Herd Bound Problems – your buddies will live without you

Horses can become herd bound for a variety of reasons. Sometimes horses don’t feel safe when they are not with other horses, and sometimes horses feel they have to get back to the herd to protect them. Either
way, we need to teach horses that it is okay to leave the herd and that the
horse can be safe with you.

Often horses that get herd bound are very submissive – they thrive off of leadership, and because the horse has not yet realized that humans can be great and safe leaders, they look to the other horses to keep them safe.
You often see these horses getting picked on and pushed around – this is
because they actually get comfort from being pushed back into their place. The
herd boss pushing them around shows them that the herd boss knows how to
protect their personal space, and is paying attention – this means the herd
boss is more likely to protect the herd from any dangerous animals hiding
nearby.

Sometimes the horse that is herd bound develops this behaviour because the handler fails to be a great leader – common mistakes people make with their horses that can cause herd bound behaviour are:

· Letting the horse rub on you so hard that you get pushed around

· Letting the horse come into your personal space without your invitation

· Letting the horse move your feet (either by pushing on you, or coming so close as to make you uncomfortable so that you
back up or move away)

· Letting your horse change direction or speed when working with them (online or in saddle) without you asking for the change

· Letting your horse refuse to do something or go somewhere and do nothing about it – instead you just give up and hope the next
day gets better (for example if the horse refuses to walk over a pole and you
just give up and walk away – instead you could dismount and walk the horse over
from the ground, etc)

· Letting other horses touch your horse (either just touching, or biting/kicking) when you are with your horse

· Making your horse do things – using fear and intimidation with your horse to make the horse perform for you

Letting your move your feet, push on you, and take the lead can actually make your horse really nervous about your leadership skills – if you can’t even protect your own space, how are you going to protect your horse?
This causes the horse to question your ability to keep them safe, which makes
them nervous and can cause a horse to become herd bound – the horse will want
to be with the horses that make him feel safe.

Letting other horses touch your horse while working with your horse is a big no no. If you can’t even keep your horse safe from his own herd mates, how do you expect your horse to believe you can keep him safe from
a bear or tiger? We need to show our horses that we can keep them safe by
protecting both our personal space and our horse’s personal space.

Using fear and intimidation with your horse to make the horse perform for you can actually make your horse fearful of you, and as a result your horse will want to go back to his buddies where he feels safer.

The goal when working with the herd bound horse is simple: build confidence within the horse himself, build trust with the horse, and keep the horse focused.

To start, play some games with the horse – moving his front and hind end, moving sideways, circles, and lots of disengaging and getting the horse to ask you questions. The purpose of this is to show the horse that you
know how to move his feet (which makes you the leader), it teaches the horse
our language (the language of moving from pressure), and to give the horse a
focus and something to do in the hopes he will focus on what you are asking.

If you don’t give the horse something to do, then it is very difficult to keep the horse’s attention – for example if you just lunge the horse or lead the horse around, then that is boring and easy for the horse to
keep looking to his herd mates, but if you ask the horse to move his feet in
patterns and to look at you for new tasks, then you are giving the horse a
reason to pay attention to you. You are shifting the horse’s focus.

Then it’s time for the horse to do some confidence building on their own. Put the horse out in a paddock by himself. If the horse is really stressed and running about you may need to put another horse in with him – but
choose a horse that will be a calm influence, and a horse that your herd bound
horse isn’t attached too.

It is normal for the herd bound horse to run around a little bit because they will be anxious and nervous. You want to make sure your fencing is safe and secure, that your horse can still see other horses so there is some
comfort, and that the day is cool – you want to make sure your horse is not at
risk for over heating and getting heat stress from running.

Allow your horse to spend a week or two in the paddock alone or with the buddy – if you needed to use the buddy to wean your horse off of the herd, then after a week or two remove the buddy from the paddock and then
give your horse a week or two by himself.

You will know your horse has gained confidence when the horse is comfortable at all times in the paddock by himself. This usually takes a maximum of 2 weeks by himself.

While your horse is on individual turnout, spend a lot of time with the horse – grooming him, leading him around the barn, and just doing little tasks with him. You can even just sit out in the paddock with the horse
and do nothing (this is called non-demanding time). This will help to build a
relationship and trust with you. The horse will start to look forward to seeing
humans because it means playtime and bonding time.

One of things we understand with horses is that they gain confidence in new situations when they can safely leave and re-approach.

One of the strategies you can use to help build trust and confidence with the horse is to practice approach, wait, retreat, and revisit with the horse. Follow these steps:

1)Lead the horse to an area where the horse is away from other horses and complete one task (for example ask him to back up or yield his hindquarters, etc)

2)Leave the arena and return to the area where the horse can see the other horses,

3)Then enter the indoor ring again (or an area where the horse can’t see any horses).

You want to repeat these steps many times – enter and exit different areas several times in a single training session… if you are doing a 30 minute training session you may be able to enter
and exit about 20-40 times.

By the end of the session the horse should be calm and relaxed – once the horse is calm, no longer calling to buddies, and no longer exit seeking, that is a good time to end the training session – you
wouldn’t want to continue the training session so long that the horse gets
bored and starts to exit seek again out of boredom.

Generally keeping training sessions between 20 minutes – 1 hr is a good length of time depending on the mental and physical fitness of the horse.

Remember your focus with these sessions is to show the horse that you can spend positive time together – while you keep the horse safe. Your goal is not to teach the horse new tasks, or
perfect different patterns or turns… keep yourself set up for success. Stay
safe, stay positive, approach/retreat, and give your horse a focus.

First establish trust – then start training.

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