Have you ever had (or dealt with) a horse that pins its ears and tries to bite as you are leading it?

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Permalink Reply by Kaitlyn Blackmer on November 15, 2010 at 1:07pm

I am training a 2.5 year old Arabian mare and she does this all the time because she hates having anything on her face. I did some join-up with her until she finally decided to listen. If you don't know what join-up is... It is basically taking your horse into a round pen and chasing them away from you with a rope... Make sure they are always at a run and change directions every 10 minutes or so.... You will know your horse is ready to listen when they show on of three signs of submission.... 1. Suddenly stopping and facing you 2. Chewing 3. One ear is always pointed toward you... When your horse shows you one of these signs, turn your back to them... They should walk-up to you and either nudge you on the back or put there head over your shoulder... At this point you need to give them a treat and a little rest... Then walk away... They should follow...If they don't you need to run them some more...
It is important to have lots of time to do this, you should not be rushing it... If it has been a long time and your horses is exhausted and sweat, but still hasn't given in .... Give them a rest and try again later in the day or the next day...
Also, if you don't have a round pen available to you... you can use a riding arena... You just need to take some boards or sheets of wood and block off the corners, so that your horse cannot corner himself and make it hard for you to chase him/her...
Hope this helps!!! If you need more information you can just google it or watch a video of it on youtube....

****** One important thing to know!!! YOU SHOULD NEVER HIT YOUR HORSE DURING THIS EXERCISE!! IT IS A NONE VIOLENT METHOD OF TRAINING, AND YOU WILL LOSE YOUR HORSES RESPECT IF YOU HIT THEM!!

:D

Permalink Reply by Kirsten Aurbo on November 16, 2010 at 12:50pm

I have had this happen to me once. In this situation, it was a pony that was one of three that were set up to give pony rides. When not giving a ride the ponies were grazing. This pony was grazing and I took up the lead rope to take the pony to give a child a ride. This is when the pony put her ears back and bit me on the arm quickly pulling her head back as if she expected me to hit her back. My belief is that she was trying this as a ploy so that she would take the punishment for this bite with the hope that I would put her back to grazing and take a different pony. This way she would get to keep grazing. What I did was simply put her in a place where she couldn't graze for a longer period of time than it would have taken her to give the ride and take another pony to do the ride. This was to make it so that her ploy failed, she had bad results and wouldn't try this again. She didn't try this again for the rest of the season,
As to the comment about join up, I have seen this done successfully a few times. The idea behind this is that this is a conversation with the horse. It was a technique Monty Roberts came up with after watching wild mustangs interact with each other in the wild. He learned that it is the dominant mare of the herd that is responsible for maintaining discipline. Less dominant horses of the herd, usually young colts, would be disciplined by being sent away from the herd. This is why the person who is attempting join up with a horse is to stand in the middle of the round pen and stand with shoulders square, look the horse directly in the eye, and send the horse away. In the wild, the head mare would invite the misbehaving youngster back into the herd when it has agreed to once again follow the rules and accept leadership. This is why, during join up, the person will invite the horse to accept his/her leadership and follow him/her by discontinuing the aggressive moves of looking the horse in the eye and facing it with shoulders square to instead dip a shoulder towards it and turn away in invitation after the horse shows that it is willing to accept leadership by; turning his ear to give his attention, making the circle smaller, licking and chewing, and dropping its head. Join up is supposed to be about communication - using the language of the horse to ask the horse to accept your leadership and choose to be with you, not running your horse into the ground until your horse submits to your authority.

Permalink Reply by Dawn Richardson on November 21, 2010 at 6:45am

I am currently working with a 6 yr old Quarter horse mare who was very agressive when she first came to me. Biting was her prefered method of intimidation.. and she did exactly that which you have described.. Firstly always carry a stick resting on your shoulder and be totally focused on where the horse is in regard to your bubble i.e. the space you require for safety..when the horse gets into your space, spin around to face it very quickly and using the lead rope and stick make it back away from you by shaking the rope fiercely and banging the stick on the ground towards it's front feet. The aim is to make the horse move its' feet and move them quickly away from you. Do not move your feet after turning around.. the horse must move his.. when it is at a distance away from you invite it to come towards you a couple of feet.. If it does this with out any malice ( teeth out, ears back).. then reward it by going into its space and give it a scratch.. The idea here is "I can come into your bubble but you can not come into mine unless asked"... turn around with the stick over your shoulder and lead off again.. the horse should stay behind you at a respectful distance (at least the length of the stick over your shoulder).. if it runs into the stick then it will think Oh! I'd better keep out of the way of that.. but if it tries to barge through and bite again repeat the above process until it gets the message that biting will not be tolerated and it will be sent away (banished) each time it trangresses... Rope halters and a heavy rope long line (at least 4mtrs) is best for this exercise. It works every time even with horses that rear up and strike.... but you must stay focused and if you think the horse is too dangerous get a mate to spot for you until you get a handle on it.. All the best you can turn this situation around the horse is just being disrespectful and you need to teach it that you are Alpha not it...