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How To Get Your
Horse
To Obey You And
Look To You For Instruction
© 2003-2004 Andy Curry – All Rights Reserved
Unauthorized duplication in any form is unlawful
In the animal kingdom there is a pecking order. Richard Shrake
points out that it’s a lot like the military. He ranks in the pecking
order go from General down to Private. The General will get first pick
of the food, decide where to go and when, and so on.
The “second in command” will act just like the General but he won’t
pick on the General because the General dominates him. This string of
command continues all the way down to the bottom of the pecking order.
Any time a new animal comes into the group then the pecking order
shifts. Knowing this information, you can use it to your advantage. You
can make yourself the leader in the horse’s eyes. He’ll look to you for
instruction. He’ll obey you.
If you have a dominant horse it will be instinct for him to let a more
dominant being make the decisions. In this case the dominant being will
be you. You will become leader by using your body language to show you
are confident. Being dominant doesn’t mean you’re being aggressive.
On the other hand, if your horse is the General, you may have to be
more assertive. Make sure your horse doesn’t think you’re a threat. It’s
easy to come across as threatening when you’re being assertive. If your
horse feels threatened he’ll fight back and you can’t win.
In the wild, dominant and aggressive horses will make their bodies
tight and make sudden moves with fury while getting into the other
horse’s space. The weaker horse will concede and move out of his space.
Think of it as the General screaming an order and the Private is
obeying.
Slow movements tend to draw one horse to another. Horses express
calmness with relaxed, slow steps. This is how they welcome other horses
in their space.
If a horse is trying to show you he’s the General you may see a
clamped-down tail with pinned ears. To get him to accept you as the
General you will move him out of his space. You do this by matching any
quick moves he makes with your own quick moves. The trick is to make the
first strike before he does.
One way to do this is with a quick arm movement towards him –
almost like you’re violently shooing away some pesky flies. Also, you
can use an aggressive tone of voice towards a horse if he’s being
aggressive.
How can you tell if he’s conceding to you? If he turns his head or
drops it, relaxes his tail, begins chewing, or takes a deep breath, then
that’s how you know. If any of these happen he’s saying, “Okay, I’ll do
what you say because I want to listen to you.” Pay attention to these
clues that tell you your horse is in the Private mode (the follower)
instead of the General mode.
When you go into the round pen to work with your horse first check
to see how he responds to you. If he rubs his head on you or swings his
rear end toward you then he’s challenging your position in the pecking
order. If you’re with a horse that’s not dominant you want to make sure
he has confidence. Thus, be very careful not to be threatening.
Jesse Beery - See our accidentally
discovered 108 year old horse training manual
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