03/12/2026
Learning to be Haltered When Stressed
I had one month to move my horses, fencing, loafing shed, and tack shed to a new place, and I got a concussion with brain bleed as I started the process. Amadeo had accepted the halter and been led by me consistently for two years and he jumped into the horse trailer at liberty when I asked so I was not worried about him, but Antares was not halter trained, nor would he set foot in the horse trailer. I simply did not have the mental or physical capacity to teach him myself and I could not risk injuring myself in the process.
I reached out to Ned Leigh and asked him to halter train Antares and load all of my horses into the horse trailer, drive the rig to their new home and unload them safely and without stress or trauma. He told me he would happily do that for me and, to my enormous relief, he did.
Ned’s primary focus was on Antares, but this video is about Amadeo, and how, after two years of coming to me when I called and putting his nose into his halter when I asked, to my astonishment, he flat refused the halter three times in a row. Ned said “You taught him to accept the halter with positive reinforcement.” I said “Yes.” He then told me that while Amadeo accepted the halter for his treat when all was right in his world, we had just taken down the loafing shed and half the fencing around him, the humans were stressed about leaving the ranch, Antares was stressed about learning new things and the temperatures had dropped into the 20’s with a biting wind. I had never taught Amadeo that even when the world is falling apart, indeed ESPECIALLY when the world is falling apart, Amadeo’s source of safety and comfort was always to be found in the human, not in flight away from the human.
Ned took over and worked the two c**ts together. Antares had already had two sessions with Ned and had learned that while Ned made strange noises with ropes and lariats that initially terrified him, Ned never hit or hurt him or tried to trap him. Instead, whenever Antares decided he had to leave, Ned encouraged his movement and maintained the “noise” level, until Antares had time to consider what he and Ned were doing and could decide that “noise” did not hurt him and that safety and comfort was always found by facing him and trusting him to keep him safe. Having Amadeo in the paddock with him changed dynamics, since the two c**ts bolted together, turned and faced together and, since Ned was focusing on Amadeo, Antares got to observe this process without being its focus.
Amadeo is a much more trusting horse than Antares. The trust that Antares took hours to achieve, Amadeo resolved in a mere 8 minutes. Ned approached, Amadeo left, Ned encouraged his movement, Amadeo turned to face and started extending his trust bit by bit, leaving when he needed, coming back and trusting a bit more until he was able to accept the halter with confidence, despite the stress of the world around him.
I had never considered this aspect of training using positive reinforcement. There is no question that positive reinforcement had given Amadeo a positive view of being haltered and led, when all was right in his world. There is also no question that when faced with a stressful environment, I had not given him the opportunity to work through his doubts and conclude that, even when the world was falling apart, turning to the human for safety, being touched and haltered and led, would still serve him best. Ned gave him that opportunity, to leave when he needed, to come back and find safety, as stress went up and down, the one constant he could rely on. Introduce new concepts with positive reinforcement, but stress test those behaviors so that your horse believes in you, even in the midst of chaos or wildfires.
Learning to be Haltered When StressedI had one month to move my horses, fencing, loafing shed, and tack shed to a new place, and I got a concussion with brai...
