Joanne Rigutto's Critter Blog

Ah, it's been so long since I've posted on this blog, what with the fight against the NAIS and all. If you'd like to learn more about that please visit the Oregon Small Holders Alliance website here - Oregon Small Holders Alliance

Now, onto the boy's progress. He's been making an amazing amount of progress over the last few weeks. In addition to being able to put a halter on him, of course I haven't actually buckled the thing as my halters are all too small for him, I'm working with him on handling his feet and suprise suprise, he wore a fly mask for the very first time in his life last Friday. I had originally intended to introduce him to the flymask only but things went to well that I wound up putting it on him indstead. Saturday went well also with Gizmo accepting the mask more easily than Friday and I'll see how we do today, Sunday. Gizmo has a pretty consistent pattern in his learning curve. When introduced to a new object or behavior, he is curious and aprehensive at first, then accepts the new object or behavior, progresses in the next two or three excersizes, then he goes backwards in his progress once or twice, and then moves forewards, so he's very much a 3 steps foreward 1 step back kind of a guy. So I'll see how he does today. This has been very much the pattern with the front feet work I've been doing with him. One day, after he had let me actually pick up his left front foot, he wouldn't have anything of me even touching his leg. I use beetpulp and a pelleted general livestock pellet as rewards, and he wouldn't let me near his leg even for that. Now, Gizmo knows that while he has a deffinate pattern to his learning curve, I too have a deffinate pattern to how I handle him in a given exersize. He gets three tries at an excersize and if he refuses all three times he not only doesn't get the reward, which he very much wants, but I either just pull it from him, or sometimes I'll actually feed it to little Flash the mule, right in front of him. Gizmo gets plenty of calories and nutrition from his hay so I don't have to worry about depriving him of food he needs when I do this. On the rare occassion that he completely refuses to do something I ask, I let him think about it for half an hour and then present him with the excersize again. Very rarely will he do a complete refusal twice in a row. In fact, on the occassion where he refused the foot excersize, when asked to allow me to handle his leg and foot the second time, he actually came to me, and not only stood quietly when I handled his leg and foot, and allowed me to pic his foot off the ground. I wasn't able to hold it for long, but hey, it was greater progress than I had expected. Besides, standing on three legs for someone who has never done it requires learning to balance anyway, so I was happy with the outcome of the excersize.

Here are a couple more pics to look at.

Just a note - If you noticed that this post has been moved and bumped, you're right.

In my experience working with animals, I've run into many who were a joy to work with, some who have been a challenge, some who were difficult, and only one who I had real doubts about. That one's name is The Flashy Dasher, or Flash for short. Flash is a small mule of unknown ancestry who I bought at the horse Auction in Woodburn, Oregon 6 or 7 years ago. It was late at night, around midnight, when the little mule I had seen in the pens was ushered into the sale ring. It didn't occur to me to wonder why he was not wearing a halter, or why the two men in the ring moving him about didn't stray too far from the safety panels, and actually moved behind them if he got too close. I had taken a good look at him in his pen, although I hadn't actually gone in with him. He was clean and appeared well fed, had a good bloom to his coat and his feet looked to have been recently trimmed. He had nice confirmation and was calm as people moved up and down the isle, although not too friendly. When the bidding started out at $100 and quickly dropped to $35, I figured I'd make my move - that's what I get when I bring my check book to an auction....With only one other person bidding against me I wound up with the winning bid and bought him for the exorbitant ammount of $75. I probably should have wondered why the only other person bidding against me was the slaughter guy, but what the hey, small mules are very popular in my area during hunting season, and I figured I'd hold him for a month or so, work with him, and be able to turn him for a quick $400 profit. As they say 'Famous Last Words.....'

