How to Reach a Horse That Shuts Down.

My horse Dezzi is wonderful to ride.. until she doesn't understand what your asking her to do. Most horses would get worked up or buck, bolt, rear etc. but Dez just shuts down. Its like as soon as she gets scared or doesn't understand something, she goes into her own little world. None of the horses i have trained in the past have done anything like this, so I am struggling to reach her. If anyone has any tips on how to get her to respond once she shuts down, that would be great!

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Permalink Reply by splash on January 11, 2010 at 11:32pm

I worked with a young (coming on three) gelding that had that response. Frankly I found it creepy. A clinician I worked with at the time agreed with previous posts. It was not something that could be ignored. She was certain if I couldn't find a way to break through to the horse he could be potentially dangerous. Simply because he was internalizing all pressure and he might eventually have "enough" and blow up.

Her advice at the time was to move him, make his feet move, get his head back into the game.

I stopped working with him shortly after that clinic so I can't tell you the outcome. I can tell you he was orginally an agressive gelding that required a LOT of "pressure" to stay out of my space. When pressed as much as I'd press any regular horse he'd often "shut down". He was physically there but not mentally. He'd just check out.

I do have to say though I never continued working with him (just personal circumstances) I had to agree with the clinician. If I couldn't find a way to keep him engaged I was looking at a volcano.

No trauma in his history AT ALL just a personality I hadn't encountered before.

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Permalink Reply by Shirley on January 12, 2010 at 12:35am

I guess I should have added this. Linda Parelli's horse did eventually stop this catatonic behavior but she used alot of patience with it and she had lots of good advice for assistance. Linda did think at least part of the problem was that the horse had been heavily trained in dressage for a full year with lots of lungeing with his head tied down and that sort of thing. I assume by their training methods she did not stay on when the horse went into this mode. She warned about it being a serious situation when a horse goes inside like this cause it can easily become very explosive.
Sometimes you just never know what happened to a horse to cause this type of behavior. Possibly nothing happened but this horse did get thru it to become a magnificent horse. Doesn't sound like a good situation for an amateur to try to tackle.
Best wishes to anyone that has an emotional or financial (or both) investment in a complicated horse like this.