Cob Jockey

On Wednesday night, Disco and I had our second driving lesson. This time, he'd be driving during evening bring-in and feeding time, hearing the grain hit the pans, seeing horses move down the aisle. I'll admit, I had a moment where I thought, "I should really set him up for success by bringing the horses in before his lesson even though it's not my night."

I didn't, and I'm glad I didn't. He was perfect. Perhaps a little sticky at the gate a time or two, but nothing egregious. It was like he didn't even hear the feeding chaos, and we had an incredibly productive lesson, even trotting for the first time.

Utterly unconcerned about feeding time

I find myself weighing this "setting him up for success vs pushing his buttons" thing a lot lately. Button pushing is, after all, how we train them. If we never tie them to a wall, they never learn to tie. If we never put them in a situation where they have to work during feeding time, they never learn to work during feeding time. 

(And obviously you have to have a little bit of both - you install "give to pressure" and "confinement" in order to set them up for success when you start tying them, for example.)

He's now been here a month, and I have erred on the side of "setting him up for success" a lot while he got settled in and while the co-op members got comfortable handling him. But now that baseline rules and human/baby horse pecking orders have been installed, I need to remind myself to keep pushing his buttons too.

Getting tacked up, which I did a surprisingly decent job with (as in, I am surprised that I remembered as much as I did). Of course I did not leave the breeching strap over his tail!

 

The latest button I'm ready to push is allowing everyone else to halter him. As I mentioned in the last post, I've been working with him for a while on this (not allowing him to grab the halter while you're trying to put it on him), but because I didn't want to ask the other co-op members to be as doggedly persistent as I've had to be about it, I've left his halter on 24/7 for a couple weeks now. With me being the only one haltering him, he got uninterrupted time with 100% consistency and black-and-white rules, and no opportunities for regression.

Over the last week, he hasn't tried to bite the halter one single time with me, so I'm ready to push that button and have everyone else try it with him too. I will be watching for a few things - does he even try it with everyone else? If he does, how persistent is he about it and how many times do they have to repeat the exercise before he keeps it closed? It's as much about how he learns and how he transposes rules from one human to another and how he respects us as it is about the actual behavior itself.

 

So far, the couple of times he's gotten it off in the field and they've been forced to halter him lately, he's been perfect for everyone else, so I have hope. But I won't know for sure until we push that button.

I was a little surprised to discover that I've never reviewed HalterTags.com before.  From my very first order for his halter nameplate when I first got Connor, it's the only place I've ordered tags, and I've ordered from them five times since 2011.

I think I've replaced this nameplate three times, but it really doesn't matter when it only costs $5.95!

I always like to find products that are the perfect blend of affordable and high quality, and HalterTags.com absolutely nails that.  Their slogan is "We engrave it deeper...CHEAPER!"  and it's SO true.


I've compared it to other tags on my barnmates gear, and a lot of their plates (I'm looking at you, SmartPak) just don't look as luxurious or carefully crafted as the HalterTags stuff.  Plus they cost, on average, over twice as much.

Seriously, that's some quality craftsmanship. In order from top to bottom: Longer Horse Halter Plate Saddle Plate x2 Belt plate

My first couple of orders in 2012 and 2013 took a REALLY long time to get to me (like 6-7 weeks) and I would just like to publicly say THAT IS NOT THE CASE ANYMORE!  They tell you that all orders are custom made and could take some time to get to you, but 6-7 weeks was not normal.  I reached out to them for an update and quickly got a note back that they had some family health crises going on each time, and then got my order shortly after that.  It IS a small business after all.


That said, I still thought the products and price were worth the wait, so I stuck it out.  Cathryn's Secret Santa present was my fifth order, and I was shocked when they were at my door under a week from when I placed the order.  Nice work, HalterTags!

Cathryn's Halter Tags present - this is actually the Toy Dog Collar nameplate!  Love mini tack!

I have now ordered the following products from them, some multiple times:
Longer Pony Halter Plate - $5.95
Halter Nameplate Longer Horse Size - $5.95
Lead Shank Plate - $5.95
Dog Tag - $5.95
Blanket/Bridle Tags - $5.95
Belt Nameplate - $5.95
Saddle Nameplate - $5.95
Toy Dog Sized Collar Plate - $5.95 (You have to visit the website for this one, the example plate for a toy dog says "Cujo".  Hahaha)

And, shipping is super reasonable (For example, the order above with the horse halter plate, belt plate and two saddle plates was $3.75 to ship).

This is not a company I'm an ambassador for, they did not ask me to write this review and they've never given me anything.  It's just a company I really respect for having great products at half the price of a big box retailer, and it's nice share that with you guys.

Anyone else ordered from Halter Tags?  Thoughts?

I had grand plans for my weekend at the barn, but they were derailed after I put two giant goose eggs on my shin bones during my CrossFit workout Saturday morning.  I didn't quite get my feet high enough on a 24" box jump part way through my workout, when I was getting fatigued, and hit the box with my shins.  I tried my half chaps on later that day and couldn't get them off fast enough!  No serious riding until those heal, for sure.  So Connor got one brief ride, mostly at the walk, instead of two long ones.  Worse things have happened.

It did give me a chance to do a couple of things I've been putting off, like putting his nameplate on his halter:

He's thrilled.

I still have the more formal one my mom got us for Christmas, which will go on his eventual show halter.  For now, I'm just happy that I won't have to sort through all the leather halters on the rack to find the little one anymore!

I also put the nameplate with my name on his leather lead, cleaned out my tack trunk, identified a whole mess of bits I'm going to sell, and loved on my little guy.  Good day, good day indeed.