I went up and paid for my new aquisition and made arrangements to pick him up later that day, it was, after all, around 1:00AM when I paid for him.
After a nap, a local gal I knew stopped by with her trailer and we headed off to Woodburn to pick up the little guy. By the time we got down there, he was the only animal left to be picked up, which actually turned out to be a good thing, considering the behavioral problems I've since discovered in him.
Our first mission was to get a halter on Flash, which proved to be a challenge, but we were able to do so, I think primarily due to the fact that he was very hungry - we used treats to bribe him, and he was somewhat shell shocked from his experiences at the auction yard. Once we got a halter on him, we rigged two lines, one regular length lead that I would use to bring him foreward, and a 20' longe line that we used as a safety line. Fortunately we were able to get the trailer fairly close to the pen where Flash was located and wrapping the safety around a post, I would lead Flash towards the trailer as far as I could, then my friend would carefully move the safety to the next post, and so on till we got to the trailer, which he went right into, suprisingly enough. He rode well too. Go figure.
Unloading him when we got home, now that was interesting too. Unfortunately, my friend didn't know how to back up her trailer, her husband usually did that and she had never learned how. Also, the front and back drives had equipment parked on them to which I had no key, so I couldn't get it out of the way. Our only option was to park on the street - HYW 213 in Mulino, a very busy road, and uload there, then walk him back to and through the back yard and emu compound to the pen I would be keeping him in. Again we used the safety line, but he kept right beside me. He didn't even hesitate when we walked down the center islway, only feet away from curious emus. Our animals out here are exposed to so many different things on a regular basis, that it's hard to spook anyone, more often than not they come over to investigate new things or just ignore them altogether.
I truely think that poor Flash was so overwhelmed by so many new things that he just shut down mentally and emotionally, and did as he was told.
After letting him settle for a week, I began working with him and soon found out that Flash is unusual behaviorally, and in many ways one set of behaviors will contradict others. After working with him for several days, it became clear to me that this was not going to be your usual training exercise.
Flash is subject to absolute terror when confined and under pressure. His fear rules him absolutely. The odd thing, as I discovered, is that Flash's fear extends to humans only. Around other animals he is friendly, curious, or nonchallant. If an animal pushes him, as Nashuan is won't to do with everyone, Flash will let the other animal know that he doesn't appreciate being crowded, but his exibition of that behavior is normal.
Over the years, I've studied Flash's behavior, and conducted various experiments with him in an attempt to asses the degree to which his fear extends. People who I know who are knowlegable about roping and cutting have suggested that Flash was probably used for one or both of those sports. I've been told that ropers and cutters like to use small mules and donkeys for practice as the don't have the tendancy to sour like cattle and will always run. I also know, that with mules and donkeys, you don't want to teach them anything you don't want them to know, for once they learn, they rarely forget. So if a behavior or pattern of behavior is set up, it's almost impossible to eliminate completely or permanently. And so, my regimen for Flash was to set up training excersizes that helped promote trust in humans. Not just me, but all humans he came in contact with.
For the most part, I treat Flash like any other animal out here, taking into account that I can't move him around by just throwing a halter and lead on him like a normal animal. I use him for mowing grass in areas that the horses can't get to, and he is a great companion for the stallions. Right now, he's a buddy for Gizmo, the Lipizzan stallion Neapolitano Debora.
Over the years, Flash has made progress, and then slid back, then made progress again. This last year, Harold's son and grandson came up to stay for a couple of weeks. During that time they gave Flash quite a lot of treats. Flash is very food oriented and this I've found is a great way to get some leverage on him, and over the years we have developed a system. I ask, and if he's willing he gets paid. Either with scratches, attention, or treats. As long as I don't push him too far too fast he's pretty ammenable to this system, and he has been developing more and more trust in me and other humans. In 2005 Hadold' son and grandson were up here and worked with Flash, just befriending him, and feeding him treats, which is what they did this year too. And I really think that this was the break point for Flash.
Since they were here a couple of months ago, Flash has taken a real turn for the better. I've seen a softening in him and a level of trust that wasn't there before this year's visit. You could see that he wanted to trust, but just wasn't quite there yet. Their attention seems to have bennefitted Gizmo too, as I was able to get the halter and flymask on him as well as being able to handle his feet after Harold's son and grandson had been here.
Out of curiosity, over the last six weeks, I began exploring just how far I could push Flash. I would work with him at feeding time, using a little of Gizmo's beet pulp or grain as the reward, much to the chagrin of Gizmo. Gradually I worked him up to letting me handle his ears, to an extent, covering his eyes, coming up to me even when I had no visible treat, and bringing him out of slightly stressful situations with out harming him. Gradually I've built up his trust in me, and a couple of weeks ago I bought a flymask that had closures over the poll, and under the jaw. I had had some success with Flash and flymasks a couple of years ago, but had never been able to get the thing over his ears. With this new mask, I felt confident that I would be able to get one on him, and so I began using this as the new excersize.
He has gone in 2 weeks, from being willing to touch the mask, to haveing the thing all the way up on his head and having the strap over his poll but not actually hooked up. This morning was the big test, I mean what the hey, you have to go for the gusto once in a while and Flash had gone as far as he could go with out actually hooking the thing up. I put the mask on him, flipped the strap over his poll, and hooked it up - it has a hook and loop closure. Of course as soon as he figured out what was going on he spooked backward. I let him go, talking to him the whole while. He only went about 20 feet, then stopped. I talked to him, reasuring him and offering him treats. It took a couple of minutes to come up, and we had a couple of false starts when he'd spook back a few feet, but eventually I was able to call him back and hook the lower two straps.
Over the rest of the day, I've worked with him, building his confidence up. He's still a little honked off at me for putting one over on him, at least that's how he acts. It's usually pretty easy to tell the difference in him between him being irritated and him being afraid, and right now he's deffinately irritated. But he still wants those treats.
I'd say all in all, he's done pretty well for an animal who hasn't ever worn a fly mask, especially given his past and current behavioral patterns and given that I estimate his age to be around 20+ years. Very well indeed.
Taking the mask off now, that's going to be interesting......

