The Art of Natural Dressage

Hi all:

I've been thinking about this for a while (but not had the wherewithall to actually DO anything about it), but Inge's post about the shock collar response to stall "vices" (viewtopic.php?f=12&t=2774) got me kicked into gear to ask.

My beloved blond girl Circe is a play girl. She spends too much time in a paddock that is big enough to move around in and play a bit, but is innately boring. (Living in Southern California, big play pastures really aren't an option.)

I've been wanting to stock up on fun toys for her in her house (currently she's viewing anything that she can pick up as a potential toy, including feed buckets, her salt block, the holder for the salt block, the chains on her gate, her neighbor's mats, etc., etc., etc...).

I'm currently in a (fairly unprecedented ) era of frugality with my horses, so I'm looking for alternatives to the very fun looking but ridiculously expensive official "horse toys" one can purchase...(rhetorical question: why is it that if you put the word "horse" in front of it, you can charge two to three times more for something? I've found this to be true of everything from feed bins to property... ).

Anyway, I'm looking for brilliant, cheapo, tough homemade horse toy ideas from this creative crew! Things I can leave or hang in her paddock that she can play with as she wants. (I have a jolly ball hung up already, which she is only mildly interested in...)

Thoughts???

Thanks!


Leigh

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"Ours is the portal of hope. Come as you are." -- Rumi
www.imaginalinstitute.com

A favourite of my dog (I don't know if this would work for a horse) is a 2 liter plastic coke bottle. You can leave off the lid and put some small treats inside and let them figure out how to roll and push to get the treats to fall out. He also lkes a bottle filled half way with water as it weights it nicely and he will drag that around and "attack it".
You could also try lengths of rubber/plastic hose/irrigation pipe. I use these to cover wire under the post and rail and Zena thinks it's big fun to pull them off. Be careful what you teach though as yesturday Zena opened the latch to the hay shed and helped herself to an entire bale......it is now baracaded with a pole but I am sure it won't be long before she figures that out too......!!!!
I think it was Heather? that made a rummage box (an old wooden drawer) with largish round pebbles in it. She then pops in pieces of apple/treats in amoungst it and the horse spends quite a while working his mouth around the pebbles to find the treats.
Another favourite of my friends horse is a dog toy which is the tennis ball attached to a rope with a knot. He would play with this for hours tossing his head and running around.
Morgan has very little attraction to toys, unless it's my foot or trouser leg!!!!!!
Oh and some horses enjoy picking up a bouy (as in boat). You can sometimes find these quite cheaply.
Let us know what you try.....

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Annette O'Sullivan

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. - John Lennon

Indeed it was me who has the rummage box. An old cupboard filled with rocks and stones. they love searching around in it for treats.

We used to have a gelding that boarded with us that loved playing with an old tire. He would toss it around for hours, was especialy exciting if there was another horse interested in playing as well but my mares couldn't care less about it - they just don't seem to be the playing kind.

Another one with the gelding was a large black rubbish bag (although I don't suppose the colour matters ) filled with air and then tied off at the end. It used to amuse him for hours until he managed to toss it across the fence out of reach. All footballs or basketballs with some of the air let out so they can pick them up and throw them with their mouths are also a good one.

I have been thinking recently about how one could make a "nose it" type toy http://www.nose-it.com/ for free / cheap. I do like Annettes idea of leaving a lid off a coke bottle and seeing if they can figure out how to get the treats out...maybe one could drill a couple of extra holes in it... umm...

you are right Leigh, everything were horse stand for is expensive....but there were the words dog or 4x4 wd or sailing is the same *LOL*
so i think it have to to with the word "hobby" and money.

you can use also willow branches if you have it in your neighberhood. We have in Holland many of those trees.
you can put it in the fields or stable. give many ours playtime.

and why not an old shoe? dogs use them to for playing

try a water trough and a scrubbing brush - it works for Freckles also he shreds pool noodles and pulls open the tarp covering the sawdust bales.

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Glen Grobler

Words that soak into your ears are whispered...not yelled. Anon

How about a 1 gallon milk jug (or maybe one that orange juice comes in..the bigger the better, and food grade). It can hang all on it's own from a rope...or you can put nice round holes in it and put treats inside that she likely will never extract (so perhaps it would be good to put hay in it...something that can actually be wiggled out).

