Seven Tips To Eliminate Bad Horse Behavior

Bad Horse Behavior or Not?

More often than not you will hear about bad horse behavior. Some examples? A horse crowds your space. Or maybe an aggressive horse chases someone around a pasture. Other bad horse behaviors include kicking, biting, bucking or reading. Or maybe it won’t canter when you ask. While all of these issues sound different-they can all be traced right back to one and the same cause-the horse doesn’t respect you as his leader.

When an aggressive horse is acting like the leader of the herd, the owner calls this bad horse behavior and feels like he needs to correct it. In truth, its the human who has the issue-they have not established themselves as the leader for their horse. So what we need to do as horse owners is take a step back and learn how horses think. Then apply our new knowledge to make ourselves the alpha mare or stallion of the herd, rather than letting our horses fill that role. Where to begin? In this article I’m going to mention 7 easy to apply exercises that will help you become a leader for your horse.

1. No more treats for your horses while working

When you are working your horse, do not give him any treats. Period. Giving treats to a prey animal does not reinforce good behavior the way we think it does. Instead, it makes the horse think of you as a cookie factory. This in turn makes the horse want to take advantage of you. So throw away the treats-during training. Give your horse a treat after you’ve been working with him and you’re finished.

2. Do not use treats to catch your horse

All too often horse people want to just grab their horse and go ride. But the truth is you’re establishing the bounds of your relationship with your horse the second you walk out to the pasture to get him. Your horse is sizing up your body posture, how you walk, and if you can be intimidated. That is he is seeing who is the leader in this relationship! You cannot bond successfully with a horse that you have to bribe to come into you. Instead of wagging carrots at your horse hoping he will come over, learn to catch your horse using body language horses already know.

3. Learn to Lead Your Horse

Where is your horse when you’re leading him? Is he in front of you or creeping up on you? If so you aren’t leading properly. He is going where he wants to and not really minding you. Take some time to study proper leading of horses. Just by doing some simple leading exercises, you will find your relationship with your horse improves drastically.

4. Do Hook-On in the Round Pen

Longeing your horse in the round pen at liberty so that he joins-up or hooks-on with you is a great way to establish yourself as the leader of your horse.

5. Get (and keep) the Attention of your Horse

If your horse is not focusing two eyes on you, then he is not paying full attention to you. He is looking off with the other eye for threats or maybe things more interesting than you are. To become a leader for your horse, you need to have both eyes.

6. Do backup exercises

The alpha mare or stallion in a herd gets the other horses to move out of the way. We can use this fact to communicate with our horses just by moving them around. A great way to do this is using backing up as a regular part of our groundwork routine. Backup exercises are an excellent way to get a horses attention when he is behaving badly.

7. Look for Precision

When you are communicating effectively with your horse, take things to a new level by looking for precise backups. Instead of asking your horse to back up 10 feet, ask him to backup just a hair. Start with 2 steps and then ask him to stop with a “whoa”. When you have that down, ask him to backup a single step. Progress from that so that you can get your horse to shift his muscles backwards without even taking a step. When you establish that kind of precise control with your horse, you are not only communicating with him effectively but also establishing leadership. A horse you can control precisely on the ground is a better riding horse.

That concludes our look at 7 tricks to eliminate bad horse behavior. If your horse is being an aggressive horse in any way, apply these 7 steps and build the foundation you need for a successful horse-human relationship.

These horse training ground tips and stories come from Eric Bravo and his horse trainers who offer natural horsemanship training at Gentle Horse Training. He has a set Of 7 Horse Training Videos That Teach You How To Train Horses Yourself Using Natural Horsemanship Techniques.

Learn More All About Horses Here:

• Learn Horse Training Breaking Secrets. Five Horseback Riding Video Lessons Teach Natural Riding Without Bouncing, Safely Controlling Your Horse And Riding Bareback And Bridleless.
• Learn To Grow Gorgeous Horses! Now You Too Can Grow Long, Thick, Luxurious Horse Manes and Tails and Make Any Horse Stunningly Gorgeous Amazingly Fast!

• The Ultimate Guide To Pampering Your Horse provides a gold mine of ideas and inspiration. "For grooming, bathing, and hoof-care suggestions to homemade treats, toys, parties, games (and even costumes!) You'll find step-by-step directions for guaranteed horse-pleasers such as: Slop and Slurp Delight, Homemade Bug-Be-Gone, Edible Christmas Wreath, Mad Hatter Birthday Party and much more.

• The Original Book of Horse Treats offers fun treat for horses. Recipes you can make at home for your Horse. Stuffed molasse apples, birthday cones, soups snacks, desserts and much more fun horsey food! All tried and true at the barn! Also includes a section on bran mashes, hoof oil, fly spray, and electrolytes!

