We have been working on obstacle course ideas for a while now. We’ve made a carwash, and a gate, and even a push bar. What Goose really needs to work on before we head to our scheduled obstacle course competition this spring is WATER. Goose does NOT like the water. The last time she ecountered the water box at the obstacle course she jumped it. I’ve been working on introducing her to water in different ways. We went to the lake last week and I got her to put her feet in the water under saddle for the first time. I’ve gotten her to walk through puddles here at home on the driveway, but a water box is a totally different thing.
We plan to build an actual waterbox this summer, but to get us started we picked up a dog splash pad. You can increase and decrease the level of difficulty just by turning the water up or down a bit. Goose was a little leary at first but she did manage to walk through it and then stop and put her feet in and paw a little bit. All good first steps.
The splash pad is holding up well so far. We’ve worked all 5 of our horses through it. We’ve had barefoot horses go through it as well as horses with shoes and it’s still going strong.
You can see in this picture with Goose we had the water pressure very low so it was a pool with not very much water sprinkler effect.
When you want to challenge your horse a little more you can turn up the water pressure and it can go as high as you want it to go.
My daughter’s amazing mare Nora didn’t think twice about walking through this pool of water so we upped the pressure for her. She took that in stride as well.
I look forward to the day that Goose is as willing and brave and Nora. 🙂
We plan to create an obstacle area in this part of our property, so eventually a wooden permanent water box will go in here, but to get started right now, this is a great, inexpensive way to work on getting your horse to cross water.
