All of our foals are imprinted at birth,
halter broke the next day and handled several times daily during the first year. We teach them many things, they are well-mannered, enjoy being handled, and taught many helpful things for life. In the first week they learn to work off their hind-quarters, bowing and kneeling for bare-back riders to mount. Trailoring and backing out. Going through barns, buildings, by barking dogs, tractors, children, odd surfaces, bathed, 'fly' [water] sprayed, have clippers run all over them, plastic bags crumpled all over them and empty bags and feed sacks are hung in the stalls, jolly balls to play with [ adorable ], you name it and we've tried to expose them to it. By a year they are learning more basic things like lunging, hanging out at fun shows, etc. We have had great success using Robert M Miller's book on Imprint Training. Look for the picture beside foals that we imprint trained via his method. Others were just "Imprint Trained" by our own method, or not if we bought the foal at an older age.
"My treasures
do not clink together or glitter,
they gleam in the sun and neigh in the night."