At a private horse forum I hang out at one of the members posted information on the National Animal ID System.
Originally designed to protect the domestic food supply by identifying and tracking animals entering the human food chain as well as animals from outside the US who enter this country. It's goal is to provide a data base that can be used to rapidly and efficiently identify and isolate and identify outbreaks of disease.
Now I can see the advantages in this system. But now they are going to use it to track ALL ag animals, not just the food producing ones. Everything from crawdads to camels, beef to buffalo and everything in between. Eatin' critter or not, they want everything except the barn cat and the cattle dog chipped or tagged with an RFID and all movements tracked. It also doesn't make a whit of difference wheather you're a commercial opperation or if you are non-commercial and only have a 'few' animals. And when you register you need to register all ag type animals. It doesn't matter if you have them for your own personal use. Every time an animal arrives or leaves your property, which by the way, also has to be registered, you must report to the federal government within 48 hours of the 'event'
Like to trail ride? Better tell Uncle Sam. Need to go to the vet? Better tell Uncle Sam. Gonna have your mare bred? Better file a flight plan with Uncle Sam. Going to a show or a lesson with your horse? You guessed it...
I don't have a problem with an ID and tracking program per se as long as it's used to track animals in the food chain, but I think this is going too far. To my knowlege there is only one place in the country that slaughters horses, in Texas, and I don't think they're slaughtering for human consumption. I can't think of anyone who's slaughtering camels or camelids, although these animals are required to be tagged and tracked too.
People, this is not a proposed program, it's in place right now, and while it's currently a voluntary program it will be MANDATORY in January 2008. According to APHIS's website on Sunday, when I was checking this, they had 404,700 premesis registered already, with 50 states, several tribes, and I think a couple of US possessions participating.

More info coming soon.....

Well things are progressing appace. In addition to being able to rub the hay net all over his head, I can now flip the drawsting over his nose, trap it, and hold it for a moment. When I release him he puts his nose out for another go 'round. Look, a new game.
Giz also has a budy. Little Flash, the mule, let himself out into the back yard one day. The grass had started to grow a bit, and Flash, being small, is easier on the soft ground, and the little guy looked like he could use an adventure, so I decided to let him hang out in the back yard for a while. I also had an idea that he and Giz would get along. Flash is a go along get along kind of a guy when it comes to other animals. It's just humans he has a problem with.
Flash and Gizmo hit it off and now they're buds. I have an idea that Flash will have the pen next to Gizmo this winter.

I also have this week off work, so I'll be able to put chips in the shallow places in Giz's pen and hopefully be able to start lunging him for excercise. Little guy's got a paunch on him. I've had to cut back on his hay and the little bit of grain he gets, but I didn't dare work him with the ground being so soft. He looks downright pathetic when he's hungry. Ah, the curse of the Lipizzan. They really are easy keepers for the most part, which is nice from the standpoint of someone buying feed, but not so good for someone who likes their chow.....

More updates as the week wears on....

Just a short update on the little gray guy...
Gizmo is coming along great. Working with him 2-3 times a day, every day at feeding time is turning out to be the right way to go. We've progressed to having a hay net rubbed all over his face, letting me close into his space, moving my hands all over his head, neck, around his ears, over his poll and his chest. He's progressing nicely as far as being desinsitized to touch on his body, and when he spooks I can call him right back. I've also been working with tugging on his mane in preperation for the day when I'll be tugging on a lead attached to his face. A month ago he would have bolted half way across the pen, but now he watches me and understands that when I move parts of his body around, I'm not going to hurt him, attack him, or do anything else bad to him, and when he controls himself and his fear he is rewarded, either by word, scratches, the releife of preasure, etc. So a combination of slow easy steady consistent work using techniques of natural horsemanship, opperant conditioning, and behavioral shaping techniques are the order of the day.
He's such a wonderful little guy and an absolute joy to work with.
Trust is the foundation of everything we do with our horses. If a horse trusts you, he'll accept you as the leader of his herd, he'll try his heart out even if he doesn't understand what you're asking of him, and he'll follow you anywhere. Trust is the foundation on which all great partnerships are built.