Dealing With An Aggressive Horse Behavior

I’ve noticed that a lot of people have problems dealing with an aggressive horse or a dominant horse. Often, because people don’t really understand horse behavior, they aren’t sure what’s going on. This problem arises because of the predator-prey difference in our relationship with horses. Being prey animals, horse behavior can be hard for us to truthfully understand at times.

One way to get a handle on aggressive horse behavior is to go out into a pasture where there are several horses and just watch them. Find out who the dominant horse is. Something you’ll probably notice is that a dominant horse moves the other horses around. Sometimes, a dominant horse will make a more submissive horse move out of the way just to show whose boss. He might do this by motioning to bite or kick at the more submissive horse, or even actually doing it. Its hard to believe for some people who are new to horse life, but horses can be very aggressive and mean with each other.

At other times, the dominant horse moves other horses out of the way for a practical purpose, while also showing that he is boss. For instance, if there is a large hay stack, he might make a horse move out of the way so he can eat. If horses in a pasture are fed in bowls with grain, the dominant horse will eat first and make the other horses move off so she can do it.

In the wild, the dominant aggessive horse will decide when and where the herd will go. Once again, this involves getting the horses to move. They do this with body language.

Getting insight into this can help humans who own their own aggressive horse to deal with aggressive horse behavior that arises from dominance issues. One of the first things we need to teach our horses is never to invade our space. All too often, people let their horses pester them by invading their space, maybe the horse appears to be looking for treats or something. People think its cute, but the horse might actually be testing you to see where you stand in the hierarchy.

To deal with dominant aggressive horses, we can act to turn negative situations into positive situations. One way to do this is start moving an aggressive horse behavior around instead of letting her move you around.

Lets say that you are going out into the pasture where you have an aggressive horse. Give yourself a leg up and add some confidence by always taking a tool with you. This can be a crop or a lead rope, just something you can use to make yourself look bigger and put some pressure on a horse with.

If a horse comes at you, take the end of the lead rope and whip it around like a helicopter blade. Don’t be afraid to smack the nose of an aggressive horse with the end of your lead rope. This can be really helpful. I know I used to be intimidated by aggressive horses, and being able to swing a lead rope or whip in the air was really helpful in giving me the confidence I needed to keep a horse from chasing me out of a field.

Something else you can use is kick dirt at the aggressive horse and make a hissing sound like a snake or just say “psssst” as you do it. When an aggressive horse behavior comes at you or won’t move off, assume a confident stance with your body language. Then look down at the ground toward your right foot, and kick some dirt toward the horse. While you are doing this make the “ssss” sound (think snake). This is pretty effective at getting horses to move off. And remember horses will have a tendency to yield to you, even if they are aggressive or dominant-provided that you show them you are not intimidated.

Step two is to start doing some groundwork with this horse to let the horse know YOU are in charge and the mare IS NOT. To do this, you need to start using your body language to communicate to the mare in horse language, which means body language, that you are in charge. Can you catch this mare? If so catch her and put a lead rope on and perform these simple leading exercises:

Leading Exercises

The idea of this exercise is to lead your horse using body language that communicates leadership and teaches the horse to respect you. I know we all want to bond with our horses, but you cannot really bond completely until the horse respects you. Its just like human friends. Can you really be friends with someone you don’t respect? Your horse needs to respect you.

A good exercise is to start every day with a groundwork session that begins with the hook-on:

Horse Hook-On in the Round Pen

That will go a long way to teaching your horse to respect you as a leader and make your horse easier to catch (if that is an issue with you).

Now, a great way to deal with a dominant aggressive horse is to give them more than their share of backup exercises. Horses do not like to back up because of instinct. They are prey animals, and even though they are domesticated and live in more or less safe environments, their instincts have them on the look out for lions and tigers all the time. So walking backwards where they can’t see makes them uncomfortable as a general rule. But the alpha mare can certainly ask them to backup. So assume the role of alpha mare and put a lead rope on your horse and ask her to backup. If she doesn’t listen shake the rope aggressively. Spend 20 minutes a day doing this until her behavior improves. Its easy for you do do and produces results.

Also, take some time out to do other exercises that just involve moving the horse around. Remember as I said the dominant horse gets other horses to move off. So you do that to your mare. Make her move her forehand left, then right. Then ask her to disengage her hindquarters. Then repeat. This is all tedious, but it will get your horse to respect you so that she will not chase you out of the field. A horse that chases you around like that does NOT respect you. And would you want to ride that horse? Probably not a safe idea.

Learn More All About Horses Here:

• Learn Horse Training Breaking Secrets. Five Horseback Riding Video Lessons Teach Natural Riding Without Bouncing, Safely Controlling Your Horse And Riding Bareback And Bridleless.
• Learn To Grow Gorgeous Horses! Now You Too Can Grow Long, Thick, Luxurious Horse Manes and Tails and Make Any Horse Stunningly Gorgeous Amazingly Fast!