You
don't need "vigorous" activity to teach a horse to respect you and
stay out of your space....AND not "jump on you". You DON'T need a
round pen and you DON'T need to beat on him. As someone said, (MaryAnne?)
remind yourself every time you interact with your horse: "I am a carnivore
and YOU are a prey animal". I like that!
Last Saturday, a friend of
mine dropped her horse "Tai" off over here. I agreed to keep Tai for
a couple of weeks while she was out of town. He's a BIG Warmblood, but a very
gentle soul and low on the "totem pole". However, he walked all over
you and wouldn't stand quietly under lead, would walk away when you went out to
him, and wouldn't ground tie. Wasn't his fault...just didn't know any better.
Nobody had ever bothered to explain it to him. It took me TWENTY MINUTES a day
for two days to teach him to stay out of my space, give me his space when I
asked, lead politely, drop his head on poll pressure, and stand quietly
ground-tied in the hallway to be groomed. He's not perfect yet, but he's very
willing and co-operative, which makes him easy! <grin>
There is a HUGE difference
between "beating" on a horse and "correcting" a horse.
There is a HUGE difference between "spooking because you are really
afraid" and "spooking because you're having a brain fart". Once
you spend enough time in the saddle on a given horse, you will know the
difference. If I ride Magic frequently, he is almost bombproof. If I give him
two weeks off, the first time out he spooks at "unseen monsters". He
knows better, he's not afraid, lacking in confidence, or insecure....he's just
"full of it", being a "shit", and I have NO problem, with
(figuratively, of course) "ripping his hide off". If that means
getting on the ground and practicing ground manners for an hour, so be it. But
however long it takes, he's gonna "get over it" and I'm gonna make
life difficult for him until he decides to that it's easier to do the
"right thing" than the "wrong thing". If an
"experienced" horse is paying more attention to his surroundings than
to me, THAT'S a problem I need to fix, and "silly spooking" should
require nothing more than a verbal rebuke or pick up of a rein to get him to do
his job and move on down the trail. "Looking at it" is OK.
"Going over to investigate on his initiative" is OK. Rollbacks,
spins, and violent moves to the left and right are unacceptable unless, IMO,
he's really startled or afraid. "You ride the horse you lead".
<John Lyons> If he doesn't behave for you under lead, then he won't
behave for you from the saddle.
Just MHO....
Jim, Sun of Dimanche+, and
Mahada Magic
>The programs I have seen
on horse training from the ground all center on
>the
>horse vigorously moving
in various directions, either free or on a line. I
>don't think that this
horse, at this particular time is a candidate for
>vigorous exercise, he is
recovering from an injury.
>
>I still hold that there
is a difference between using an extension of the
>body like a whip or a
rope as a negative reinforcement and "whipping" a
