A big challenge!

[DaffyDilly]

Here's one for you all.

Daffy is scared of his water trough. It's dark blue, its in the corner and it's automatic. I believe the problem is that it hisses when it refills. One on the old yard wasn't a problem, but it didn't make the noise. It's bad enough that he reaches over the wall to drink from next doors trough instead, which doesn't make as much noise, but I think he likes having the wall there too so he can hide. I am concerned that as it gets warmer, if he is kept in he may get dehydrated, or if next door suddenly decides not to allow it, Daffy is going to go thirsty. We can't shut him off from the other trough and force him to drink or "die" so he realises it won't hurt him, and to be honest I would really prefer not to do it that way.

So - how to get wussy pony confident enough to drink from his own trough?

[Claire]

go back to buckets? .... and ask if it can be fixed!  shouldn't hiss, maybe there's some air somewhere there shouldn't be in the fixtures.

[kassidy]

Have you tried giving it a good scrub to make sure its not a lingering smell/taste putting him off.

Do you know he is definately not drinking from it, it is often hard to tell with automatic waterers?

If not you need to maybe encourage him to eat treats from around the water fixture and then mybe hold them in the water so he has to touch the water to take the treat. Repeat until he is happy to 'apple bob' for treats - at this point he should be happy to drink from the water. You can use clicker as he takes the treats if you like. Counter conditioning him to like his waterer like this should work though.

Good luck with the monkey 

[ash]

Was going to suggest apple bobbing!  You will have to do it first though, just to show him how its done! 

[Nix77]

be careful with apple bobbing tho - my not very bright tb ended up spending the whole time i was there in the evening trying to get the apple - in the morning, the apple was still there, but the water was everywhere and the horse was really grumpy.