Let me say first, these horses are off the plains of North Dakota. They come from the Nokota Horse Conservency that is dedicated to preserving the Nokota Horse. Please check out their website to find out more about the horses and how they came to be and also you will see the work that Jack Lieser and Aaron England are putting into help this breed.
The horses came in from North Dakota a few days earlier. They had just had a snow storm in North Dakota and we were having some dry, windy weather here in Texas. Frank and Leo Kuntz put the horses in a stock trailer and made their way to Texas. They said that when one went into the trailer the rest followed. The horses were basically untouched when they arrived. Their ages were from 2yr olds to 4 years.
On the first morning we all went out to the pasture where the horses were staying. They pretty much stayed huddled in a group. We stood a ways away from them and just observed. After a while we started to move them into the next pasture and then into the arena that was divided into an open area and an area with 3 round pens in it. We took turns walking into the heard and just trying to be with the horses. Lets face it, we are not horses and they are painfully aware of it. We managed to reach out and touch them and then get some haltered. We took turns in the round pens and other open areas playing and just basically being with our horses. What stuck with me so much was the trust thing. I have worked with a few horses of my own but these horses seemed to magnify everything that you presented to them. You could really see the impact of your actions on the horse.
We had a great four days. On the third day, I stepped up on the horse I was working with. Jack actually got on him first then it was my turn. It was pure Heaven! My Nokota just stood there. We did not take any steps that day. On the fourth day I got on him and walked about 20 steps. Jack got on him and trotted a bit, still no buck. I was very impressed and decided that I wanted to take my horse home with me. There is something there that is a bit different than our domestic horses. You can see pictures of our clinic at the Nokota web site (Nokotahorse.org). The horse that Jack is standing on in a couple of the pictures is my Nokota. His name is My Blue Heaven aka Dakotah.
Getting Dakotah in the trailer was one of the biggest lessons I have had with this horse. I won't go into the details but Jack got him loaded and we drove back to my place. We did take a few days and practiced getting him into the trailer before hand. He would go in but it was always with much hesitation. Once he was at home I put my trailer in the pasture with Dakota and fed him out of it. He was still not getting in when I asked him but he would always get in with his dinner waiting inside. I took the trailer out of the pasture and would walk Dakotah up to it. I started to tap him and ask him to go forward, he always would run backwards. I decided that giving him a go forward que with a tap on the hip was not working at all. I started to simply walk up to the back of the trailer and just stand there. I told him that I was not going to try to get him to go in any more. If he wanted to go in he could but we were going to stand here until he wanted to be in the trailer. All my focus was in the trailer. It didn't take very long before he started to load-up on his own. I was in shock how much easier this was. I have no idea why I did it this way but it worked and now we walk to the back of the trailer and load-up about 6 times a week. He loads into a trailer really good now.
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