Maverick


December 2021 Update......

Helpful as ever Mav was helping with the October course prepartions!

Birthday: July 5, 2017

It's not a day to forget! Sunrise, and we find that Selena has given birth just a couple of hours earlier, to a gorgeous mule foal. 

The birth was a surprise, but to find a mule foal was even more of a surprise! We adore him and look forward to lots of wonderful times! 

 



Maverick's first "training" was simply to socialise with people. Since he was innately curious and loved scratches, this was just fun for him. 

He was born bold and adventurous as you can see from the video above. He was also friendly and cuddly. 

His more formal training began with learning to stand at a stationary target. We start all our equines this way as it is such a useful behaviour. 

Once they know that standing at the traffic cone is rewarding, it becomes their default and they love to do it. From there, you can train stationary behaviours like hoof lifting, accepting a head-collar and to stay, which leads to training for tying up.

We also teach them to follow a target and you can see in the first photo that Claire is carrying a hand target while they stand at the traffic cone. Once he understood to target that too, she could alternate between stationary behaviours and him walking with her, following the hand target.