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QUESTION: Hi Sylvia. I was wondering if you could help me. When you are working with a horse on the ground on the lead rope, what do you do if he tries to plow over you there, or if he does the same when you are trying to lead him? I have a horse I'm working with that tries to run you over, and he seems completely oblivious to my body. He also does this often when I'm trying to lead him. Reason I ask is because when this guy is provoked or wants to go somewhere else when I or even someone else is leading him, he won't think anything of running you over. He's a big fella, too, and can overpower me at times there in this regard and knock me right over if I'm not careful there. But I'm not sure the best way to communicate to him that he shouldn't pass me up or run over me like that when I'm leading him or just working with him on the ground. He's certainly too big and strong for me to physically push him off of me when he does this. I don't have the strength to get him off of me there sometimes. What's the best way to teach him to back off of you when you need him to do so, leading properly, and him respecting your space better at all times there and me kept safer?

REPLY:  Thanks for writing. Excellent question! And it's one I like to address in all clinics/lessons I do, pretty early on, too usually, because this is not only so very common a problem/issue out there, I might even go as far as to say: this issue arises with just about every single horse, every single time in the beginning of training. Majority of them. But we shouldn't have to move a horse on the ground manually with our bodies, at any time, like we're trying to push a stalled car or something -- or worse: try to stop a speeding locomotive with our bare hands like Superman. The horse should move for us when politely asked with the tiniest "remote control" request. Even the hugest, burliest brute of a horse. The horse should be able to yield on the ground any direction we direct softly with very little pressure and respect our space at all times. Our muscles take us only so far.

But how do we teach a horse to back up/off properly when asked?

There's an exercise that will help you out a lot there to teach your horse a cue to back up on the ground easily when asked, and in just one lesson is usually all it takes. And it sticks forever.

But before I go into this exercise here, just FYI, when lessoning a horse, I prefer to use a natural horsemanship halter with 12-foot lead rope (lead tied on, not clipped on, especially no metal clips for this particular lesson I prefer!) and that NH halter/lead combo comes in handy for just about every single thing I do with the horse whether it's just in my hand or on the horse. It's designed for maximum communication by the way the knots are tied at strategic pressure points around the horse's face, so...the smallest amount of pressure is quickly and easily felt by the being-schooled horse, and that's what you want and is the most humane way to train, I feel.

You can get one of my natural horsemanship halters with 12-foot lead here: CLICK HERE

Not all halters are the same or communicate the same either. I personally will not work a horse in anything but that particular halter/lead. And it has a nice, long (safe length!) 12-foot lead attached; slack is your friend in natural horsemanship! Slack allows you the opportunity to have room to communicate to the max to the horse when needed, but the 12-foot lead allows you to remain safely distanced when needed from a biting, rearing, charging, or acting up horse without ever really losing control of the horse. And the length allows for some interesting, effective exercises that you can do.

This backing lesson exercise I'm going to show you is one such exercise, and maybe even one of the most important for a horse to learn, in my opinion, because a softly backing horse, at the slightest request, is also a far safer horse who won't mow us over, and therefore, is more respectful.

It's a real easy exercise to teach a horse, too, if done right, and I can teach most horses this in less than five minutes. And it then sticks for good. If your horse gets this into his foundation, this'll help a lot with letting him know (even at liberty) that he just entered your space too rudely, "back up, please!"

Here's how I teach that:

Get in a confined, safe area (like a round pen, small arena, or paddock) for this lesson, and begin the back up lessons. You can't properly teach a horse to lead respectfully, respect your space, in my opinion, until you've taught them to back up first/the back up cue. That seems only fair to them. I'm going to show you how to do that here. But first, for you to understand this lesson, you need to understand how we use "Volume thinking" in this exercise. Let me go over "Volume-Thinking" briefly with you so that you can understand better how to do this lesson the natural horsemanship way using pressure & release and Volume-thinking.

All horses learn from the release of pressure what it is you want, not necessarily the pressure itself. I'm going to show you here two diagrams on "Volume-thinking" as we apply it in NH training for you to understand what we're going to do next with the horse.
 