One of my Airedale's favorite toys is a small ball that you put treats in and when he rolls it around the treats fall out. Why not make a horse sized one from a plastic five gallon pail with a tight fitting lid (you can sometimes get these from restaurants or those juice bars where you can buy juices). Again...put a hole in it that big enough to dispense a treat, and fill it with something they can eat whenever they want (like hay cubes?) Or make a super size one from a 45 gallon drum. Maybe two holes in that one?

The only things I can think of that are quite horse safe are things like heavy plastic jugs, pails and drums that would be suitable to leave on the ground. But you can hang a milk jug anywhere.

Kids plastic baseball bats (the hollow ones) are great for stomping, carrying around, shaking, flailing and scaring your paddock mates with too.

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"Ride reverently, as if each step is the axis on which the earth revolves"

Ok...this got me googling. There are some CUTE ideas.

1) Apples in the water trough! ( I think you could try apples in the barrel or pail too)

2) Old feed bag with soda cans in it. Tam and Cisco both like crushing these. Also good to toss around.

Here's a whole host of great ideas from the Honolulu Zoo - I REALLY like the "carrotsicle" idea here:

http://www.honoluluzoo.org/enrichment_activities.htm

Not sure how long before it melts though...what a cool treat though!

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"Ride reverently, as if each step is the axis on which the earth revolves"

Oooooooooh thank you, you guys!!!!

I just KNEW you'd come up with some great ideas!

Splendid -- and simple -- apples in the water trough -- brilliant! She'll love this!

Am heading off to look at links now...

...but in the meantime, thank you, and keep those grand ideas coming!


Cake for everyone!


Leigh

PS: I think I want to come back as an animal in the Honolulu Zoo -- what a great place.

PPS: Mirrors! Oh, man, if I could find something mirrored and unbreakable -- Circe adores looking at herself in a plexi window of one of the tack rooms...

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"Ours is the portal of hope. Come as you are." -- Rumi
www.imaginalinstitute.com

Lots of baby toys have unbreakable mirrors in them these days and you should be able to pick them up very cheaply in second hand shops.

I love the idea of apples in a barrel. Excellent.

okay, so inspired by this thread i decided to add some axtra fun and interest around the track here for Sanni and Jelli. i took the himalyan salt rock thingy and hung it from a tree, put some apples in a barrel of water, strung up some vegetables from another tree in a sort of vegetable kebab on string way and also put a few carrot and dried pieces inside an old tyre rim (in the hope that they will have to pick the tyre up and move it around to get some of the treats to fall out)

So far they have shown zero interest in much of anything but it is a very hot and humid day and they haven't been moving around the track very much at all. Sanni had a look at the apples in the barrel and when she couldn't get them in 10 seconds she gave up.

We'll see over the next few days if anything is interesting or not. If not, nothing but a bag of carrots and a few of apples has been lost really.

There may be something in here:

Environmental Enrichment for Captive Animals (UFAW Animal Welfare) by Robert J. Young (Paperback - 22 Oct 2003).

Rita

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"There is always an alternative to every cruel act".

Well, all apples were gone from the barrel this morning and all treats from the tyre so it looks as though they had fun last night. Would love to "catch them" playing with them to see if there was any challenge and how long it interested them but they get a bit self consious if they think someone is watching

will try again tomorrow maybe...when i've bought some more apples.

I think that if it becomes commonplace to put games and puzzles in a paddock, then the horses will look forward to it more and more. It takes them a while to realize that things are there.

I know people that hide treats around the house for their dog when they have to leave the dog alone. This keeps the dog happy and occupied using his nose (rather than his teeth) while they are away.

I think it's marvelous that the goodies were gone!

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"Ride reverently, as if each step is the axis on which the earth revolves"

Oh Leigh! Looky here!!!!

