I just had to add that he is a very lucky horse. I’m sure he won’t have to go to a slaughter house because of his nipping - sounds like it is a boredom thing and you will soon have it under control. I have a colt and I have just always blocked him with my arm so that he couldn’t nip and carried on what I was doing so that he could never actually bite and now he never thinks about it anymore. He could never actually grab anything. Get yourself a nice long lead rope for his halter (12 foot is good) so that he can roll without your husband getting hurt. Go and have your lessons and learn as much as you can. He is going to have a great life with you. Good luck. Oh and if you have 4 dogs, you will manage just fine with your new horse as you obviously have a good feeling with animals.
He’s cute!
Important horse care tip:
Don’t let him step on your foot. 
Make a loop of elastic that fits around your hand. Put flat back thumbtack sticking out on back of hand. You can work, groom, everything and it doesn’t get in your way.
If your horse even puts lips on you, quickly- must be within 3 seconds- poke him on the nose with the thumbtack. It’s so short, on a horse that big will be like a fly bite.
If your timing is correct, you may only need it a few times.
Don’t ever let that horse know how big he is. You must ACT bigger than him.
He must not play with you. He must be respectful of your personal space.
Katy
Second the whiskers
I’ve raised some mouthy youngsters and they will play a game and try to get their mouth on everything in reach! Very playful, like your big boy. What I find works is that if they are lipping my hand or the rope near my hand, I simply close my fingers tightly around their whiskers (only one or two whiskers at a time) and let them pull away from me. They quickly associate having their lips to close to my hand with the unpleasantness of having their whiskers pulled out!. The trick is not to go after the horse, let the horse punish himself for getting too close to you.
I also keep my elbow pointed in the direction of the horses head when grooming so if he swings his head around he whacks himself, which he will soon learn NOT to swing his head at you while grooming 
Same theory, you are not going after your horse, he is learning not to come after you.
And one of the more obvious answers to the mouthy horse is not to be in their reach. If I have a horse who will misbehave terribly while the farrier is working on feet, for example, I find that if I tie him and stand out of reach, he behaves much better! If your horse ties, I would definitly tie him for grooming and take away his temptation. If he lips the rope or post I just ignore it while they are tied, if they are otherwise standing still.
Good luck! He sounds like he is already very attached to your husband, and definitly worth all your hard work. Maybe you will like him so much you decide to get a second horse to keep him company!
I know this sounds strange but we have used big dog chew toys to hang in the stall, actually a rawhide knuckle bone. The horse would not eat it but would chew and toss it around. Also, a plastic milk bottle with some stones inside to play with. If the rattling sound of the stones becomes irritating you can just let them play with the milk bottle. I am glad you have come on to COTH, welcome, and thank you for introducing us to your Latvian boy. What is his name, might I ask?
Everything you are doing so far sounds very good.
There are plenty of inside things you can do with your horse to build up his respect for you and keep his mind active without riding him.
We do something called carrot stretches with my horse, you take a small bite of any treat and (with your horse wearing a halter) let him stretch his neck to get the treat, usually sideways towards his hips. He can’t move of his feet or he “loses” the game. You can stretch up and back, down and back, curled up towards his chest, down to the floor etc. Make sure to go slowly, leading his nose around with the food. You’ll be amazed at how far he can stretch! Also be sure to stretch in both directions equally.
Come on COTH’rs, other easy stall and barn games to imrpove the relationship?
Hi again.
I’m so happy that I had found you (one person on germanshepherds board told me about this forum), and I’m really thankful for all your advices and help. Cope with me, please, I feel such an idiot!
The horse name is Puika (in Latvian it means just Boy, nothing exciting).
About bridle: I presume, many horses in this country walk on halters only, but this one… We already got him nice halter instead of that ugly bridle, but to keep him under control in halter… So far we lost so now only bridle - he got new nice leather bridle, and if we shall be able to handle him, he will get one specially made for his head… I presume hisprevious owners had some experience and reasons walking him on bridle only.
