The “second in command" will act just like the General but he won’t pick on the General because the General dominates him. This string of command continues all the way down to the bottom of the pecking order. Any time a new animal comes into the group then the pecking order shifts. Knowing this information, you can use it to your advantage. You can make yourself the leader in the horse’s eyes. He’ll look to you for instruction. He’ll obey you.
If you have a dominant horse it will be instinct for him to let a more dominant being make the decisions. In this case the dominant being will be you. You will become leader by using your body language to show you are confident. Being dominant doesn’t mean you’re being aggressive.
On the other hand, if your horse is the General, you may have to be more assertive. Make sure your horse doesn’t think you’re a threat. It’s easy to come across as threatening when you’re being assertive. If your horse feels threatened he’ll fight back and you can’t win. And if you are doing horse training, you will find it hard to get results.
In the wild, dominant and aggressive horses will make their bodies tight and make sudden moves with fury while getting into the other horse’s space. The weaker horse will concede and move out of his space. Think of it as the General screaming an order and the Private is obeying.
Slow movements tend to draw one horse to another. Horses express calmness with relaxed, slow steps. This is how they welcome other horses in their space.
If a horse is trying to show you he’s the General you may see a clamped-down tail with pinned ears. To get him to accept you as the General you will move him out of his space. You do this by matching any quick moves he makes with your own quick moves. The trick is to make the first strike before he does.
One way to do this is with a quick arm movement towards him – almost like you’re violently shooing away some pesky flies. Also, you can use an aggressive tone of voice towards a horse if he’s being aggressive.
How can you tell if he’s conceding to you? If he turns his head or drops it, relaxes his tail, begins chewing, or takes a deep breath, then that’s how you know. If any of these happen he’s saying, “Okay, I’ll do what you say because I want to listen to you." Pay attention to these clues that tell you your horse is in the Private mode (the follower) instead of the General mode.
When you go into the round pen to work with your horse first check to see how he responds to you. If he rubs his head on you or swings his rear end toward you then he’s challenging your position in the pecking order. If you’re with a horse that’s not dominant you want to make sure he has confidence. Thus, be very careful not to be threatening.
Showing posts with label Horse training techniques/tips. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Horse training techniques/tips. Show all posts
Wednesday, 19 May 2010
Tuesday, 6 April 2010
94. How to deal with a barn sour horse...
Training a Buddy-Sour or Barn-Sour Horse with John Lyons
'Horses love the familiar even more than we do, so getting separated from home or friends is legitimate cause for upset. But like us, our horse can’t always have things the way he wants them, so we have to help him deal with the emotional trauma he’s experiencing. Through training a buddy-sour or barn-sour horse, we'll have a good, horse-specific game plan.
Fortunately, we have a big horse asset working in our favor. Horses have a one-track mind.
Anyone who’s tried to quiet a horse left behind by his buddies knows that no attempt at feeding carrots or soothing talk will work. And anyone who’s ridden a horse who adamantly refuses to leave the barn can tell you that it seems the horse can only think "back to the barn." So what’s the solution? Use the horse’s own emotions to train him. Here’s the plan.
In a safe area where the horse isn’t upset, work on particular exercises that give you good control. Be specific in your requests. Don’t just lead or walk the horse around.
Cool-headed Training
# Realize that responding to a cue involves the horse's mind, body and emotions.
# Take learning cycles into account.
# Work through the "bad" parts without anger or frustration.
# Ask yourself if the performance problem you're dealing with could be primarily emotional.
# Distractions can be used as an opportunity.
Anticipate what tools you’ll need if he were to get upset. Moving his hip over will give you control of the horse’s hindquarters, which may prevent him from bolting forward or pulling away from you. Moving his shoulder over gives you control of his front end. That will prevent him from crashing into you if you lead him from the ground. Steering the shoulders or hindquarters is also much more effective when riding than just steering the nose.
Let’s concentrate on what we want the horse to do. We’re going to separate him from his buddy or the barn just momentarily, then relieve his concern by immediately returning to the buddy or barn. We’ll work that "get upset and then calm" process while we ask him for specific movements. Getting worried isn’t hard and getting calm isn’t hard. But that emotional roller coaster is. The horse will learn that getting worried is too much work, and he’ll relax and trust your signals. Gradually, we can lengthen both the time away and the distance from the buddy or barn.
The rule we follow is: Ride where you can, not where you can’t. That means we’re not going to have a fight with our horse in a place where we don’t have control, which essentially means we’re not going to fight with our horse.
In the following examples, if your horse gets too upset, then you’ve tried to take him too far too fast. Backtrack in the lesson to where he’s under good control and relaxed, then increase the distance or time'
'Horses love the familiar even more than we do, so getting separated from home or friends is legitimate cause for upset. But like us, our horse can’t always have things the way he wants them, so we have to help him deal with the emotional trauma he’s experiencing. Through training a buddy-sour or barn-sour horse, we'll have a good, horse-specific game plan.
Fortunately, we have a big horse asset working in our favor. Horses have a one-track mind.
