Join Kitty Lauman as she trains a mustang in conjunction with the High Desert Museum. Please note that this course was filmed in 2014 and the video quality reflects this.
Course Instructor
Wild One Buckshot

Today we show the wild guy arriving and then we go into his first day with the bamboo pole. He is a nice guy, just scared and not sure what to do with himself.

The wild one was quieter today. He allowed us to put the pole all over his body, down all his legs, under his belly and under his neck from both sides.

Today we spent quite a bit of time with the wild guy. He was much quieter doing the pole work, letting us put the pole all over him on both sides with very little movement.

The wild one was totally fine with the pole today and only panicked once with the rope. We did rig up a rope halter on him (which many people ask us how we do it!!) and worked on him not leaving when he wanted to.

Well our Wild One has a name!!! Buckshot!! His owner got to come see him this weekend and come up with his name! Well Buckshot did great today, even after a few days off. We started as we always do with the bamboo pole and he was fine with it then we used it to move him around

Buckshot did great today! He let us put a rope on him quickly, still with the pole but he was in our face and loved to be petted today! Huge progress! We put a halter and drag rope on him for a few days.

Today we continued our work with the halter and flag. Buckshot is definitely not afraid of the flag, which is both good and bad!

Today we continued our work with the halter and flag. Buckshot is definitely not afraid of the flag, which is both good and bad!

Notes missing from this lesson… I think Buckshot ate them?

We were going to head to the round corral today but Buckshot decided he needed work on his leading to the round corral and not running away or spinning around. I think it was a great day for Buckshot!

Apparently Buckshot was hungry this day as well, notes are missing again

We flagged Buckshot again today and he was much better! We also tied him for the first time!

We worked Buckshot from Tonto again and got him to start ponying with us. Then we showed tying up and brushing safely while tied.

We continued to work Buckshot off Tonto. He is getting better each day.

No notes today

We ponied off Tonto today, working on getting Buckshot to come with us fluidly. Which will help tremendously as we go into lunging. Did some more ground work too.

Today we really got Buckshot to move with us and yet to stay back were he belongs. He pushed us just enough at one point that Tonto and I went down. We finished up with tying and brushing with a currycomb.

We lunged Buckshot for the first time today. He did very well and we also did our official rope treatment to him and got him to give his feet to the pressure.

Today we worked Buckshot on the lunge line again. He did really well, we picked up his feet with the rope and introduced him to a blanket. He is sure on his way to being a nice horse!

We lunged Buckshot again and sacked him out some more with the blanket and put it on him. He gave us a little problem with picking up his back foot but he finished great! Quite comical with his blanket too!

We worked with Buckshot and his blanket for a bit then ponied him around off Tonto then headed out to the hills! He was excited to say the least but he did great!

We worked on our lunging and picking up feet. Buckshot had a couple of days off so he was feeling pretty frisky! We also worked on our leading and positioning as well as rope treatment and picking up his feet.

Today we lunged Buckshot again and worked on our leading and positioning some more as well as using the humble hobble to get him to keep his feet up. He did great! Nice guy!

Buckshot came out a quieter boy today! 3 days in a row of hard work tend to get a horse to focus! He did great lunging and we tied up his front feet again and he did fantastic! We also worked on him turning with the rope behind his hip.

We took Buckshot out into the outdoor arena today and worked on lunging and some obstacles. He did great! Then we turned him loose to let him enjoy the freedom and we will see how he is to catch back up!

We worked Buckshot again in the outdoor arena. He wanted to play today instead of work so he got mad at us and acted like a little kid not getting his way! We worked him through it and he finely got over his fit!