# Liberty training with a weanling



## Gayla Rankin (Oct 25, 2013)




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## Reeltje (Jul 13, 2012)

I love it!


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## Sahara (Jul 23, 2010)

How do you interpret ears that are pinned flat back? He looks pretty ****y about the whole thing to me.


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## Kayella (Feb 11, 2012)

I would have to agree with Sahara. He constantly pins his ears and tosses his head and just generally does not look pleased. It's great that you can do that with him, but I think the only reason he is obliging is so you'll hurry up and give him the treats. 

I also didn't like the part where you ran from side to side, making him jump from side to side. Not only is that taxing on his baby joints, he looks downright ****ed and is in a great position to lunge at you if he felt like it.
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## CLaPorte432 (Jan 3, 2012)

Personally, I think this is downright amazing for an eight month old. Just downright incredible how trainable he is.

Although, he does look irritated. He is extremely responsive to you.

And while some of these tricks are borderline dangerous, I think you are an incredible trainer and have done great things with this young guy. YOUR future is big.

Keep up the great work.
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## Reeltje (Jul 13, 2012)

I'm sorry, but I don't see his ears pinned back ALL the time.. 
You see his ears pinned while doing his exercise. When he's done you she his ears go back up. 
My horse does this too while tricktraining. With following me or rearing, it means that she is concentrated and focussed on me. She has DEFINITELY no bad feelings about the tricktraining or about me. She loves it. 
I only see a concentrated and a focussed horse in this video. 

Running around and stuff like that. Isn't that what young horses do together while they're playing?? Or even on their own they run around like crazy  

Only thing I DO agree with Kayella is that it's taxing on his baby joints. But than more the tricks like spanish walk and rearing. I think you should not do this with a young horse. I know they do it sometimes while playing with eachother. But it's VERY taxing for the joints, muscles, etc. Same as bowing etc. if you wanted to do that too. I should wait with that till he is older. (actually a lot older than 8 months).
I love the groundwork you're doing with him but those big tricks are really taxing for the body of this young horse. 

(But I know in some countries (I don't know where exactly  ) they do a lot of things with a younger horse that's not my preference. Like riding on a 2-year old. Here in the netherlands we start when the horse is 3-years old. If the horse is still a little young looking I'd rather do it at an age of 4. To let the horse grow correctly before you put a saddle on and take off.)


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## Reeltje (Jul 13, 2012)

I want to add something else about the rearing. 
If you look good, you see he goes up by throwing his head up in the air, and then his feet follow. 
This is VERY bad for his back! Even for a fullgrown horse it's bad, but for this young guy.. You could get your horse injured, seriously, no joke. 
You should really really really work on that if you're gonna keep doing this. One thing you could try is to let him walk forward (instead of backward like you did in the video) and than ask him to rear, so he will step forward with his hindlegs and put them under the mass.

But if you want my real advice; don't do rearing anymore until he is older so his joints are better and his muscles are more developed.


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