Icelandic horse playing with home made treat dispenser

And here is another one, combining despooking with treats:

Windy Day Despook Session

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"Ride reverently, as if each step is the axis on which the earth revolves"

Leigh, you can buy mirrors on self adhesive backing, no glass, no danger of breakage, these are often bought by horse owners to keep a horse "company" in the stable or whilst travelling in a trailer.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/MIRROR-ON-A-ROLL- ... 286.c0.m14

My boys pick up branches but have each other to play with, they play football only by accident when the ball rolls down the banks to them.
They do toys more when it might gain some attention, so if my poor husband is trying to work on changing the oil in his car or getting the tractor ready to cut hay, then they are joining in, picking up tools and generally getting in the way. Still, they are boys, I don't suppose playing with dolls would be of anymore interest to them than they are to me.
Susie xx

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Susie xx
http://www.flickr.com/photos/piepony/

I don't know...I think a nice, large teddy bear might be VERY entertaining!!

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"Ride reverently, as if each step is the axis on which the earth revolves"

I made carrot popsicles and apple popsicles - it was great! They thought it was weird but they enjoyed them.

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Glen Grobler



Words that soak into your ears are whispered...not yelled. Anon

well, after a few weeks the tire and apple bobbing are a huge success the tire is usualy thrown out of the paddock each morning empty so i guess they have been tossing it around during the night. i did a bit of despooking with the apple bobbing and put a big tarp on the ground, held down with big rocks along the edges and put the water barrel in the middle. within 10 seonds both of them were standing on the tarp - the same one they wouldn't even walk close by a few days before! i also put a few plastic bags on fence poles around their favourite spots they like to hang out, and what do you know, suddenly plastic bags rustling and flapping in the wind aren't so scary anymore.

Next i want to put something that they have to walk through (like a sort of string curtain) to get them over the "strange things touching their face" fear...

Heather

This is all totally cool!

I'm finishing a gallon of orange juice so I can bring it over and put treats in it for Circe. Watching that fab video of the Icelandic, I'm needing to think about the surface in her paddock -- I'm realizing that my instinctive reluctance about this has been about letting food drop directly on the ground here -- it's so sandy and we have ongoing issues with sand colic...

She's also been playing with a mineral supplement bucket I just left in her stall....

And she's been bobbing for apples. (I talked to our ranch manager and mentioned that I was doing this and she laughed uproariously and said she'd seen Circe going after one in her water -- didn't know if she'd dropped it in there or I'd put it in there to torture her... I said no, no, to AMUSE her!!! There's a difference!! )


Thanks so much for the pointers to the reflective "mirror" material Susie -- I've seen this used in theaters but didn't know it would hold up outside. When I get a moment I'm going to figure out how I can create one for her (need to build and affix a backing for it somewhere in her paddock...I can see her now with her own stand-up mirror in the corner...next, a bureau...)

I think a big teddy bear might be totally entertaining, Karen! My dogs have three "Frankenbears" that they carry around -- dubbed such because while Orion (the boy) gently and lovingly carries them and licks them, Willow (the girl) is our resident canine chipper shreader, so I'm constantly stuffing stuffing back in them and sewing up war wounds... Circe might adore her own stuffed animal...

We play with tarps in the arena, but after a while she just shreds them -- first you sniff, then you stomp, then you lift, then you flick, then you twirl, then you wear like a toga, and then you begin to systematically rip it to bits because it makes SUCH a cool noise! ) so I've not wanted to put one in her paddock. (I'm not totally convinced she wouldn't eat the fragments.)

But I love the idea, Heather, of the hanging walk through things...I see the student apartments of my youth with the 60's echoes and their hanging beads...


Leigh

_________________
"Ours is the portal of hope. Come as you are." -- Rumi
www.imaginalinstitute.com

That reminds me....a seriously sturdy branch can be wedged in the corner of a paddock that they can walk under and scratch on. The trees and bushes are the first place our horses head for to get a belly or bum rub. If you can find one that has branches at belly height they love to rock back and forth with their bellies over the twigs.....mini massage!!!!
Just make sure it is something they can eat..........

For Heather: an old bicycle to exlplore (while you are there) and progressing to noisy kids cycling past the fence line..............and finally at liberty in circles around them!!!!!

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Annette O'Sullivan

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. - John Lennon

I get supplement bottles and stab a hole in the bottom. Them I use hay string and hand them up. High Spirits (the horse I ride) loves it. It is free and he loves it so much!