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CLOUD 9 HORSE CARE ARTICLES
BY
ANDY CURRY
If I may be so blunt... There are a lot of dumb things in
this world. I just read where
some guy tried to sell his toe nail clippings on Ebay. He said, "These clippings
were done by my teeth about an hour ago off every single toe on both my feet.
"Worse, the opening bid was..."$50.00"
It's bad enough that some guy tried to sell his toe nail
clippings. (Probably too lazy to pick 'em up and throw 'em in the trash).
But...! Someone actually bid on them?!!! Ah heck. You never know what
people are gonna do.
That's especially true in the horse world. But I guess
that's expected because unless you know what works and why, then it's easy to
come up with silly stuff. Take neck reining, for instance. There are ways to
teach a horse to do it, but I kind of like how Sam Burrell does it.
You see, a true reined horse will operate off nothing but
a neck rein cue, and you can consider it a pre-cue because whenever you teach a
horse something, you want to use a pre-cue. Then a cue. Then, if necessary, the
enforcer. There's nothing about laying the rein on the horse's neck that makes
him do anything. There's nothing compelling him to cue from it. Thus, it has to
be taught through repetition. Ahhhh...good ol' repetition. The key to getting a
horse good at something. Repetition is explaining something to a horse day after
day after day so he gets good at it. On average, it takes 300 - 400 repetitions
for a horse to learn a cue. Here's a brief synopsis of how Sam teaches neck
reining. First, start off standing still. Keep in mind that if the horse doesn't
look in the direction you're asking from the neck rein, then he won't neck rein.
They need to look where they're going to go. So as you stand there, you will do
a sequence of 3 things:
-
First lay the rein against the horse's neck. (the
pre-cue), see if he looks in the direction you're asking. If he doesn't.....,
-
Take your inside leg and brush the fur on his side. (the
cue). Hopefully the horse will look to that side where you brushed your leg.
It's sort of the equivalent of someone tapping you on the shoulder and you
looking that direction. If the horse doesn't look around,
-
Take the rein and draw their head to that side. (the
enforcer). When they look around, let it loose. So the rein on the
neck is the pre-cue. It says, "Hey...something's coming."
The pull of the rein is the enforcer. It's the obvious
message of getting the horse doing what you want.
TIMID HORSE
Often, I get questions from people about training the
timid horse. Lots of horse owners complain they have trouble training them
because the horse seems ready to jump out of his skin. Therefore, the horse will
lack the ability to do what is asked of him.
So I would say this to the owner of a timid horse.
The timid horse needs to be reassured by continual
caressing. With that kind of disposition he immediately feels your superiority
and immediately surrenders to the will of the handler and man in general.
This kind of horse is likely to become a good and faithful
horse but requires to be well treated or he will grow discouraged.
Most people DON'T know this kind of horse will suffer
through repeated punishment without a sign of resistance. But he is confused and
stupefied by it. In a way, it would be like the human asking themselves,
'Why me? Why is this happening to me? What did I do?'
Going against the prescribed treatment of this horse will
yield a problem horse.
The timely phrase 'You can catch more bears with honey
than vinegar' applies here.
Treating this horse kindly and lots of caressing and
reassuring will help this horse be a great horse.
I've seen so called 'bad horses' bought by other people
who turned them into a great horse...mostly because of kindness.
LEADING YOUR HORSE
If your horse needs help leading , do it like this. Use a
short whip or lunge whip. Hold the tail of the whip in your hand. Stay even with
the throat latch or about the center of the neck because if the horse bolts, he
is less likely to run into you. He should run past you instead. So to start,
take your horse up to a rail or a wall of the barn or whatever.
You lead him along side the rail or wall so his hind-end
can't get away from you. Now as you step off, step with the foot closest to the
horse so he can see you moving.
If he doesn't come with you, take the lunge whip and tap
him on the butt. That should get him moving forward pretty quickly. It could
startle him so be ready for that. Remember to talk to him if he startles.
Again, as I said yesterday, your horse needs to know
you're the one he can count on so he can take care of you out there on the
trail. Thus, you should give him confidence by letting him know all is okay and
that he's not in trouble. Teaching the horse to lead is also a great place to
teach whoa.
When you stop, let him know he should too. Once you whoa
the horse, go again. But stop long enough so he knows that a stop is a stop.
After a while, swap sides. Never lead a horse from just his left side.
Get his other side used to it also.
But watch out, when you teach it on the other side it
could be a rodeo. Just cuz he does it on his left side doesn't mean he'll do it
just fine on the other. The horse has two sides to his brain and they don't pass
information to each other. Each side has to get used to it. Now there's a bit
more to it, but I think you can see the importance. Plus, it's not just leading
that changes a horse's behavior - there are other techniques.
Now there's a bit more to it, but I think you can see the
importance. Plus, it's not just leading that changes a horse's behavior - there
are other techniques. Sue Robertson's DVD teaches this leading and several other
rock-solid techniques you should have in your collection of knowledge. If you
want to know more, click on the following:
SuperStarsOfHorseTraining/Robertson-Groundwork.
Oh...one other thing, leading is also a great place to
teach backing up. So if your horse doesn't back very well, check how Sue does
it.
It works great.
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