Such a Fetching Moon

Moon, our half draft horse, is quite the sponge. She loves learning. She has now learned Horse Kindergarten tasks such as how to lead properly, how to back up to a verbal and non verbal cue, how to respect a person's space for safety, how to move her hindquarters away from me when I ask, etc.

But she has also learned games! Like "Fetch". Moon loves to fetch! Do our two dogs "fetch"? Not on your life. One of them may run over to a stick and pick it up, but that's the last time you'll see the stick. Moon is a much better retriever than our dogs.

I can throw a small orange cone or a small feed bowl away from me, and Moon will happily trot off to get it. She'll pick it up and trot back to me. She will hand it to me. She'll even add a soft nickering sound to it for extra points! If she drops the cone on the way back, she'll pick it back up and trot over faster to make up for lost time.

There is a reward for Moon of course, the best of which is a horse treat upon successful delivery of the cone. And there's an incentive for speed: when Moon is off to fetch the cone, our other horse, Rosa, sidles over to me to get some goodies. Moon doesn't like that, so she fetches the object and gets back to me as quickly as she can.


It may seems a bit silly, but the game has taught Moon precision. She gets nothing if she drops the cone or bowl at my feet. She has to hand it to me. This game has also helped her to move away from me. Before I taught her to fetch, all she wanted to do was to approach me. And while that's a nice thing, it's also important for a horse to be able to move away when I want her to. So this little game has helped with that.

Believe it or not, we are getting closer to Sean trying out Moon with me. I am taking my time with Miss Moon so that she can understand everything that is being asked of her BEFORE we get up there to ride.

But I thought it might be fun to tell about her playing "fetch" and show some pictures!
Nancy