We use Volume-thinking in everything we do in natural horsemanship. We always start off low on the Volume of pressure at all times when asking for a behavior, climbing incrementally, no pause, and then release instantly when we get the response we want. Again, all horses learn from the release of pressure what it is you want, not the pressure itself, so it's very important to get your release timing split-second accurate/quick, so the horse understands he just gave a "right answer" there, which reaped ourrelease.

The ultimate goal in NH is about: eventually getting the horse to respond to a cue, so low down the Volume of pressure that only the inkling of a suggestion (thought!) reaps the desired response. And this is indeed accomplished via always starting low on the Volume first at all times with our requests. How can the horse know where "low on the Volume" is unless we show them every single time we ask, before escalating pressure? Also, starting low on the Volume every time gives us somewhere to go from there.

Biggest training mistake I see "out there" involves people starting off their ask (for anything) far, far too high up the Volume of pressure to start, and then they have nowhere to go from there when the horse doesn't understand/respond correctly. Always start as low as you can on the Volume and build upward from there incrementally. Always use the natural horsemanship halter with attached 12-foot lead rope for this/all lessons. Maybe think of this particular tool as a powerful "horse hearing aid" so they can "hear" you better there from the get go.

And that's all about: communication. NH is designed to communicate to the horse in their own language so that they can better understand what we want -- instead of expecting a horse (a prey animal; we are predators that speak a whole 'nother language of communication altogether) to speak ours. So...this NH halter/lead combo is highly crucial, I feel, to communicate more easily to the horse, to allow the horse to "hear" our requests easier, more quickly, and speeds along their learning curve tenfold, and they get there far faster. After the horse fully understands, you could then, as Tom Dorrance, the grandfather of the NH movement, puts it, "get it all done with just a piece of string," because the horse now fully understands and complies low down the Volume, but you got there via speaking their language.

So, now that you understand Volume-thinking, to begin the back up lesson, stand towards the middle or end of the 12-foot lead rope, facing the horse, full eye-to-eye contact (eye-to-eye contact is a pressure to a horse). Make sure he is facing you, both eyes on you, paying attention. If he's not paying attention to you with both eyes, you can get both his eyes back on you by bumping the lead rope to the side accordingly and then holding up your index (pointer) fingers on both your hands, like you're pointing up at the sky with both hands. This pulls both horse's eyes onto you instantly. The minute both eyes are on you, drop your hands (release of pressure for right answer). Then begin.

Lowest on the Volume is "thought," correct? So think "back up," but think visually. Horses aren't all that programmed to understand human language that well, whereas they are greatly attuned to body language visually, far more than even we are, hundreds times more. So, use visual thoughts. Envision the shoulders leaning back and then the feet stepping back as you think "back up." Envision your eyes can push the horse back at his chest area. Your body language will reflect that in an imperceptible way to us, but not to the horse. Of course this isn't going to mean anything usually for a horse new on this particular learning curve. But always start low on the Volume every time so the horse will learn to recognize it eventually.

Next, start off by jiggling the rope back and forth with your wrist very softly at first -- very, very low on the Volume, barely a jiggle at first, using only your wrist bending back and forth very slowly there to start. See how low you can go there at first. In fact, I often suggest practicing this entire lesson with another human acting as your "horse" at the end of a rope first, so you can learn to get your release timing down there before approaching the horse. The jiggle is a back & forth, side to side motion. As you start, it probably won't mean anything to the horse at first, but that's okay.

Increase the jiggle now, no pause, if you get no backward response, going "up the Volume," jiggling progressively stronger now with your arm, wider and wider back & forth, and again, this probably won't mean anything to the horse at first (it's a cue, and he doesn't know it yet!).

When you get pretty high up the jiggling Volume and still get no backward movement and/or the horse steps forward instead, next, smoothly (with no pause whatsoever in between), take in the rope slack a couple of feet quickly and switch the jiggle now to a sharp jerk downward on the rope as you simultaneously walk into the horse (you'll usually need to grab about the middle of the 12-foot lead to do this jerk-down effectively, so learn to take in that slack quickly and smoothly for this highest final pressure, with no release pause).

