Training Tips

QUESTION: I have a couple of questions that I don't seem to be able to find the answers to. My 3-year-old colt has been moved to a new, plank-fenced facility and has settled in quite nicely. He lost quite a bit of weight prior to him moving, from stress, and not enough food due to the other horses running him off. We separated him once it became dangerous and apparent that the other owners were not willing to do anything about the behavior of their horses. At the new facility he has his own stud pen outside during the day and then is brought in at night into the barn. He is absolutely fine with all the other horses around him. In fact he barely even raises his head when the others are lead past his stall, but they on the other hand are very vocal in attempts to get his attention. It is quite funny! So first off, thank you for your dvd's and the time you take with them and us. My horse has become the pride of the new barn. People are always commenting that they forget he is a stud because he is sooo well behaved and respectful. I am truly grateful to you for helping him become this amazingly calm stallion.

I do have an issue with his calmness though. Odd, I know. When we go into the arena to work, he calms right down and gets ready to work. We have completed the round penning and he is great. The problem is backing him up. I have jiggled and jiggled the rope and flapped my arms and bonk bonked the rope until my arms are sore and he stands there and looks at me half asleep. I have sent him off to tell him doing nothing is not an option, but even that is hard to do. He won't move off. I refuse to pick up a lunge whip and have tried the training wand. He is totally desensitized to it. I will get an immediate response if I ask him to disengage his hind end, front end or to move out of my space, but he prefers to be close to me. He is not invasive and knows to keep a respectful distance, but how do I get him to move off without scaring it into him ? Sorry that branched into the other question.

As for the backing up, he is very willing to step back if I have his 12-foot lead fairly short and bonk bonk his nose towards his chest. It doesn't even require a bonk any more, it is almost at the thought now.

But to ask him to back over poles on the ground using the lead rope, he firmly plants his feet and won't move. No head throwing, or nervous big eyes, nothing. I did start by the jiggle and he ended up falling asleep while I went right up the volume scale. So much so that the longer we did it I couldn't even shake the rope because his nose was on the ground. I did try and send him off, but he seems oblivious to get away from me!

Help! He seems so compliant but I know that this is a respect issue. I should be able to send him off at will but want to make sure I do it right without traumatizing him. I know I have to be firm and fair but don't know how to do that.

Thanks Sylvia!

REPLY: First...the back up problem -- that's indeed a respect issue and it's about: you are releasing before getting what you asked for. All horses learn from the release of pressure, not the pressure itself, that they did the right thing. If you release before you got what you wanted, the horse just learned: that's what you wanted (or, what he can get away with).

You're going to have to get tougher and more assertive there because this indeed is in the category of your horse not respecting you properly. What you need to do, since the final assertion of snapping the lead rope down and walking into him is not working (you've accidentally dulled him out to it via releasing there when you didn't get what you wanted), is bring the training wand into the picture now for a "higher up the volume" pressure. If he does not step back at the jiggle built up into snapping the lead down, without releasing pressure (no pauses), wave the wand back and forth in front of his chest as you walk into him (you'll need to keep enough slack in the rope to do this). He then has two choices posed before him then: 1) step back and avoid the waving back & forth (vertically/from side to side) wand running into him there at chest level (that's the right answer), or 2) get bonked by the waving back & forth wand. This does not hurt the horse, but it shows him that you mean business.

Act like you are going to walk right into him with that wand waving horizontally back and forth and act like you are going to walk right through him (be that determined in your body language -- picture walking right through him and it's his job to get out of the way -- just like it's his job out in pasture to move out of the way of the lead mare when she's "coming through"), and he WILL step back. The second he steps back there (right answer!), stop waving the wand back and forth and hold it down limp & stationary. Pause while still staring at the horse, full eye-to-eye contact. Let the horse digest that he did the right thing, with the release of pressure. Then repeat.

Always start low on the volume with a tiny rope jiggle, building, building, THEN the waving back & forth wand/walking straight into him as your highest "up the volume" assertion there when needed with a very stuck horse like that. Your horse will get it, you'll see. Get assertive. This kind of behavior, them ignoring like that, can very quickly lead to a spoiled horse, I've seen time and again. Don't be afraid to get assertive, as assertive as needed. Your horse needs it, I can see from here. You'll only have to get very assertive the first couple of times; after that, he'll start better responding "lower down the volume" with just a rope jiggle and you can lose the training wand then, it won't be needed.

As for sending him off in the round pen and him refusing/ignoring to leave you, again, this is a leadership issue and he's not taking you seriously enough there as his leader. Don't get so bogged down with being "best friends" with him at times like that, that you lose your leadership authority. We reward them with loving and stroking and deep bonding WHEN they are behaving and doing as you ask, not when they aren't behaving properly. Again, keep in your mind at all times that the horse learns from the release of pressure that they did the right thing and keep working to not release your pressure until you get what you want, or you get from them at least a try in the right direction, before you stop asking and release the pressure. So, for this problem of him not leaving your side when asked there, that's a leadership problem, because I can tell you now, I myself would have noooo problem getting him to leave when asked. You're afraid to get assertive, I can see from here, but I think you may be confusing assertive with aggressive. We don't have to get mean or aggressive to be assertive (with horses, or in life in general). Let me direct you to a link on my web site that I think will help you with this particular problem of him not going away from you when asked there -- and follow the directives you read there: http://www.naturalhorsetraining.com/TrainingTips147.html

And this one too:

http://www.naturalhorsetraining.com/TrainingTips294.html

When he's doing this stickiness at liberty in the round pen, use the spinning rope, like you read in those above links (vertically spun, not horizontally) as an extension of your arm, and picture it like a windmill that is spinning, faster and faster and he either gets out of the way of that spinning rope, or ooops, it's his own fault that he didn't move out of its way. And soon he'll start connecting the dots lower down the volume that you mean business when you direct him to move. Again, I can guarantee you that I'd have him moving in a nano-second, so this isn't a horse problem, but is a leadership problem of you fearing being assertive. Don't equate being assertive as being mean or aggressive as it is quite different. Horses very much understand assertive as they live that in their pecking order life with other horses every day of their lives. Your horse is defying you, whether you realize it or not. If your child outright defied you openly would they get away with it? Nope! If you're a mom, you know they wouldn't; you'd get as alpha assertive as needed, as a mom, yet fairly, to get them past the defiant moment and back on track, respecting you as leader.

I think what might also help you there overall is to shift your inner attitude a bit to not placing so much importance on you pleasing your horse all the time, but the opposite: teaching the horse it's his job to please you, his leader. If you can keep that mindset, I think it will help you a lot to remain in the assertive-as-needed spot. Plenty of time to love all over and reward him WHEN he does the right thing that you asked him to do.

Put what you read here into motion asap and you should get past these "sticky" problems really fast.