pulling

[Erika R Achberger <eachberg@sophia.smith.edu>]

I believe that it is much better to try to teach rather than use
artificial means, and a friend of mine has retrained many horses by tying
them to a tire chained to a tree, but I will share one other method that I
know of, and is less severe/dangerous than tying with a be nice halter.
	A farrier/trainer taught this to a woman whose horses I used to
ride before I got my own.  She has a big paint named Ranger who would set
back and bust the snaps on the lead ropes when tied before saddling.
A soft rope is looped and tied around the poll and over the nose in such a
way that pulling puts pressure on the poll and nose, but the surface area
is great enough (by using thick, soft rope), that it is not so severe.  I
never got to practice doing it enough to get it to stick in my mind
exactly how it went, because he soon quit trying.
	It's effectiveness lay in the fact that when he pulled back, the
pressure on the poll and head was great enough-- it just tightened up on
his head-- that it was no fun, and as soon as he let up, it loosened right
up.  By comparison, pulling while in a conventional halter is not terribly
uncomfortable, and worth it to the stubborn horse that thinks he will be
free after.
	As I said, though, I prefer just looping the rope around the post,
I personally never tie my horse anymore, just drop the rope on the ground,
which means "stay" to him after our training.  This is really quite simple
to do and just requires a few repetitions for the horse to learn (and some
treats for obeying:)

Erika R Achberger			Smith College Box 6004
505 Highland Ave.			98 Green Street
Northfield, MN 55057			Northampton, MA 01063-0100
Tel: 507.645.7937			Tel: 413.585.7666 (Park Annex)
krach@stolaf.edu			eachberg@sophia.smith.edu