Training to the pack

[Nanno]

I want to clarify that Sputnik's fear of the saddle (and other things) was a secondary fear. His real fear was of being leaderless. Sputnik is near the bottom of the pecking order in my herd and he looks to goats like Cuzco, Finn, and his mother Petunia as his leaders. He did not see me as a leader and therefore it didn't matter what I introduced to him--he was scared of it by default because I was not his leader. No amount of positive reinforcement addressed his fear of the equipment because it wasn't actually the equipment he feared, and my rewards were not enough to convince him that I was in charge. I realized that my cautious "lets not scare Sputnik" movements were completely opposite to the actions of a leader and therefore I was actually reinforcing his fear rather than helping him overcome it. When I took him in hand, tied his head up, made him tolerate being handled, made him stand still to be saddled, etc. he suddenly became confident that I was a leader. Alpha goats push their subordinates around and tell them what to do and where to go. I made the mistake of thinking that if I pushed on Sputnik he would fear me even more and be harder than ever to approach and work with. The opposite turned out to be true. Once I started pushing Sputnik around a little and showing him who was boss, he suddenly realized not only that I should be obeyed, but more importantly that I could be trusted. I've known this about horses for a long time, but somehow it didn't translate to goats until this spring when I hit a wall with Sputnik's training and was forced to change tactics. The goat I have now is almost unrecognizable compared to the goat I had six months ago. He actually likes me now and not just because I have cookies. He likes me because I'm his leader.