I guarantee you, he will back up at that final highest-up-the-Volume assertion. There's not a horse alive that you usually can't get to back up doing that if you're doing it correctly. When you get that backward movement from the horse, instantly release the pressure, stop the jiggling/final jerking, put slack in the rope, pause, and let him digest for a couple of seconds what he just did there (the "correct answer") that reaped the pressure release.

After the short pause (1-5 seconds tops, even less if the horse freaked out there/got scared), and approach the horse, your eyes down, your body slumped forward at the waist a bit, your arm dangling out, back of hand out, hanging like a loose rag (passive body language), and pet on him for reward. Yes, reward. He backed up finally didn't he?

Relax him with bonding, stroking, stick a finger in the corner of his mouth and feather his tongue to get him working the mouth, to relax more, and ask for the head to drop (high head is a tense horse, low head is relaxed horse; where the head goes, the mind follows), which is all something I would have taught him first before ever doing this lesson. Here are deeper bonding techniques you can use there:

Usually, when early on this learning curve, at first the horse will shoot the head up very high as you climb the Volume there. Don't worry about it; he'll get it shortly and not do that once he understands. He's just momentarily puzzled about what you want at first.

Important to remember: Once you start the jiggle, asking for the back up, don't stop that jiggle/pressure as you climb that Volume UNTIL you get backward movement. If you stop before getting the backward movement from the horse, that's a release, and the horse just learned to remain standing still (or worse, coming into you instead -- which is the total opposite of what you're asking for there!) to receive the release! Not good. So, once you start asking, remain commited, do NOT stop, and climb the Volume incrementally as high as you have to, to get some backward movement.

However, it's also important to reward for the smallest try, the slightest change in the right direction with the release. Not only important, but: crucial. So...that means, watch intensely for any sign of backward movement "try" at any point, so you are given the opportunity to reward with the release. I prefer to keep my eyes focused on the shoulders & chest area there, not necessarily the feet, once I start asking, so that I can remain highly perceptive to even a shoulder-muscle twitch the horse makes before stepping back. This could mean then: you need to release at just a shoulder movement that signifies the backup is coming, or, if you're perceptive enough like I am with horses often, you will see the thought on the horse's part to move backwards, and you indeed instantly reward (quick release timing here!) the thought with the release/praise at first if you can. Just make sure you recognize accurately that correct thought that is quickly followed by the shoulders moving back. If you don't "see" the thought, reward for the next sign-try you see.

But generally, the first time (or maybe two) that you do this, you'll indeed be climbing all the way to the tippy-top of the Volume of pressure and jerking the rope downward, walking into the horse, if necessary, to institute the back up, and rewarding quickly for that compliance.

After you've done that, and praised the horse, relaxed him again, comforted him so he doesn't get frustrated there, then back yourself up to the middle or end of the lead rope again and repeat. Exactly as before. Consistently.

Start small on the Volume every single time though: thought, then teeny tiny wrist jiggle, and climb progressively up the Volume as needed. This time, generally the horse will respond with some kind of backward change sooner (lower on the Volume), and hence reaps the instant release on your part, then the pause for thinking/digesting, the praise/petting reward. Back off and do it again. Low on the Volume...and so on. Remain completely consistent there so that the horse will start "connecting the dots" for "what comes next" as you climb the Volume.

Repeat the exercise again. Very quickly, the horse will back up with only the teeniest tiny rope jiggle (lowest on the Volume), very calmly rationally with an "ohhhhhhh...I get it now!" response and no need on your part to come in to reward every single time. I can generally teach any horse this back up cue, following this route, pretty easily in less than five minutes tops, the majority of them, and it sticks forever because it is then learned behavior. And it has rarely ever taken me longer than five minutes, so, know: it is quite easy to teach this to any horse once you get it down how to do this.

But it's important to get your release timing split second accurate, rewarding with the release for the smallest try, the slightest change, and you'll get there faster. Practice this exercise with a friend first (that's what I do in clinics), each taking turns being the horse/handler there in that exercise and you'll get yourself there quicker, before then turning to teach the horse.

Once the horse understands consistently well this back up cue, many repetitions in that first session, now you are going to teach her to come forward. Again, this is why I feel a horse needs to be taught to go backwards first on cue, before expecting them to understand forward/leading properly, respectfully. Now you have a cue in place to send them back if they don't get "forward" correctly. This next exercise you're going to do is a game I like to refer to as "Red light/Green light." If you ever played that game when you were a kid, you'll see the similarities in this game shortly.