Today Puika missed his walk as after yesterday, when he accidentally grabbed husband’s thumb, Peter didn’t feel strong enough to take him for a walk and train at the same time - it is really hard to handle this large boy on slippery mud (he digs in, and you just slide on road, and it would be not right just now to show your weak side).
The other thing - my second son who already is in wheelchair, was rushed to the hospital for gallbladder removal (he has large stone there and gallblader is very inflamed), so I didn’t feel that today is the right day for the horse, I just can not concentrate on horse, waiting for the reports from the hospital.
Puika was brushed, got few smacks in the box for trying to bite and then spent afternoon outside while we were rushing around trying to sort out my human baby.
But the good news - I’m starting to get used to him and I FEEL that soon I will be able not to fear him. and somehow he starts to respect me or he just likes me - I do not know, he was always a male horse, but Peter says that he is less naughty with me than with him.
I can not use my elbow sadly as 2 years ago I fell over on the concrete, broke few ribs and damaged elbow and knee a bit. There is a loose chip in the elbow now, so in one position I can use my elbow as a weapon, but in other I will scream in pain It must be removed, but not just now.
Today we tried to get a crop with a metal top , but all awailable ones had plastic tops, just looking like metal - it would be just one bite for our boy and he can swallow a bit of plastic - it would be really bad. So we probably will make our own crop with a safe metal cover on the top so when he tries to bite, instead of sleeve he will bite the metal (and he does not like to to get metal in his teath).
We have one olld, worn out metal scrub that we use as protection while brushing him. When he tries to get the sleeve, he gets this scub and nip it. He does not like this at all so it helps.
All wooden bords in his box have very soft round tops as he is "eating " them off, so in new box we probably will cover top of each board with a metal to stop him eating the barn
Sorry this was not a succesful day so I do not have any archievements to report about, but at least I feel much more confident with him.
I personally would NOT involve treats with a horse this size that has “personal space” issues and a relatively novice owner. I think that praise and pats should be enough, along with the deterrant methods mentioned here. JMHO, but treats + pushy, big horse + novice owner = bad bite and possibly stepping on issues.
I’m not an NH (Natural Horsemanship) devotee, but you might benefit from getting a good rope halter (someone will need to show you how to fit it), and work with just leading, backing, head down, circling etc on the lead. The rope halter works on the pressure points on his head (again, if fitted properly), and there are a lot of excercises that you can do to get him to listen with lighter and lighter pressure or “cues”. Even if you just use the leather halter or the bridle in the pictures (which I don’t really recommend - we normally use a halter to lead), you should be able to get his attention and get him to focus on what you are asking.
Can you have someone come over and give you some lesson on leading and possibly longing him? I think he would benefit from a lot of groundwork at this point, and so would you. You can keep it interested by doing different shapes, adding cones and tarps and other “scary” but interesting obstacles (like walking him over a tarp or plywood etc). Basically an in-hand trail lesson. It would help with the boredom and allow you to bond and get his respect.
Again, I agree that your dog experience should carry over a bit - horses are just less demostrative/emotional in their responses (most of the time), and require more repetition.
Good luck!
I have to agree with Witherbe about the treats. My mannerly Percheron turns into a pushy brat when she even smells a carrot. No hand feeding for me. Also her mouth is huge so she almost takes my whole hand in her mouth. Your horse seems to love the attention he’s getting so much that praise and rubs should be a wonderful treat for him.
Glad you’re feeling more confident. That alone is a big achievement.
Hope your son feels better soon. Best of luck.
What a gorgeous boy!
I don’t really have a lot more info to add on the biting, but I’m wondering if you are able to turn him out in a big field at all? I know you mentioned that it’s winter, but I bet he would love some turnout, as you keep referencing him being in a stall for so long. I bet some turnout would help him not be so fresh when you walk him and may help with the nippiness too.
Two of my friends from our dog board with experience with horses arrived to help me and they admited that except this nipping, he is very promising boy and he will be ok as he is a sweetie. They handled him quite well, and showed me things like how to put bridle and halter on, how to walk him and so on. Just few basic things. but even that helped.
