After our recent dramatic lizard reactions, I took some commenters’ advice and bought some toy lizards. I didn’t figure Nilla would care, but they were at the $1 store, so I was fine with wasting $2 on the experiment. I set one of the lizards up on this jump. I didn’t end up jumping that night and then when I did ride, I was in my dressage saddle, so we made the jump into a little cross-rail, but this is the first lizard jump:
The lizard is sitting right in the center of the x in his picture. So no, Nilla does not care about toy lizards.
I put a second toy on another jump and this was also completely ignored:
The lizard somehow ended up on the barrels the next evening much to Eugene’s delight:
Clearly lizard toys are terrifying.
I actually had my jumping saddle on that evening so we did some more lizard jumping. Eugene knocked the second lizard over, so it was on the ground in front of the jump. Nilla actually stuck her head down to look at it on approach, but then almost stepped on it, so it wasn’t really a concern.
So the lizard toys didn’t work. I’m not really surprised since they’re not moving. I looked on amazon, but couldn’t find any mechanical/motorized lizard toys. I was talking to our seasonal trainer and she said I should just catch some of the local lizards and make a harness out of bailing twin and tie them to a jump then release them afterwards. I may try this although I’m really not sure about the whole bailing twine harness part. Anyone have any ideas?
I am not surprised. Maybe if you put the lizards in a small cage and made that part of the jump? Tying them seems a bit cruel.
What kind of lizards are these? I Like Teresa's cage idea. Harnesses are pretty stressful and hard to attach (from personal experience).
I was thinking about getting some kids bug cages, but I'm not sure if they'll be scary enough in a cage. I agree I don't really want to try to harness lizards
I'm not sure what kind. We have so many here, so probably a mix.
Maybe tie some fishing line to the toy lizards, & have someone on the side move them that way for you? Probably easier than trying to catch & harness live lizards! 😉
omg I can't stop laughing at the idea of a herd of tiny lizards hitched to a jump!!
Recreate the jump it happened at is my first train of thought.
That was my initial thought too! LOL
She did the same refusal at 3 different jumps. All different types. One a log, one a tube, one a hanging log. The only connection was Lizards. No lizard? Jumped it. Lizards? Refusal.
You might be underestimating how many lizards we have around here. We're basically tripping over them. That said, I'm sure I won't be able to find any when I go looking.
Tie some string to it and drag it about! Haha. Great idea though to buy toy lizards.
We have a ton of lizards here too but ours are tiny (Anoles). I have never seen them bother a horse.
She's never cared about them on the trail. But she's done this at two different XC schoolings where she's refused/run-out on jumps because lizards were sunning themselves on them and scattered when she came up to the jump.
Ha OMG. Nilla clearly doesn't care haha. Nor Eugene! Certainly there has to be some sort of battery operated wiggly option out there?
Just send Eugene over all of your xcountry fences first. He'll eat all of the lizards and then Nilla doesn't have to be scared. Maybe you could try dragging a lead rope or wiggling the tip of a lunge whip under her fences?