the bag for about a half hour.
Haha Same colt one time I was fixing barn. I was on a ladder drilling into metal. Well you can imagine how loud that was. Anyway the colt is under my ladder knocking me half the time. Anyway I had to get something so I got down off the ladder with that colt following me. Haha The second I sat that battery operated drill down the colt grabbed it in his mouth and took off with it<with the drill going>. Loped as fast as he could to the other horses. I guess to show them the drill. Haha The other horses didnt want nothing to do with him and his noisey drill so they loped away with the colt and drill in hot persuit.

 

[circlet]

i'm not a huge imprinting fan, i kind of like nature to run it's course. however, i do spend alot of time with the colts from about 6 months until we put them under saddle. i guess i kind of "imprint" them that way. we work with them a little on ground manners, but more than that, we just get them used to the idea that we're around and in among them and they should respect our position as "herd leader".

i also am gonna straddle the fence on the how-early-is-too-early debate. I agree that it's fine to put a 2 yo under saddle, but i also firmly agree with horse guy that you want to wait until they're 4 or so before you really work them hard. those joints aren't fully developed at two and alot of heavy cutting and carrying is potentially too hard on them - just my opinion, i'm NOT the horse expert on this forum by any stretch! :)

 

[chippie]

Please don't base your opinion of imprinting by what Parelli does.

Imprinting is something that can be done gently and by degrees. It shouldn't be a marathon workout. With all things common sense should rule.

To me imprinting is teaching the foal to be handled, touched and not to be scared of people. Chances are the horses that you were told were imprinted probably weren't handled right and the people didn't know what they were doing.