Hi, yall! My 11month old gelding is realy paying attention and learning right now. So I want to throw as much as I can at him. He leads, backs, comes when called, stands, I can touch him on every sqaure inch of him. I have sacked him. He has been totaly covered with a tarp. I have set up an obsticle course for him. I have a skid for a bridge, a long grooved metal (what you use for metal roof) and a large piece of plastic, cones. He does all of that with no problem. He will even stop and stand on all those things. Well accept the cones...lol What else can I add to his obsticle course?
I do have one problem with him. But its a problem I have with all 3 of my horses. But his is worst. He still goes nuts when you take his mommy away. He wont even eat. He rears up and goes side to side in his stall and sqaulls for her. As soon as he see's her he's fine. But he dosent do that when I work with him. He just pays attention to me. When out riding my 2 older horses they have to be together. If I tye one up and try to ride off with the other...well its just wont happen. They will go through campers, trucks or whatever to get back to the other. Is there a way to stop this? I fiqure with my 6yr old gelding its because hes never realy been trained. I just got on him and he went. Then I just taught him to follow the leader so to speak. But I take him on trails and ride him all over the land. Maybe I should still send him to a trainer..?
Thanks for any info
missy

Sounds like he definately has separation anxiety.

All I can say is to lead him back and forth from his "Mom".
Walk Mom away and bring her back to him.
It may take a while for them to settle down, but after time you should be able to extend the time that they are away from each other.

It would be heart breaking but I would competely seperate them for awhile. Give it enough time and they will get over it.

I did that for 2 months when I weaned him. One was in the front and one was in the back. They couldnt see each other at all. But they all 3 do it for each other. Its just that he does it the worst and more with her. He gets soo worked up I'm afraid he will have a heat stroke or something. I hope to take him to a show this weakend. Maybe a whole day at different places will help. ?
Thanks
missy

I think it is a great idea to take him to a show-away from his herd.
His confidence will grow with his new experiences.
He will also find out that his herdmates will still be there when he gets back.

Don't worry about him having heatstroke, he will calm down eventually.

just a thought, but when you work him in the obstical course, can he see the other horses?

i think the familiarity of the course may also dictate how he's reacting to seperation. i'd try to keep him in sight of his mom, but at a distance. keep increasing the distance a little every time he gets comfortable. if it's no more than 10 feet at a time, then do it 10 feet at a time.

if at some point he get's out of sight of them and can maintain relativly calm, then try to put him through his obstical course. it could act as a passifier to keep his mind off of the seperation. work him through it and then take him back to them. then work him through a portion and stop. if he gets agitated put him through some more of it, and stop. i think eventually you could get him to spend longer and longer times away from the others like this. any time he gets agitated put him back to work.

i'm no expert in these matters or i'd be charging you for this. so it may not work at all. but i believe that a horse will accept minor changes much more easily than major ones. cutting him off all together is probably going to make for a bad day for the both of you. if you can keep opening up the distance between him and them, he will eventually lose his fear of being alone. he has to figure out that no matter what you ask of him, or how long it takes, he will get back to the herd.

Seperation is the best. Years ago I bought a 5 month old filly and about 6 months later I decided that I liked her so much that I went back and purchased her mom. I went through issues of her squelling and carring on.. I started taking her everywhere so to speak. Out for long walks by herself, at first I carried a long whip to tap her on the but when she wanted to stopped. I would also take her to shows. She would hollar the first few times when we got into the ring looking for mama, but I would just get after her. I also would take her on the weekends to go get feed, have lunch, etc. I would just load her in the trailer and go. I started with short rides and progressively got longer. It was rough in the begining and she would put up a fight when we started walking she needed to do what I asked and if that meant going by herself than that is what she had to do. She would circle around me, and at times not walk forward so I would make her go backwards. Normally once we got out of sight of the barn on our walks she would settle and start looking around and checking things out. We walked daily. It got better each day and finally she could careless.

Separation, he need to be removed from the herd.

I also would make the break from Mom. Once you decide to seperate it has to be for along time. I will tell you what hapened to my daughter and her mare and foal. She would take the foal away, yearling at this time, and the filly would go crazy. My daughter would give in and give the filly back to the mare. Each time she would try to seperate the 2 it was worse. The filly learned quickly that if she threw a big enough fit then she would see momma soon. Eventually the filly hurt herself by actually throwing herself into the walls trying to get out of her stall.
When we here decided to seperate the foals from the dams we did it all at once. Its easier on the foal and dam. Yes you have them hollaring for each other but it gets less each day.
Its never easy!
If you have a stall mate for the foal makes it easier also. This is a good time for you to work and bond with this foal..
Also in your round pen work I would introduce white bags on the end of your lunge whip. Swing then thru the air around your horse, under them and over them, front and back.
I use the leaved out branches for them to walk thru and Have them tied to a rope and the saddle horn for them to pull around behind them. Touch the branches all over them. I have a dog in the pen also so they get used to dogs under feet. My dog would chase the horse around the outside of the round pen while the horse traveled inside. The dog was barking. Have a mailbox on a post to walk by and open and shut the door. I have my round pen out by the road so the horses get used to traffic whizzing by while I work them.
I've had my hubby drive his tractors around also. Getting them used to honking horns is also good. Flexing and one rein stops is good to teach.
On a windy day I would tie the tarp to the fence where the wind would blow it making it flap in the breeze. Horse would be asked to keep traveling around untill it would walk right under the flapping tarp.
Those are some more ideas for you to try. Makes for an excellent trail horse.
Have fun!

We had to totally separate our mare and filly. The mare finally started to listen again.