ARTICLE
Imprint Training
The Foal The Mare, And The Human?
Imprint Training
Watching a foal take its first steps is like watching an angel learn how to fly. Have you maybe heard of imprint training? This is a topic with much controversy of whether it is a benefit or a bane. In this article, you will find out what imprinting is, its purpose, the inventor, the benefits, the works and why it works. Let’s start off with a description of this hotly debated technique.
What is imprinting and what is its purpose?
Imprinting is the process of desensitising the foal to various stimuli directly after birth. You would desensitize the foal to common things and or objects around the barn and show grounds such as clippers, blow dryers and spray bottles. The purpose of imprinting a foal is to make it easier and less stressful for both foal and trainer in the early stages of training and create life long learning habits. It is also used to teach the foal to accept humans as a friendly but alfa figure along with it’s mother and establish a positive association with humans and help eliminate the fear element of the training process. But if not done properly can ruin the foal by creating a dangerous horse to work around, cause future learning difficulties or the mare to reject the foal if the mare is unable to be one of the first the foal sees and touches.
Why it Works.
Unlike humans horses are born completely aware of external stimuli and the ability to run within an hour of birth. This is because they are prey animals. Due to this the time directly after birth is the highest point of their entire lives and is the time they will learn the fastest. During this time if they were in the wild the dam (mother) would teach the foal basic body language and the foal would watch her interact with other members of the herd. What they learn in this time will help create the personality of that foal and that is why it is it so crucial to make it a positive process and that it is not stopped by something like jerking their head away to stop something intimidating or scary to them witch would cause unwanted vices such as rearing, biting or kicking.
The Inspiration
The name of the man who started this practise is Robert Miller who based the technique off a study on newborn geese. In this study, they found that the gosling would immediately bond with, fallow, and mimic the first moving object or “social object” the gosling see’s. Geese and horses are both prey animals so their highest learning period is right after birth. But unlike geese, horses can bond with more than one social object which creates the difference is that horse dose not follow the human that was imprinting, they still mimic the dam.
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Benefits
Imprinting can have many benefits if done properly. Some of these are in future learning and others are in desensitization. Benefits include a trusting nature towards humans with a bond already established that they see you as the alpha. What they learn during this time will stay with them for around 18 months after imprinting and as long as you continue to practise what you are teaching the foal it will stay will them for as long as they live and if you stop it will be easier for them to relearn. A new benefit that has been said to come from imprinting is that a mare that was imprinted is less irritated when it comes time to imprint their foal but this has less scientific backing
The Risk
The biggest risk is timing and the amount of exposure to the object you are desensitizing the foal to. Timing is crucial to the process, the shorter the time before handling the better the results. Waiting ten minutes the window of opportunity will closed. If done incorrectly, imprinting can seriously damage the foal’s ability to communicate with humans on a basic level. If things interrupt the process such as the foal jerking their head away during halter (the piece of equipment that you attach to the horse’s face to control the horse while you lead) training the foal will learn that to get away from being haltered all they must do is jerk their head away. This is just an example there are many other scenarios that would have the same effect or worst
Conclusion
Inspired by a study on birds, this technique has evolved into a full-fledged practice used across the continent and has helped thousands of people train their brand-new horse or pony. There are certainly risks and benefits but it all comes down to the horse’s experience. Remember this is a highly controversial technique and is easily one of the most debated topics in the horse world. But, if you do it right, you may just be able to help your little angel learn how fly.
