Training to lead and Fly spray

Question
QUESTION: My horse is a 11 month old half arabian filly and she is getting big - but she will barely let me put a halter on! i finally got one on after slowly coaxing her, and i am afraid to take it off now. I am trying to get her to lead too, but she takes of bucking when ever i try. I would take her to a roundpen for her lessons, but its is pretty hard to take her from her pen when she can't lead! She shys when ever i try to use a rump rope. I also cant get her to accept fly spray, and i feel so bad for her when she is covered in flys but she wont let me put it on! can you please tell me how to fix my leading and fly spray problems?

ANSWER: Hi Meagan, Did you have her since birth, imprint train her, or buy her as a baby? If you can keep her closed in a stall, you can do a lot of work in the stall with her. Put the halter on and take it off, over and over, until she is comfortable with it and will put her nose into it for you. When the halter is on, teach her the head down cue, applying slight downward pressure on the halter, and immediately relieve the pressure as soon as she moves her head down. Give her lots of praise and repeat until she will lower her head to the ground for you. Then begin working on getting her to give to pressure with the lead on. Bring your hand up towards her eye and have her move away from you, then reach around and touch her belly (where your stirrup would hang) and ask her to move her hind end away from you and her head following you. These are just a few of the exercises we begin doing with our little baby foals. Since she is bigger, you may have to be more patient and work on it longer and more consistently. Then you can begin to ask her to move forward and backward with you. Once you have her leading around her stall, you can take her out to the roundpen and do the same exercises and add to them. As far as fly spray, take an empty bottle and make a shhh, shhh noise as though you are spraying her, motioning the bottle towards her body. This is desensitizing her. When she is not bothered by that, then put some water in the bottle, spray it away from her to get her used to the sound, then gradually move it so that you are spraying all parts of her body. Once she accepts that add your fly spray and repeat, she should be fine by then. There is also swat, which is a paste fly repellent and  there are roll-on fly repellents that you can use to make her comfortable during the training process. If you can find a local trainer that can help you it would be great, but if not, just read a lot on John Lyon's webpages, Mark Rashid's Considering the Horse newsletter...and you will learn a great deal. Hope this helps. Leave me some feedback, a nomination (if you please), and follow-up to keep me posted of your progress. I am looking forward to hearing about your successes with her. Thank you. Regards, Susan

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QUESTION: Thank you for answering my previous question, I am beginning to apply it to my half arabian filly, Penny. But I forgot to ask one more question. I am afraid to clip the lead to her halter because she might "freak out". One time when i was removing burrs from her mane, the come got stuck in her hair and she went balistic. I was scared she was going to her herself - she went galloping into her paddock swinging her head around and didnt calm down until a few minutes after it went flinging across the grass. Now imagine what she would do with a rope attached to her chin?! so, what should i do to before i just clip it on?
ANSWER: Hi Meagan, Don't worry. If you are using a regular length lead rope, and a good leather or rope halter, she will only step on the lead if she takes off, and it will cause her to slow down. If you wanted you could tie a couple of knots in it down towards the end to shorten it up a bit. If you were using a lunge line, or a very long lead, it may get caught up on things, but a lead rope of normal length does not usually cause a problem. Be sure to wear gloves and do not loop the rope around your hand, so that YOU do not get hurt. Thanks again for writing. Regards, Susan

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QUESTION: Hi susan and thank you for answering my follow up question. The advice you are giving really sounds like it will be affective. I do trust you advice since you are an expert, but i am still worried about clipping a lead to Penny's halter. She may not hurt herself with the lead, but im afraid that she will go balistic like in the comb story i wrote about before and possibly hurt herself on the fence in her paddock or something in her stall. I just dont want her to get hurt, because judging by what happened when the comb got caught in her hair, im pretty sure she will spook with a rope attached to her chin. Are there any exercises we can perform to build up to before i clip the lead to her halter?
ANSWER: Hi Meagan, Have you tried any of the techniques we talked about in earlier posts yet? Keep me posted of your progress. If you are nervous about the lead, use a very short piece of rope, only a foot long at first and gradually increase it's length with time. Remember you need to desensitize your horse to everything! Begin by rubbing anything new (such as the lead) all over her body until she is relaxed. In the case of the lead, work on the sound of the snap with her, while quiet in her stall. Let her feel the rope draped over her body in different places. Let her step on it in the stall, hold it tight, praise her when she steps off it to release herself (do it first without being clipped on and work up to it being clipped on). Read my first post to you and apply the imprinting/desensitizing technique to anything new or frightening to her. Be sure to repeat every exercise on both sides of her body equally. A horse is not properly desensitized until the motion has been repeated around 200 times. Start with 10 and work up each day. Get a 12 foot lead, once she is used to having it on the halter in the stall, move around her while holding it. Work around her until you can walk behind her and pass the rope behind her tail, and pull it from the opposite side. She should give to the pressure and quietly unwind herself, bringing her head back to you. You might enjoy joining John Lyons or Mark Rashids online groups, of finding other online or local natural horsemanship groups. Good books to read are Imprinting by Roberts, Mark's books, John's books... Read up on desensitizing horses and you will work though all of these issues with patience. You will have to commit yourself to working with her everyday, I suggest at least twice daily at least. Repetition is going to be key in helping her. Just be calm and relaxed around her and you will be fine. Hope this helps. Thanks for writing. Susan

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QUESTION: Thank you so much for your help! i will keep you posted within the following sessions with my nearly - yearling. John lyons methods sounds like pretty natural training methods. I was wondering - what is your outlook on parelli natural horsmanship? do you recomend it?

Answer
Hi, I am a bigger fan of Lyons, but you should look into any natural horsemanship trainer and take the good, overlook the bad, and make your own way. Parelli does break things into an A-B-C way of doing things and it may be what you need. It never hurts to read, get out and do, join local groups...  Thanks for keeping me posted. Warm Regards, Susan