At spring horse will have all our space - about 90 acres of pasture land (we are planning to buy an electric fence so he can be moved from one bit to another), and out of that 12 acres had been preciously moved 2X per week for past 5 years so there is beautiful soft grass now. But I must work out all this feeding thing as I do not want to run in trouble with that as well.
The trouble is that in 7 days already he got into a routine - a brush, out of the barn in the field on chain (he has been used to that as I wrote before, and an hour outside already calms him down a bit), then a walk with Peter. So now we are trying to change the things - out on chain, brush outside, and back without a walk, and then half hour later out of the box for a walk.
I do not know is it right, but we want him to do thing at our time, not when he thinks that it is the right time.
If he will like, he will get one pond, suitable for swimming - quite cold water there (an underground spring is filling the pond there), a lot of fish, but cows goes there to drink, and horse is used to that pond, so he must feel comfortable there.
We also have our own forest and a abandoned tractor track there, so we take down horse there - dogs enjoy to run there, and horse feels great there as well. Road is bad, so he must step over different things like a pile of gravel on top of branches in the lower bits, then go through forest and old apple garden, and things like that - it is some mental stimulation for him already.
There is also a concrete bridge - absolutely safe, so next time there we shall try to get him walk that bit - he always stops and curiously checks things out there.
Then on the other side is old abandoned farm and the small river - when all ice will be gone, it will be new walk for him there - the river is too small for him to swim there, but water is perfectly clean, so he might enjoy some splash there and another route for a nice walk. (all these places are away from public roads - these are inside farm roads, so occasional tractor can be seen only, and horse is not frightened even fast going cars, and very used to tractors).
He got handfed treats all his life for letting braidle on and other “being good” things, and he nips it from your hand, so we already decided from the beginning that no handfeeding at all. I’m pleased that you reccomend the same… so we dit at least that right.
We tried him on halter but he is too strong to control him without a bite just because of this biting issue. He responds to light bridle directions, but with halter just wants to play and it is harder to stop him then. So until he will learn some respect and I will build up my confidence and knowledge, he will be on bridle.
Todays report:
We were th and get from the shop a bit of plumbing pipe, 15 mm diameter and a bolt on top.
Here is our creation (we named it CrewCrop ):
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v732/barryz15/PICT2273.jpg)
It works miracles - he tried to bite it and did not liked at all, and now when we were doing the morning brush, each bite was easy stopped just with very light poke with it (poke is as light as I can take on any part of my body without any pain, I can poke cat or dog like that and they would not mind it at all)
Horse’s mouth is so sensitive, so this light poke near his mouth is enough to get him turn his head away and then he gets praising and a lot of nice strokes!
Wow! I feel much more optimistic now!
PS. This is a crop not to hit the horse in any way, just to keep his teeth away from us.
People! I’m so happy today! This new crops works wonders so today I (yes, by myself) put the bridle on him (imagine, absolutely first time in my life!!!)! On the second attempt - so it was only 2 minutes to put it on! And then I walked him by myself a bit as well -WOW! Now he is so easy! Just show him the crop and he is complete ANGEL. I made him walk, front, then step back, turn… ME! An idiot! And he did it all! Can you believe this?
I know, it sounds ridiculous, but now I’m so HAAAAPY! I feel that we shall be able to take proper care of him! I really do!
It sounds like you are doing really well with the horse. I would try to be sure he gets plenty of time turned out each day. It is hard to tell from your posts how much time he is out of the stall. Most horses are much more manageable if they are out in a field at least 12 hours per day. They don’t get cold unless they get wet or can’t find shelter from a strong wind. Make sure he has water when he is outside. Your ponds may be frozen and you don’t want him to fall through the ice while looking for water. In the US, we often use electric water buckets and trough heaters to keep our horses’ water from freezing.
Good luck with him. He is a beautiful horse.
Congratulations Anna!
He is very beautiful and it sounds like with the regular attention you are giving him and some discipline he will soon be doing very well with his manners. Since he is responding so quickly to improve his manners it sounds like he is very accepting of training and I bet you’ll all be having lots of fun together very soon!
