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[RC] Teaching to tie - Diane TrefethenI have had rotten luck with "quick release" knots. If a horse is pulling back hard either shaking its head or flailing with front hooves, I wait till he settles down. By then the knot has absolutely no "release" left in it, never mind the "quick" part.I once had a particularly strong-willed filly and made the mistake of not teaching her to tie when I halter broke her. Having waited, I was afraid that she might hurt herself if she truly went to war with being tied so I went to a shop that worked just on trucks and bought from them a used truck inner tube. At home, I tied the tube high from a really solid tree and then tied the filly to the tube with a quick release looped through the last loop. I slowly worked up the time I left her tied. I could tell if she had been at war because the knot would be tight if she had pulled back. She couldn't get away. She couldn't get tangled in anything. She couldn't stretch the tube to its end so there was always a bit more give no matter how hard she pulled. When she reached the point where she would stand quietly for several hours and wouldn't move if I flapped things, I stopped the lessons. I do not think using a breakaway halter when you are teaching a horse to tie is a good idea. I would reserve them for horses that you either didn't know if they had been trained to tie or whom you knew hadn't been trained. BTW, there is a difference between a horse that has always just stood quietly tied and one who has been TRAINED to be tied. The former will be good until he isn't and then when he tries to get away and finds he can't, he can panic and pull till either he goes into shock or something breaks. A horse that has been trained to be tied has been deliberately exposed to unnerving stimuli to get him to pull back. He learns he can't get away but never gets hurt in the process. When you use a halter that allows the horse to escape by pulling back then you are teaching him to pull back. What you want to teach him is that WHEN something scares him, THINK first and stand his ground. If he learns that pulling back allows him to escape from scary things, he will never learn to stop and think. Today I have a 16h Arab whom I trained to tie. He happens to be a horse who is highly sensitive to sounds and they can frighten him. When he is tied and something scary "threatens" him, sometimes he momentarily blanks and pulls back but then almost immediately he stops to survey the situation. He has never been hurt while tied. I cannot stop his initial reaction but because he has been trained to tie, that first moment of fear does not get compounded by either a violent war against the tie or breaking away to run loose. Good luck with Scout. Diane =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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