Anyone who’s tried to quiet a horse left behind by his buddies knows that no attempt at feeding carrots or soothing talk will work. And anyone who’s ridden a horse who adamantly refuses to leave the barn can tell you that it seems the horse can only think "back to the barn." So what’s the solution? Use the horse’s own emotions to train him. Here’s the plan.
In a safe area where the horse isn’t upset, work on particular exercises that give you good control. Be specific in your requests. Don’t just lead or walk the horse around.
Cool-headed Training
# Realize that responding to a cue involves the horse's mind, body and emotions.
# Take learning cycles into account.
# Work through the "bad" parts without anger or frustration.
# Ask yourself if the performance problem you're dealing with could be primarily emotional.
# Distractions can be used as an opportunity.
Anticipate what tools you’ll need if he were to get upset. Moving his hip over will give you control of the horse’s hindquarters, which may prevent him from bolting forward or pulling away from you. Moving his shoulder over gives you control of his front end. That will prevent him from crashing into you if you lead him from the ground. Steering the shoulders or hindquarters is also much more effective when riding than just steering the nose.
Let’s concentrate on what we want the horse to do. We’re going to separate him from his buddy or the barn just momentarily, then relieve his concern by immediately returning to the buddy or barn. We’ll work that "get upset and then calm" process while we ask him for specific movements. Getting worried isn’t hard and getting calm isn’t hard. But that emotional roller coaster is. The horse will learn that getting worried is too much work, and he’ll relax and trust your signals. Gradually, we can lengthen both the time away and the distance from the buddy or barn.
The rule we follow is: Ride where you can, not where you can’t. That means we’re not going to have a fight with our horse in a place where we don’t have control, which essentially means we’re not going to fight with our horse.
In the following examples, if your horse gets too upset, then you’ve tried to take him too far too fast. Backtrack in the lesson to where he’s under good control and relaxed, then increase the distance or time'
Wednesday, 17 March 2010
77. Rewarding positive behaviour...
Today, i walked Spice in hand just around our yard as being the spooky nervous horse she is even a walk around the yard can provide a valuable training exercise...
She was fine when walking with me inbetween her and the hedgerow but as soon as we turned around to go back which meant she was inbetween me and the hedgerow she felt far more anxious and found it difficult to focus on me.
So, i wondered how i could reward her for focusing on me when she did so that it would encourage her to focus on me more and spook less at the activities going on behind the hedgerow.
I came up with the following reward...every time i felt her get anxious to the point that she increased her speed or tried to overtake me i stopped her and made her stand still and only until she was looking at me for direction would i let her walk on 'away' from the scene of her distress thus giving her a reward for focusing on me rather than what she was spooking at.
I repeated this activity three times until eventually i had her nose to my shoulder the whole way and there was no speeding up or getting overly anxious at any point.
I found this a very valuable exercise and will continue to use this method outside of the yard.
Sometimes even the smallest things me and Spice do together teach me so much...
She was fine when walking with me inbetween her and the hedgerow but as soon as we turned around to go back which meant she was inbetween me and the hedgerow she felt far more anxious and found it difficult to focus on me.
So, i wondered how i could reward her for focusing on me when she did so that it would encourage her to focus on me more and spook less at the activities going on behind the hedgerow.
I came up with the following reward...every time i felt her get anxious to the point that she increased her speed or tried to overtake me i stopped her and made her stand still and only until she was looking at me for direction would i let her walk on 'away' from the scene of her distress thus giving her a reward for focusing on me rather than what she was spooking at.
I repeated this activity three times until eventually i had her nose to my shoulder the whole way and there was no speeding up or getting overly anxious at any point.
I found this a very valuable exercise and will continue to use this method outside of the yard.
Sometimes even the smallest things me and Spice do together teach me so much...
Monday, 8 March 2010
61. Day 13...Spices abscess continues...
Today we took off what we hoped would be Spices last poultice but there was still a smell of puss on the poultice which would indicate that it is still draining albeit ever so slightly as visually there was next to nothing on it. So, my first thoughts were to apply yet another poultice and assess the situation tomorrow. However, Spice was behaving quite frantically with it being so windy and looked as though she was going to be a bit of a nightmare to keep still so reluctantly i postponed applying the poultice with the view of coming back to do it later.
I came back roughly 4 hours later to apply the poultice which was actually quite easy due to the fact that spice was happy to stand still for me but her hoof was full of mud due to being outside so it was quite a job cleaning it. I only hope that i managed to clean away the debris from the draining hole so that if there is anything left to drain it has an easy escape but as i said it was quite difficult.
I'm so over the whole hoof abscessing thing. It's times like this when you wish you had a stable just because it would be easier treating a horse in somewhere clean, dry and out of the wind than in an open muddy field.
I came back roughly 4 hours later to apply the poultice which was actually quite easy due to the fact that spice was happy to stand still for me but her hoof was full of mud due to being outside so it was quite a job cleaning it. I only hope that i managed to clean away the debris from the draining hole so that if there is anything left to drain it has an easy escape but as i said it was quite difficult.
I'm so over the whole hoof abscessing thing. It's times like this when you wish you had a stable just because it would be easier treating a horse in somewhere clean, dry and out of the wind than in an open muddy field.
Thursday, 4 March 2010
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