I think your crop you made is great. It is probably better than a store bought horse crop for your needs because it is completely stiff and won’t bend when he needs a little poke.
It sounds like you are making great progress. Good idea not to feed him treats by hand.
He was very lucky to find you and your family. You guys will have a lot of fun in the future.
The pastures he will get to go into in spring sound like paradise for a horse. And all the walks and activities you have planned sound very good too.
Is he trained to be ridden or just to drive?
I have enjoyed reading about your experiences with your new horse… please keep us updated!
Anna, I must say I’m very impressed with your horse sense. Many people who have been around horses for years would be in good shape if they half your common sense :winkgrin:
He’s a lovely looking horse, and I think you are going to have a lot of fun in the future with him.
Are you planning to start taking riding lessons? I think you should…you sound like you are cut out for this life
As for him chewing the wood in his stall, try taking a bar of ordinary soap and running it along the top edge of the wood so it leaves a residue, it should stop him. It works great with my morgan, and he was a beaver in a previous life
Alison
Thank you! I just must to get more and more confidence, but today… How he responded! The most happy sight was when Peter asked him to trot with him (not pulled lead, just happy voice “let’s go for a trot!”) - so lead is loose, about 2 metres hanging freely, and there is Peter and horse happy troting along with him like well trained dog! It was great!
Peter says that if one day we shall be able to ride him, he will be great to try dressage (by the way how he responds to lightest touch). He already did this half trot with Peter to keep the right pace…
We do not know for sure about riding. The Gipsy, who sold him 10 years ago told that he was used as a riding horse as well, but then past 10 years he was just driving cart (just sometimes). So when his basic manners will be OK, we shall try the blanket, then 2 bags, slowly, and then we shall see how he will react. If he will be keen, we shall try… But I’m not thinking about it right now. I’m happy that we had the first day without nipping! And my first attempt to control the horse, and that’s it. A small archevement of the day, but so BIG for me!
Is it ok here by rules to put links for his pictures?
[QUOTE=Calena;2987136]
I agree that is one drafty looking warmblood! Cute as a very big button :).
I’m glad to hear you’ve signed up for some help. That would be my first piece of advice. Regarding the biting, there are two methods that work for me.
First, remember that your bony elbow can hurt when teeth run into it. Keep elbow prepared at all times and let him run into it if he swings toward you. This might not be the best way of dealing with a biter, but it has the advantage that your elbow is always there for you.
Second (I hope I can describe this correctly), when working from the ground, use a lead with a chain shank. Place the rope on the opposite side of the horse from where you are standing and drape it over the horse’s back so that you can hold it from the side you are on. If the horse swings towards you, grab the rope and yank! You’ll effectively pull his head away from you and discipline him with the shank at the same time. It doesn’t take long for the horse to think twice about swinging in your direction.
And as in anything horse - consistency, consistency, consistency.
Congratulations on your acquisition. I hope all goes well for you.[/QUOTE]
I would agree with everyones solution but this, the chain over his nose or under his jaw. The reason being is you can severely hurt the horse, even if it is unintentionally if you don’t know how to use a stud chain and he happens to startle or spook or anything else. Before you EVER tell a new owner this, try other things first, this should be only done by someone who knows what they are doing.
When I worked at an Arabian farm, we had a stallion who use to bite when you walked by or when he was irritated, or just because he could. He too was spoiled, so we used the sharp object when he would go to bite and let him run into it. I carried a horse shoe nail, and it did cure him of a lot of the biting.
Good luck and he is certainly very impressive!
I think it’s wise to go slow with him.
If you ever do get to riding him , I would have a trainer involved for sure
It’s fine to post links to his pictures here. LOVE seeing them!
Today
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[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v732/barryz15/Horse/PICT2281.jpg)
Enjoying sun after a roll (people, how you keep them clean at least for half hour so I can make a Picture of a CLEAN horse?)
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v732/barryz15/Horse/PICT2290.jpg)
Showing the crop and praising for not biting it
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v732/barryz15/Horse/PICT2284.jpg)
Learning
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v732/barryz15/Horse/PICT2275.jpg)
