Horse
Problem - Stand Still - Teaching a horse to stand still
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QUESTION: You have helped me in the past with a very aggressive 2-year-old colt I have and thanks to you I now have him under control and much more respectful than he had been. My horse is now 3 and I am starting to work on other issues with him that have been on the back burner due to his aggression problem. I am now struggling to teach him to stand still. He paws and tosses his head in the cross ties. He walks forward and backward and swings his rear from side to side. In the bath stall he is even worse. He has managed to cut his knee pretty badly and it needs to be washed out several times a day, so he needs to learn to STAND STILL right away. I have been working on this for several months and we really have not gotten very far with all the things I have tried, i.e. jerking the lead down when he moves, loud noises, a smack on the rump. Any advice on this would be appreciated.
All of the above (and much, much more) is taught in my Whispering Way 12-Step Total Training System DVD set. Usually it helps to see this natural horsemanship art taught visually, to really understand how it is all done. You can get that DVD set here: CLICK HERE
I wouldn't cross tie him until he yields well to pressure and learns to stand still for foot handling, etc., away from there!
As for the bath stall, I have a feeling the issue there is the water and maybe the hose (not just about not being able to stand still in general). Rub him all over with a piece of hose to desensitize him to that first, separating that out. And read this link on my site about how to desensitize a horse to being washed: http://www.naturalhorsetraining.com/TrainingTips92.html
- Also...let me direct you to a link on my site that links you to a good article from Willis Lamm's web site about teaching your horse to stand still for the farrier (top of this page): http://www.naturalhorsetraining.com/LocalFarriers.html
Try using the same exercise to teach your horse to stand still (period!) when you need him to if backing him with the rope is not working for your purposes.
It's hard for younger horses to stand still sometimes -- and 3 is still a very young horse. Be patient as you school him there, take your watch off, it's probably not going to be remedied overnight, but over time. Even while you're reschooling him, to doctor his injury, you might need to resort for now to using a bucket of water and sponge in between his lessons. The smaller the components you can break everything down to, desensitizing him to one thing at a time, the faster he'll go there.
Hope this helps and good luck to you there!
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