Wouldn’t it be nice to have your horse stand and wait for you like your dog
sits and waits on command? It can be done! The way to get a horse to do (or not
do) anything is to change his mind and opinion about the situation.
So let’s say you have a horse that won’t stand at the mounting block, or won’t
stand tied to a hitching post, or loses his mind if put into cross-ties. You’ve done
all the traditional things to change his behavior like making him jog a circle over
and over until he wants to stop. Or you’ve made him spin on one front leg until
you both are dizzy and half delirious. You’ve made him sweat, you’ve had
another person stay with him, holding him while you get on, or get the saddle, or
whatever. You’ve smacked him, yelled at him, and tried bribing him into standing,
but he just won’t. If all this sounds familiar, you’re not alone.
Before going into how to teach your horse to stand, whether tied or not,
remember that there are exactly two things we humans cannot ever “make” a
horse do.
1. We cannot make a horse move.
2. We cannot stop a horse from moving.
Wonderful, you think. Why bother teaching anything if those two things are
true? The answer lies within the horse’s innate willingness to do what we want if
we convey that desire fairly, consistently and calmly.
Sure, but how do we do that?
By changing your horse’s mind, you will be able to change his feet. If you can
get your horse to want to do what you desire—either move or not move—he’ll
comply happily. There are things to consider before beginning: intention, energy,
time and space. Your intention must be clear, your energy must be even and low,
time the lessons for when he’ll most want to be with you, and when you aren’t
rushed, and pick a place you can safely work him.
Changing his mind is not hard if you know how to exploit his natural
tendencies. Not what you’d expect to hear, but it’s true. Changing, or managing
his mind is a matter of thinking about your desire and how best to convey it to
him in a way that makes him want to oblige. In traditional fear-based training,
this is taught by making what you want the easy thing for him to do. Basically, it’s
the idea that moving a horse will put you in a dominant position so the horse will
respect you and do whatever you want; think round pen work.
Another way to change the horse’s mind is to use positive, reward based
methods with no fear or intimidation being employed. This way of approaching
horse training doesn’t look like what most of us are taught, and some even pooh-
pooh it, saying it’s too soft and babying a horse won’t work. You’ll need to decide
upon what kind of relationship you most desire and go from there.
Using positive, reward-based reinforcement means that to get him to move
forward, you’ll simply get him into a position that he wants to walk forward.
Reframe your intention from the traditional release of pressure to rewarding for
doing the task. For example, if you are outside of his corral, away from his horse
friends, stand facing them/it and your horse’s mind is already wanting to walk
forward. That’s simple enough, but how do you keep him from moving? How do
you teach him to quietly stand tied if he’s one to sit back and break halters, ropes
and hitching racks?
We exploit his desires and set him up to win the reward for doing what you
want.
One method is to Clicker Train—it’s easy to learn, just look on YouTube—and
incorporates using reward, play, curiosity and interaction between you and your
horse. If you choose to follow this method, you will begin by teaching him to
“target” and then move on to teaching him to stand on a mat or towel or a circle
painted on the ground. This training method is highly successful and is used on
wild animals of all species to train them for veterinary care or any number of
other desired “tricks.” The best part is just how fun it is to do with your horse!
They love games, but people may not realize how important “play” is when
training.
For this discussion, I won’t go into the specifics of Clicker Training, but will
show how you may use positive reinforcement with reward-only to teach the
horse to stand. To begin, take him out of his living quarters, away from his friends
to a safe, enclosed area. Facing him away from his desired locale, stop him and
ask him to stand using whatever cue you normally would. You can pretend to tie
him by laying the lead over the hitching rail or fence so he understands that you
want him to stay “tied.”
Your goal is to praise him for standing still, so your timing for rewarding him
must be impeccable. As soon as he stops moving, praise him by petting his neck
or scratch his withers. He won’t know why he’s getting praised at first, but your
timing and the repetitions will teach him that he gets rewarded when not moving
his feet. Repeat and repeat. As soon as you take a small step away, step back
into him and reward before he moves. Repeat about thirty-seven more times,
then go do something else and come back to the standing lesson.
Each day, you will build upon that first lesson by repeating what you did the
day before. As you begin to see your horse standing and waiting longer, you’ll
start tapering back on the time spent near him and can venture a bit further away
from him, or you can increase the time he stands. So far, your horse has not
been truly tied, but he’s standing and you can walk away. Watch for his
attentiveness and desire to stay with you playing this odd, new game. This is how
you know if it’s making sense to him and if you’ve begun changing his mind.
Then, you’ll see his feet follow suit and your horse will stand calmly waiting for
the next game you want to play with him.
You may need to leave the rope looped and not tied for longer than you
hope, but eventually, you will be able to tie your horse every time. If he pulls back
and feels the pressure, you will need to start over at step one, so don’t rush the
process. Make it easy for your horse and have fun!
FREE Stuff through my website at TanyaBuck.com, and a FREE copy of Trail
Riding Tips here:
https://lp.constantcontact.com/su/Qa0qA96/HorseClicks
Have fun training, Happily Ever After,
~Tanya