Horse not trusting of people

Question
Hello there! I came upon your website after doing a search for answers and I thought I would send you an email asking if you have any advise. I just bought a new horse yesterday, about 2 weeks ago I went to look at her and spent about 2 hours with her grooming, petting, rode for a little bit and just hangin' out with her. She is an 8 yr old Tenn Walker with a quiet disposition.  Anyway she arrived yesterday around noontime and I didn't want to put her in with our other 4 horses so I put her in an adjoining 70' round pen.  I was told that she had been out to pasture with the other horses for 3-4 months without much people interaction and she may be hard to catch. That was putting it mildly I will say. I went out to the fence line and talked with her several times during the day and she wanted nothing to do with me, she would go to the other side and graze.  A couple hours later I went into the round pen and minded my own business with my back to her (I was picking grass and humming completely minding my own business) she didn't come up to me but she didn't go to the other side either and when I left the round pen I cut across the center (I did not look in her direction) and walked out the gate.  I did get her to come to me from outside the fence for grain but she was VERY hesitant of doing it she got about 2-3 feet from me and stretched her neck to the dish to get the grain I slowly moved the dish closer to me and she followed and finally stopped stretching towards it.  I went into the round pen again and ran her in 1 circle and she had her head lowered and was licking her lips I bent over and she stopped when I did so she looked in towards me but when I took 2 steps to her she moved off again and I ran her another circle and stopped her this time she let me get within 2 feet of her before she moved off.  I stood there not asking anything of her for a few minutes and then I left. Within the hour I feed her and placed my arm over the fence near her feed bucket and she came to it and slowly put her head into the bucket (mind you my fingers where touching her poll as she did this, I thought if she wanted the food she was going to have to let me touch her) I slowly rubbed her poll and her neck and as she was still eating I walked away for the night.  Again this morning I feed her and did the same thing and she was shy about it at first and then allowed me to touch her poll and neck and again I walked away after she didn't jerk her head away from me and she let me rub her poll. I am telling you all of this to give you an idea that she is not an aggressive horse it seems she is very timid and untrusting of people. I don't want to push the issue and I will give her all the time she needs to build trust in me, but do you have any ideas or thoughts on my situation (i.e what should I do/not do, in other cases how long should this take, should I round pen her more/less or stop doing it for now). My main concern is we live in FL and she is in a round pen that does not have shade. She has plenty of water and I don't want to give her a mist shower in fear (well mainly because she won't stand there for it). Please help me, I really like this new horse and I do not want to do anything that will harm the progress with her and I want to strengthen the trust/bond with her.
Thank you and God bless
Misty

Answer
Hi Misty,

Thanks for the detailed information and congrats on your new horse. My first question/suggestion is how was she to catch at the previous facility, both in her stall/pasture and when you worked her in an arena or round pen? My next suggestion, is to contact the previous owner and find out, how long she took to adjust there, did they have trouble with her not trusting them, has she ever been abused? On the off chance it's physical, did you happen to have a vet check done before you purchased her and if so, I assume her eyesight is fine.As that might be something to have checked out. All that aside, I'd actually give her a few more days, even up to a week or two to just settle in, I think what you are doing is great, as far as just letting her get to know you and if you do feed her grain or any type, absolutely make her come to you to eat it out of the bucket. She may just take longer than some to adjust to new places. Once you see her relaxing a bit, I'd go back to some desensitizing with her, using whatever "tool" you want, be it a baggie tied to a stick, a towel tied to a whip, etc. Do remember that they learn on the retreat (removal) of the object, so do all the praise when you are taking the object away. I'd alternate that with the opposite, getting her feet to move, so she uses the thinking side of her brain. Work her loose in the round pen, both directions at all gaites, make doing the right thing easy and the wrong thing hard. For instance if you ask her to slow down, be it to a walk or to stop and she ignores you or speeds up, ask her for even more speed and to change directions, make it so she is seeking to slow down and that doing the right thing, would have been much easier (ie: Less work). Keep the lessons short and sweet with lots of praise. With your kindness for her already obvious and patience, I bet in two weeks you have a completely different horse, one that is even better than the one you bought! Hang in there and if I can be of any additional help, let me know.

Jen