Lili convinces Zarb that floating is fun.
Hi my name is Lili Foster and this is a story about floating Zarb ,my gray Arab, who was a problem float loader.
I’ve had Zarb for 19 months. When I got him he would walk right on the float with no problem, but then we hired a single float and it went down hill from there. It took us 3 hours just to get him in!
I didn’t float him for about a year because I didn’t have my own float and I broke my arm falling off Zarb .
Then Cynthia came and we desensitized him to tarps, low tree branches and that type of thing.
We made a simulated float out of hay bales and when Zarb was ok going in that we started with some ground games.
Simulated float
A simulated float helped Zarb regain confidence.
We did the Parelli yo-yo game, the circling game and the driving game for me to earn his respect. I put a hay net on the float ramp and let him eat, then I put the middle divider right across and I did the games on and near the float.
Next I did a driving game on to the float a couple of times before I put his feed in the float
We put him in the float and wriggled the tail gate and he wasn’t fazed by that so we rhythmically closed the door three times.
Zarb wasn’t worried by that either, so then we fed him in the float with the door closed twice and once he had finished his feed I backed him out.
After he came off the float I did the circling game and loaded him two more times.
The next night I fed him in the float and he was fine so we took him out for a drive for about five minutes. When we got back I fed him in the I fed Zarb in the float two more times without going anywhere because when we took him for the drive he got a bit sweaty which meant he wasn’t really comfortable yet.
Zarb enjoys his feed on the float so it becomes a comfort zone for him.
Then we took him for a short drive in the float, fed him in the float when we got back and he was fine with that.
So then we fed him in the float two more times without going anywhere just to keep it a comfort zone.
I took him for a drive for 15 minutes to a local horse beach and left him in the float for 5 minutes before unloading him.
I let him walk around, do the 7 games and then I took him back home fed him in the float unloaded him and put him back in the float two more times.
I took Zarb to the beach again for a ride and he was great with the beach but he was such a sook in the water.
