I’ve heard it said, and firmly believe, every moment you spend with your horse is a training moment – whether you want it to be or not! Training, in this sense, means more than teaching correct leads or a fluid side pass; it means shaping our horse’s behavior for better or worse by how we interact with them and often times in the dullest of moments – like when we lead them from the barn to the pasture or some other simple interaction. It is in precisely these smallest of moments where some of the greatest “shaping” of our horse’s mental mindset can take place, and so often we don’t jump on these opportunities – either out of laziness or lack of knowledge.

It is in the everyday, routine handling of our horses that we get to constantly establish and reinforce our role as herd leader and work on rewarding behavior we want while working out the behavior we don’t want before it gets to be a BIG problem. The more our horses see us as the unequivocal, uncontested and “fair” LEADER we need to be, a wonderful transformation takes place:

• We form a partnership with our horses where they trust what we ask them to do and they “try”, even when it seems scary
• They don’t try to buck, rear, kick, bite, step on our toes, drive us away from food, run from us in fear, panic when taken away from the rest of the horses or crowd our space
• They respect us as the leader, they look to us for guidance and direction, and they trust us to be their “security and safety net”
• They look forward to being around us and if they don’t, they don’t complain in their horsey ways – they are respectful
• They don’t try to get us off their backs because to do so would mean they have lost their “leader” and “guide”

Taking a rest on a 10 mile trail ride with Hershey

How do you know when you aren’t the leader of the duo that comprises you and your horse? Or that you’ve ignored or haven’t corrected unwanted behavior early on? Based on my observations, these are some of the signs:
You go to catch your horse, with halter in hand, and he immediately runs. It then takes you 30 minutes of chasing and cornering to finally get the halter on; or worse, you end up resorting to the “grain bucket ” which, in my opinion, just rewards and reinforces the behavior of running.

You can’t lead your horse away from the rest of the stable, herd, buddies, etc… without him balking, resisting, screaming and hollering or just stubbornly refusing to move.

Your friend on her horse walks off while you’re handling/riding your horse and your horse goes into panic attack, acts like you don’t even exist and quickly becomes 1000 pounds of deadly hoof and muscle – and you fear for your life.

You can’t walk into or near your horse’s stall because he threatens you with pinned ears, teeth and hooves.

While leading your horse you’re constantly adjusting his position next to you because he’s moving into your space, pushing you with his shoulder or walking past you.

Your horse bites, or threatens to bite you, when it becomes irritated with what you are asking it to do.

When you approach your horse in an enclosed area he turns his butt to you.

You start to modify your routine and schedule to accommodate the “quirks” in your horse’s behavior – these include things like riding only with certain horses, riding only in specific areas, having to lead your horse in or out in a certain order with the others so he doesn’t “freak-out” or any other adjustment to your daily horse activities that is done because you’re afraid your horse will either hurt you or himself.

When you’ve gotten to this point with your horse I feel there is really only one remedy – get back to basics! What this means is putting your horse in the round pen, working with him as if he were a green 2-year-old and re-establishing a solid mental attitude of who leads and who follows. This requires a good deal of knowledge and experience in reading body language and setting achievable goals. We’re looking for approximations towards the behavior we want. We reward this by taking pressure off our horses and allowing them to rest. When a horse is given the choice between working harder with unwanted behavior or doing behavior we want, which allows him to rest, gets positive reinforcement with kindness and lowers the energy level of the session, he quickly learns to listen to us.

Keep in mind that working with a horse that has ingrained, dangerous behaviors can be challenging and should really only be undertaken by someone with a great deal of experience. Know your own abilities and consult with a good, trusted trainer if in any doubt. A horse can be pushed beyond the “flee” mode and into the “fight” mode so care must be taken.

Also, the goal in the round pen isn’t to exhaust our horses into submission, or to tire them out so much that we feel assured they won’t act up once we’re on their back, but to make them think and choose. Horses are amazingly resilient and one that looks exhausted can still buck, rear and hurt us even after a long and tiring session. When working in the round pen, short sessions with small goals will go farther with positive results than a long and tiring session. Modifying behavior takes time and lots of repetition – this isn’t achieved in a day or two.

And lastly, keep in mind the big picture and don’t get stuck on nit-picking details. We need to reward all the “tries” our horses give us, knowing that we can refine these over time. When we focus on all the small details we end up with a neurotic horse that is afraid to just “be a horse”.  As you progress in working with your horse, you will often find that some of those minor annoying behaviors, the ones that don’t constitute a danger to us, tend to go away on their own as the horse bonds with us and we establish, through time, a working partnership.