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QUESTION: Here is a “Why does my horse do that?”
question. All of my horses, but my young horse especially, do
something that at first appears to be a yawn. In fact that is
what I thought it was, but the more I watched the more I saw
the horses doing it three, four or more times in succession.
Is the horse trying to communicate something with this action
or is it just a yawn?
REPLY: Very
good question and very observant of you! Usually the yawn
means: he's just been holding his breath (literally) tensely
earlier and now he's "letting down." He yawns
there to try to regain air after that prolonged holding
of breath. If a horse you are working with yawns a lot afterwards,
count the yawns. If there are a lot of yawns, he's been
holding his breath quite a long time there tensely. Only
a couple of yawns and he's only been holding his breath
for a few seconds.
You can actually get perceptive
to a horse holding its breath while he's doing it if you stare
along his belly where the rib cage ends. If he's holding his
breath (what they do when they are tense/afraid, etc.), you'll
see a big indention there all along that horizontal line right
below his ribcage. If you want to learn to see it even better,
in an exaggerated form first, when you're washing a horse, squirt
cold water along his back and watch the gut suck in there along
that line -- that's a horse gasping and holding his breath tensely.
Which can also happen if
we push too hard or too fast in training sometimes, or when
working with a wilder horse, at first.
Working to manually relax
your horses using the bonding techniques throughout the training
session will keep them less tense and less breath-holding going
on and him in a better, relaxed spot to learn. Bonding/relaxing
techniques are here: http://www.naturalhorsetraining.com/TrainingTips58.html
It's harder for horses to
learn when they are tense. When I see them tense up/holding
their breath, I come in nurturingly and get a finger in
the mouth, get the head to drop using pressure/release and then
pause/rest, waiting for the sigh if I can. It helps to manually
relax the horse there because they don't know how to do that
themselves when tense. Do that enough and they will learn to
turn to you to help them relax, losing the flight response
when afraid. The horse sigh when I'm pausing there is also:
them bringing air back into them, more relaxed now. Then I proceed
with training.
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
And incidentally...my Whispering Way Complete Training Package contains all my videos and training tools that you need to train or retrain your horse yourself the natural horsemanship Whispering Way. You can check out/order the Whispering Way Complete Training Package on my web site here: CLICK HERE
But the yawn numbers reveal
how long they were tense there holding their breath, so learn
to read that. It is not a bad thing, because it is about them:
letting go of tension, but it is also just something you
can learn to read to better understand where your horse is at,
in the head and emotionally at a given time, so you can help
him even more. But they yawn there afterwards, so it's
kind of a report card on how much pressure you're applying and
if they can handle it or not. But again, it is not necessarily
a judgment of you or your work with them exactly, but more about:
how they are handling the work internally so you can
maybe adjust your approach individually and perhaps put more
pause breaks in there during lessons. Pauses/rest periods are
highly effective and I do that often when training a horse.
Rest is the best reward you can give a horse. Pause/retreat/let
them rest right at a spot when they are getting things right
and turn your back on them and give them a little recess break.
Goes a long way!
Back to Horse Problems Q&A, Click Here: 
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Horse
Problem - Yawning Horse - What does it mean when a horse
yawns (a lot)?