Place yourself again at the end of the lead rope, get the horse's full attention, both eyes on you. Slowly take up the slack and hold the pressure steady so the horse feels the pull tension. Make your body language soft, inviting. The second the horse takes one step forward (but reward for the smallest try/slightest change forward, even a lean forward), release, and allow slack back in the rope instantly. If the horse took too many steps, or tries to come all the way up to you with that one pull/release, jiggle the rope and send him back. "Oops, red light, you gave me too much, go back to start." At first, to allow him to just get the hang of the game, allow the tries, don't be so picky if he gave you accidentally two steps; you'll play the game more strictly as you go along.

What you are teaching the horse here is: how to pay attention to slack in the rope and cue requests and "feel" -- a word you hear a lot I'm sure in the natural horsemanship field (and believe it or not, this will translate to him better understanding reins in the saddle later when you go to pick up a slack rein, removing the slack, to let them know you want a turn/change, etc.).

In this come forward request, gentle pressure, the rope pulled forward means: come. Release in rope (slack) means: stop, wait and listen for further directions. Jiggle in rope means: move back.

Play around with that game. Ask for: Five steps forward. Six steps backwards. Mix it up, so he's not predicting and only listening/responding, trying to get it right. You can get a horse so refinely following your directives there, that quickly you can pick up just one foot at a time, from this distance. You now have: full control of that horse's feet and he now yields softly to forward/backwards cues. Have friendly, smiling, even playful body language when playing this game, fun-time demeaner and he'll very quickly realize: it is indeed a game. And I haven't found a horse yet who doesn't love this game, once they get the hang of it. It's a great game, also, to use to wake up a horse/get them paying attention, whenever you need it.

After he fully understands this game, now, turn your back to him and lead him with several feet of slack in the rope, him behind you a few feet. Stop suddenly, and hold a hand up like a stop sign silently to signal (at first): "Red light! Stop." When you do that, look out of the corner of your eye with your peripheral vision to see if he stopped -- just like the red light/green light game we played as kids. If he keeps coming forward, turn, face him, jiggle the rope, send him back. Oops, back to start, you moved. Very, very quickly, even with your back turned to him while leading, he'll start paying very close attention to your stops, the slack in the rope, and he will stop instantly, keeping a respectful bubble space around you. Keep going until he stops very, very abruptly there, all on his own at the "red light" and focuses intently on you, waiting for your next directive.

Be consistent here, expect this behavior always, from then on, and this exercise mastery translates to better leading/ground manners/respecting your bubble space behavior. Forever.

Keep remembering that all horses follow an instinctive prey animal rule that "he who moves the other's feet is higher up on the pecking order." That is an innate behavior in all horses as herd pecking order creatures, an instinct in them from birth. So, this backing exercise teaches them quite clearly and deeply: it is you who moves his feet, not the other way around (he's not allowed to move yours), therefore you are the leader, and he is expected to be the follower. In horses, often where the body goes, the mind quickly follows.

Incidentally: Never lead a horse holding onto the rope close, under the chin. Always lead with a good deal of slack in the rope, the horse respectfully behind you a few feet. Slack is your friend in natural horsemanship! In natural horsemanship we prefer to have a horse follow us several feet behind and off to the side a little, on slack lead, not leading too close to the horse with short lead, and this is for several reasons, all of which involve safety, as well as the horse learning respect:

If your horse ever crowds you when leading after you've taught him the above exercise, or tries to pass you/enters your bubble space disrespectfully at any time uninvited (remain absolutely consistent at all times there!) you now have a cue in place -- the rope jiggle to get him back/off of you (or rope jerk/walking into him if needed with a "Shhhhh" sound if he's trying to plow over you, where you then go high up the Volume instantly to keep you safest there to back him off; shhhh is a good word-sound for "stop it." Very powerful sound in their brains and is extremely effective and far, far more effective than the word "no."). If he crowds you when leading, closing that distance-from-you-gap, stop dead in your tracks, turn and face him, eye-to-eye contact, pretend that your feet are glued to the ground with super glue, firm posture, not "wimpy posture," jiggle the rope, get him to back up! Move his feet, don't allow him to move yours! After he backs up/off, then and only then turn back around and continue to lead. This teaches him to respect your leadership and your bubble space and where your feet are that he needs to remain attuned to, and where his should remain. It also shows him the "black & white zone." Black zone: when he shows disrespectful/wrong behavior: reaps pressure on him. White zone: when he's getting along according to our own "herd rules," gets no pressure put on him and life is good and easy for him there. No grey areas are allowed when training horses. Make the right thing easy, wrong thing hard. Use clear, concise, consistent expectations and they get respectful (and even more relaxed as a result!) very, very quickly.

