Hobbles are when you use a short pair of handcuffs usually made of leather and you usually put them around the front legs just above the hooves. This takes a few evenings to teach but suprisingly the horses seem to learn quickly. I take it one step further and teach them also to hobble on the hind. At time I hobble both at the same time.
I find it teaches a horse to stand patiently, no shifting around and makes grooming the head easier.
Teether is when you have a long rope, say 10 plus feet long and either tie it to the halter or one back leg. Teaching a horse to teether by the halter is a long process . They have to learn not to fight the rope when it tangles around one leg and often they step on it with the head down and find themselves with a trapped head and they fight. That said it took me years to teach Strider to teether in this method but I often see ponies teethered this way.
Teaching to teether by a hind leg seems a very simple process and usually within a week a horse is comfortable wearing a hind leg teether. The local saddle shop sells padded cuffs just for this. I bought 3, 2 smaller ones that I joined together to make a hobble and one bigger one for a hind leg teether.
I chose the left hind and consistenly use only the left hind. When the horse feels the pull on the left hind he stops, takes one step back to releave the pull and turns always to his left and continues grazing in that direction.
Teethering to a single hind leg also even for hand grazing is easy since the horse doesn’t step on the rope and you usually can just sit down and forget he is there while hand grazing from a halter you are constantly watching the lead line that he doesn’t step on or over it.
I also feel a horse taught to hobble and teether if they ever get into wire will stand, they should hold because they are use to restaint.
While all this sounds hard to teach it really is simple and I spend about 10 minutes for 2 or 3 evenings preparing a horse to wear hobbles for the first time.
I have done 3 horses in the last few years and none of them fought the hobbles even the first time.
If I am to meet someone in the bush and they are late I carry a pair of hobbles in my saddle bag and just hobble him and you have a perfectly standing horse.
So to summaries to Hobble means to tie a pair of legs together and the arabs hobbled one back and one front together, I and. most here do front.
To teether means using a long rope, one that drags on the ground, one that has lots of slack in it and either ties to the halter or one hind leg.
The cuffs were $7 each and some amish use them on buggy horses that love to paw while tied.
Maybe because Sweets just doesn’t run away. I just drop her rope and she eats. I sit on the ground and eat my sandwhich, drink my soda, mount up and continue on. Maybe I’m just lucky. :lol:
