It’s Just Fly Spray – It Won’t Kill You!

Tips for turning that scary spray of fire into the pleasant spray of relief.

An owner writes “How do you get a 1500 lb Belgian used to fly spray?? It's not easy to hold on when she wants to bolt. She will let me eventually rub the bottle on her neck & front legs, but as
soon as I spray she's like a fire cracker!”

It certainly can be frustrating (and unsettling) when you are trying to give your horse some relief from the flies, but your horse is convinced the spray you hold is some sort of poison or fire.
If only you could just speak to the horse and tell him not to worry, he would
thank you afterward! Fortunately we have natural horsemanship to give us some
answers.

Before you get started, you want to make sure you have some key tools in place. You want to use a rope halter with the horse, as well as a 12 ft lead line that has a decent weight (nothing flimsy
and no chains). You are going to need a spray bottle filled with water (you
wouldn’t want to waste the good stuff while we are practicing), as well as some
horsey treats (they aren’t required but, they can help at times).

When working with your horse, you need to remember some key points about horse psychology – horses are prey animals so, they gain confidence when they can follow something scary (instead of the scary
thing following them). As well, a horse gains confidence when a scary thing is
introduced and goes away – if it was a positive experience initially, then each
time the scary thing is reintroduced, it will become less scary. This is the
principle of Encounter, Wait, Revisit from ‘Natural
Horsemanship: Answering the What, Why, and How for ALL Disciplines’.

Also remember that the reward is in the release – that means when the horse does the right thing, it needs to be allowed to be comfortable (rewarded by a release in pressure), and the wrong thing
should be uncomfortable (pressure is still on). “Uncomfortable” does not mean physically
uncomfortable – it means mentally uncomfortable (aka – the scary thing is still
near me).

Let’s Get Started!

1. Make sure your horse isn’t scared of any of your tools.

· You should be able to rub your horse all over with the fly spray bottle and lead rope (Note you are not
spraying anything yet!!!)

· If your horse is resistant at all, you need to keep rubbing the same spot where you first noticed resistance,
and as soon as your horse is quietly standing still (which is what you want),
you should quickly stop rubbing and take the object away from the horses body
(this is rewarding the horse by releasing all pressure – the rubbing stopped).

· If your horse is food motivated and/or it was a big ordeal for your horse to accept the rubbing of the
bottle/rope on its body, you can give the horse a treat as well as stopping the
rubbing. I usually use roughage cubes – the horses find them tasty but they
aren’t high in sugar or protein as other treats.

· Remember we really want the right thing (quietly standing still) to be really comfortable and rewarding for
the horses, and the wrong thing to be uncomfortable (you keep rubbing). If you
accidently stop rubbing while the horse is still walking away, you end up
rewarding your horse for walking off… so it is important that you get your
timing right for the reward.

· Each step builds on the previous one so, you must ensure the horse is completely accepting of the rope and
bottle before moving to step 2. Some
horses will become accepting on the rope and bottle quickly. Others might need a few sessions to graduate
from Step 1.

2. Start walking and spraying.

· Next, it is time to get the horse comfortable with the spray. The spray can be scary because it has
mysterious liquid shooting from a bottle that splashes and squeaks – the boogey
man could definitely be involved (well at least your horse thinks so!).

· This is where we use some more understanding of horse psychology to our advantage. As stated previously, horses are prey
animals and their instinct is to run away from things “chasing” them. If you attempt to spray a wary horse, they
will attempt to escape the situation because essentially, they feel they are
being “chased” by the bottle.

· So, Step 2 is to have the horse “chase” the bottle, instead of the other way around.

· Start leading your horse normally with the lead rope in one hand and the spray bottle in the other hand.
Start spraying randomly as your walk – not at the horse – but in front of you
and to the sides – so the horse sees the spray and hears the sounds from the
bottle (this is why you use water in the spray bottle - as it would be wasting
fly spray and, both you and the horse will be walking into the spray).

· The horse can follow behind you near the end of the lead (if they are really wary of the spray, they might want
to keep their distance, as much as they can).
As long as they are walking
forward, trailing 6-8 feet behind you is absolutely acceptable.

· Keep spraying until your horse starts to follow nicely (they might even get curious and come closer to you for
a better look) – then stop spraying for a little bit to allow a reward. Then
start spraying again. Once your horse can follow the spray calmly and no longer
finds the noise/spray scary, it is time to move on to the next step.

· It is important not to move on to the next step until the horse is truly accepting of “chasing” the spray
bottle. Like the previous step, it might
take a few sessions for the horse to be accepting of this step. Patience is the key to success.

3. Brush and spray the horse.

· Now it is time to start grooming the horse mixed with little ‘mini sprays’ (only squeezing the spray
about half way, so it isn’t a large spray). Start by brushing with the horse’s
favourite brush – some horses love a rubber curry comb, others prefer the body
brush. Start grooming while holding the spray bottle in one hand and the brush
in the other hand. (If you find your horse is still wary of you holding the
bottle close to its body, you need to go back to step 1).

· As you are brushing, do little mini sprays where you are brushing. Keep the bottle fairly close to the horse (so
there isn’t a huge spray). The idea is to brush, brush, brush, then quick mini
spray, brush, brush, and brush. That way the horse doesn’t really have time to
think it was scary because you moved on to brushing again so quickly. You can
give the horse a treat if you like, too.

· Continue brushing and again do a little mini spray. If your horse is okay with the mini sprays, then you can
start to do the mini sprays more often – so brush, brush, mini spray, brush,
brush, mini spray, brush, mini spray, etc so that soon, you are just doing mini
spray, mini spray, mini spray, etc.

· In this way, you slowly desensitize the horse to the spray, and you make it an enjoyable experience
because it is mixed with being brushed by his favourite brush.

Some Guiding Principles

• Often, when attempting to teach a horse to stand for spray bottles, problems arise when you do either too much at one time, and/or too big of a spray.
• The problem becomes even bigger when you try to rush and spray the horse with big ‘full sprays’ to get it over with (because you know the horse does not like it). The horse senses your anxiety, starts to get nervous
  and begins to walk or prance away. Then,
  you stop spraying because you figure they got enough of the horse sprayed…
  but this just teaches the horse that if it prances/walks away, then the
  spraying will stop – which is the exact opposite outcome you want.
• You want to reinforce that when the horse is standing still and quiet, the spraying will stop to allow some time for a reward (10-30 seconds or so), and then you will proceed to spray again.
• As the horse gains confidence, you can cut the “reward time” to only 5-10 seconds, and then before you know it, you will be able to spray the horse without having to stop for a reward at all.
• Teaching horses to accept the spray bottle outside when standing on some grass is a good choice. This way, if the horse is still and quiet, there is the added
  comfort for the horse of being able to graze during “reward time”. It is not mandatory but, can help to
  make the horse understand that doing “the right thing” (standing quietly
  for the fly spray) is a good option because they can graze after calmly
  standing. If they do not stand
  quietly, they cannot graze. Most
  horses pick up on the graze/no graze reward quite quickly.
• Just remember the reward is in the release! This is extremely important. We have to make the right thing feel comfortable: if the horse offers to stand still for the spray bottle – then you need to stop spraying and reward him for standing still (not continue spraying
  until you provoke the horse to walk away). As humans, we often want to continue to
  do something if we have some success but this can confuse the situation
  for our equine friends.

With some patience and consistency your horse will learn that spray bottles are actually a wonderful thing and nothing to be scared of!

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