Keep remembering, again, that all horses follow an instinctive prey animal rule that "he who moves the other's feet is higher up on the pecking order" - an innate "belief system," if you want to call it that, in all horses as herd pecking order creatures. So, this backing exercise teaches them quite clearly and deeply: it is you who move his feet, not the other way around, therefore you are the leader, and he is expected to be the follower at all times. And he'll get it.

Incidentally, if the slack in the lead rope is low to the ground when you are leading your horse, that is indeed him crowding you, and he needs to back up immediately; not you walk forward faster or something to try to stretch the rope out, but the opposite: he needs to step back and then pace himself properly the speed you are going! And it is he who needs to slow down there so that he doen't close up that gap. You want the slack in the lead between you and the horse to remain high with just a little bit of slack in it, so use that as your visual gauge and remain completely consistent with your expectations there, it's important. And it's the horse's job to keep track of that exact little-bit-of-slack/higher rope distance, not yours, but you'll remind him always if he forgets by backing him up if the lead starts to drag low behind you. Remain perceptive there or the horse can creep in if he's realized you just aren't that perceptive there. They're smarter than you think to such "physical language" subtleties.

There's other handy reminder you can do if a horse is starting to crowd you when being lead and if you don't want to keep stopping to remind him, especially if he's in a bit of a hurry one day, too impatient, or if he's absent-minded there sometimes, and if you just want to remind him of that keep-back rule. As you're leading him, just take the end of the 12' lead rope, while still walking/facing forward, and swing that lead end high over your head like a helicopter propeller and feed it out so it's longer as you walk along. If the horse crowds you, well, he's going to run right into that propeller rope all by himself, and horses don't like doing that. We call that in natural horsemanship: setting up a wall that the horse runs into all by themselves, and they quickly decide on their own, that's just not a good idea. And he won't see it in his mind as you hitting him with a rope there if he does test it because you're not even facing him, but are passively walking forward away from him, and he will perceive that as, "oops, I just ran into that rope there all by myself, better back up, slow down and follow my leader here correctly, politely." So, there you're making the right thing easy, the wrong thing hard, as we say in natural horsemanship, and he'll quickly back up and keep the expected distance and pay better attention after that.

Once your horse has this cue down and leads well, pretty soon you can go to get your horse out of pasture and lead him in without even a halter/lead and if he's crowding you there at liberty, following too closely, just a tiny jiggle of just your hand at the wrist backs him off easily because he now understands that cue very low down the Volume. That simple understanding planted into his foundation now is going to go a tremendously long way as you continue to train him, will serve you (and him!) well multi-directions.

And after he learns this, he will know that it is you the human who is in charge of his feet, not the other way around, when working together, be it on the ground or while riding them. And use that disciplining "Shhh" sound at such times when he does invade your body space rudely and runs you over or even threatens to run you over: "Shhhh" him to let him know he's doing the wrong thing there suddenly. If you use that sound only to mean "stop it!" (don't use it for the wrong reasons) when making corrections for bad/disrespectful behavior, they quickly learn that "Shhhh" means "stop it!" And this translates all the way up to in saddle later quite nicely. Soon just the quiet sound of "Shhh" stops them in their tracks from doing what they know they aren't supposed to do!

Work on all that and you should quickly have a very respectful, cooperative horse on the ground with excellent leading manners, and will keep you safer as well.

Incidentally....all of the above (and more!) I teach visually in my DVD set, the Whispering Way 12-Step Total Training System, which you can check out/purchase here: CLICK HERE

 

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