Posts Tagged ‘roundpen’

Working with horses can often be difficult and even scary, as horses engage in bad horse behaviors that not only make them annoying but make them unsafe. These behaviors can include biting, kicking, being pushy on the ground, or worse bucking and rearing. The best way to minimize the chance your horse will be pushy like this is to lay a solid foundation that puts you in a leadership position with the horse. Here are five horse training tips to help you achieve this.

1. Have a good lead

A horse that respects you leads well. This means that the horse follows you at a short distance just off your shoulder. Most people lead from the left side of the horse, so he should be just to the right of you with the tip of his nose just at your shoulder. He shouldn’t pull on the rope or drag, and he shouldn’t blast out ahead of you. If a horse drags on the rope, stop every now and then and ask for a backup. This puts a cost into his bad horse behavior. On the other hand, if he tends to walk faster and pass you, change directions when he does this so that you can put yourself back in front of the horse.

2. Teach your horse to relax

Remember that horses are prey animals, so they’re always on the lookout for the next threat. A horse with his head up high is one that is tense and looking for something about to eat him. A horse that is relaxed has his head low and is probably more interested in finding some nice greens to graze on. Teach your horse to relax on cue by lowering his head.

3. Use round-pen training

Here is an important horse training tip-one of the best ways to establish leadership is to use the round pen. This is best done “at liberty” without the lead line or halter on the horse, so you control his movements without using tools-just body language and presence of leadership. Few techniques work as well to get a horse to trust and respect you. This is often called “hook-on” in the roundpen or as Monty Roberts calls it, “join up”.

4. Keep him paying attention

Another important tool to use when training is to keep your horse paying attention. If he is looking off in the distance when you’re working with him, bump the rope to bring his nose toward you so that both eyes are focused on you. Look at the ears. Is one ear acting like a radar dish probing the distance to check for threats? Or are both ears forward on you? If they aren’t on you your horse isn’t devoting his full attention and this needs to be corrected.

5. Don’t just ride off into the sunset

While riding, take the time to run through exercises that keep your horse listening to you, such as flexing and having him move the hindquarter and front. By keeping him listening to you, he is less likely to look off in the distance checking for the newest threat.

By applying these horse training tips, you can start to build a sold foundation with your horse that is gentle, yet teaches respect and leadership. A horse that respects you and sees you as a leader is far less likely to engage in bad behaviors.

For more information, please visit Gentle Horse Training. If you’re an iPhone user, please see iPhone Horse Apps

Author: David McMahon
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Horse whispering and natural horsemanship have been a source for a great deal of income for those with marketing skills. When people imitate without having a clear idea what they are doing it and why they are apt to get hurt. With the wrong horse it can be worse. The horse is a prey animal with a strong flight or fight response. Their first choice is to run, and the speed the horse is capable of means they can outdistance most predators. However for the biggest insight into horses it pays to study THEM.

Horses usually will do what is easiest. They naturally follow the path of least resistance. Faced with the wall of a roundpen and a human with a funny looking thing attached they can be directed like so much water through a hose, changing the way the water flows by moving your finger. We often underestimate how powerful this is and if misused how much mistrust it creates with our horses.

If we watch horses interact with each other it will quickly become clear a pecking order. If you doubt this at all put down one less feeder in the pen than you have horses and put a cup of feed in each one. The boss horse eats first and once done will clear out whatever feeder she wants. There might be squeals of protests but other horses bow to her then move to horses they can chase away. This works for all but the bottom horse who will be left looking for scraps, sometimes picking at the boss horse’s feeder after it’s been left in hopes there’s a bit of grain still left.

A horse who challenges a higher ranking member can be bitten, kicked or pushed out physically. The lower ranking horses know their place in the herd and find it easier to go hungry than fight the bosses. It is this strict herd order that can, in a group, result in all horses being fed twice per day and one is skinny while the others are overweight. Often the lowest ranking member will starve to death rather than risk injury in a fight with the boss. This goes to that fight or flight instinct – a horse that cannot flee is in danger of becoming predator dinner.

Using this in a horse training program then you have to insert yourself as a boss mare. Your body language will get through to the horse faster than any other method because they are used to watching body language. The horse knows when something comes at them aggressively they need to run as they could be dinner. Something approaching quietly and calmly, without being a threat, doesn’t bring up that reason to flee. Remember this when you go to catch your horse…the “hard to catch” horse may well be doing what you’re telling him – RUN!

Get your horse in a roundpen with a lunge whip. By imitating things seen in that pen of horses you can get pretty predictable responses. Walking quickly towards the head usually generates a spin and running the other direction. Walking towards the hip drives the horse forward. If a horse stops and raises his head he’s challenging you. Getting your highest point above his – including if he rears – means you have dominance. This is where the whip is invaluable. With the whip you can wave it above his head. You can shake it at him, threaten him and drive him at your will.

There’s an odd thing that happens much like the boss horse. If the horse knows you will follow through with the whip then you probably will not have to. Use it very sparingly – if the horse kicks at you, strikes or charges you follow through like you mean it. Other than that the whip is a tool – it’s used to reach and touch without having to hit. By directing the horse’s movement and speed you can also stop and allow him to stop.

Once he’s established you are in control the horse will often tip his nose towards you, “watching” you with his ears, and in his language he”s asking “can I stop now?” If you aren’t actively driving him forward you have told him yes – and when people have problems with their horses on the longe line or in the roundpen this is often the reason. Allowing him to stop and approach you safely builds trust.

Not surprisingly the hardest horses then to work with are the boss and the bottom. The boss can be the horse that needs strict handling and may always look for that “in” to be dominant. The bottom horse lacks confidence in many cases and that lack of confidence means a great deal of work boosting confidence and making sure when you ask something it is safe. For most people the middle range horses are the easiest but either ends of the herd can, with the right handling and understanding, be wonderful mounts.

Observe your horse daily from the time he’s a weanling. Even as a weanling and yearling he will have very distinct likes and dislikes – these things you can use in training! An individual that is tense will have a rigid jaw…learning people won’t hurt him brings relaxing, and usually he’ll move his mouth – often described as a lick or chew. This is something that as you progress with your horse to look for. Always let him think about things and get that mouth movement before giving up for the day. If you quit while he’s tense you’ve taught him totally the wrong thing!

So often we want great things from our horses. The biggest way to get this is asking the least. Sounds impossible? When working with your horse ask for only 1% improvement. That is not very much! By backing off our expectations the horse often gives much more than 1%. We make more progress by asking for less, providing we are accurately reading their body language as well as accurately projecting ours to them.

Try it. Watch your horses…”talk” to them like a horse. It works! Always try to look at things from the horse’s point of view. If you do that it’s amazing the things horses let us do to them that goes against their instincts and how much they give us that is, truly, a gift. There is no human being alive that can hold still a 1200 pound animal that wants to leave. By getting in his mind it never comes to having to force him. This makes all the difference!

Author: Jan Hoadley
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Digital Camera News