To the
person that wrote about putting a nail in a board to correct a pushy
horse.. . . This person was trying to explain that if the horse
pushed into his young nephew then horse would "run" into the
nail board. I am pretty certain that the young person would feel
threatened by the big horse running over him so as a result the horse
wouldn't really "run into the nail board" but it is far more
likely that the horse would get a whack with the nail board.
That is a bad idea. It sounds cruel. Still I would like to
defend the author of the idea. Getting run over is a dangerous
habit and I can see the logic of what he is proposing to do to remedy
it. Unfortunately probably what really happens is that our fear
and our temper take over when we feel threatened, (by being run over)
and we attempt to retaliate. I think an aspect
of what is so good about horsemanship today is how we try to use the
horse's own language in our training. That makes it so much easier for
horses to understand our intentions. Horse don't get angry,
(aggressively like we do) so they don't understand our anger. The key
to these methods is this insight into the horse's mind, social
hierarchies, and the horse's use of body language. With these tools of
equine communication so much can be accomplished without undue stress
to the horse. Losing our temper because we are fearful is
confusing and stressful to the horse. That's why we shouldn't arm
ourselves with anything that can result in actually hurting a
horse,(then you trigger their survival instinct and they aren't
learning anything!) We have to give ourselves credit for being human
and fearful and choose our training accessories accordingly. I
have been to two Clinton Anderson clinics and he is very big in
training horse's to respect his personal space, the length of a long
white pole,(aprx. 3 feet) with his arm extended. Clinton explains how
to train a horse to respect this space. It is a gradual training
done in a manner that horses can understand because Clinton uses
equine language. This type of training is what would be most effective
for the problem of a horse running over you. Consistent, clear, daily
training that defines your safety zone will control the horses unsafe
behavior. A long time ago I was instructed to prick the neck of
a horse who was a bad biter if he attempted to bite me when I was
tightening the cinch. The person explained that the horse didn't
realize that I was the one pricking his neck he just associated the
painful prick with turning his head towards me. I have to admit
this technique really worked. I only had to do it a few times
and the biting became a non-issue. The owners did not ride this horse
because of the biting issue. This is sort of a gray area for me but
since the biting was not that threatening I didn't need to retaliate
with over using the needle. One little prick was effective and
the horse stopped the behavior. I always had the needle handy
just in case and that also made sense. Even though this
techinque worked I always felt bad about it. Nancy
