I 100% think this is this horse as well. He’s smart and he doesn’t always see the point in compliance.
Tonight he didn’t want to go back outside after eating his dinner so he tried the “hide my face in the back of the stall” trick. So I had to get after him for the swinging butt to face me aspect of it, which I did feel slightly badly about since I know it wasn’t his intention but still…no.
He’s just ill-mannered. No one ever taught him any better.
Actually from your post he doesn’t sound ill mannered just misunderstood.
As a halter horse he’s probably used to staying in a night, and if he’s lower on the totem pole and getting picked on, why would he want to go in the that pasture.
He’s trying to communicate with you.
I realize that he is trying to communicate with me. However, he needs to go outside. That’s non-negotiable for his future health and soundness.
All of my horses communicate freely and that’s fine, but I wouldn’t let my kids eat only candy despite their need for nutrition either. The ill-mannered part of it is that he chose to swing his butt at me.
He also doesn’t want to get on the trailer, get done by the farrier or vet, nor lead where he’s supposed to be led.
I can add some additional color, which may aid in the understanding.
Said horse was allowed to get away with murder for the last few years. All along the way, he was pitied for having a “horrible start” as well as a few other things that I will not share.
If he didn’t want to go on the trailer, he was not made to (except tranquilized). If he didn’t want to come inside or go outside or do anything at all, he was bribed with carrots. He does not do shots, feet, baths, fly spray, cross ties, wash racks, or anything that helps him live in the human world particularly well. He has run over people, bolted away from people, and generally been allowed to run amok.
So, this is a tough education. The time to fix all of this was really when he was a much younger horse, but here we are.
I understand him well and I understand that he has preferences, we all do, but sadly if he is going to live in the human world, he is going to have to get with the program. It would be much easier for me to allow him to continue to get away with murder, but he was about to be euthanized for these issues, so he now doesn’t get to make decisions. I’ll treat him kindly, and feed him well, but he’s going to have to get with the program.
I’m not asking him to jump a 5’ fence or perform a certain way. These are all just things for his health and well-being.
And I’m sorry if I sound emotional about it, but it makes me irrationally angry (not at the horse, at mankind) when I have to correct a behavior brought on by ruinous empathy. I’ve seen so many people get hurt and so many horses passed from hand to hand because no one wanted to do the difficult work of correcting it.
Then I wish you all the best on making him a solid citizen.
As others have said, carry a long dressage whip for a few weeks.
Then when he is no longer doing the behavior at all, hide the whip in your pants and up your back. Yes, you will look like an idiot. If he acts good without you using the whip, hooray! But if he decides to be rude, you have that hidden whip you can pull out. I’d do this for a few days and as long as he’s good, the behavior is cured.
Also though, make sure he knows how to tie without pulling back. A lot of times the two behaviors are related, but not always.
Just put him on a blocker ring for the tying, just in case.
I can’t believe that people think a horse has an option whether or not to go back out in their paddock after evening feed. This is not a child. He does not get to say no to a request like “turn and let me put the halter on.”
OP, you’re doing fine by him. He is saying “no” because that has worked for him a lot in the past. He will learn quickly that “no” has a consequence, and that he has to do what he doesn’t want to do. I bet (with consistency), in a month or less he will be a whole new horse, one that might actually have a chance out there in the wooly wild world.
What exactly has the vet done? A bute test isn’t sufficient.
X rays of the spine neck and teeth?
Scoped for ulcers?
Can you please elaborate, sometimes posters think a vet visit a year is being checked over. So please don’t take offence but majority of the time balking is pain.
I just realized this is not under saddle? While it may still be pain related it sounds more like a training issue if this isn’t while being ridden.
Positive reinforcement work is a good start.
I fixed one of these (to the extent you can call it that) with good, solid groundwork every single day before riding. I mostly use Tristan Tucker’s stuff, but also just a mix of my own things. The point is that he has to pay attention to my feet, and stop and go as I do, speed up and slow down as I do. That said, it stays fixed through consistency, not doing it once. No one takes the horse out of his stall without a dressage whip, ever. Every day he walks at least one lap around the ring following my feet before mounting. Every once in a while he slips up, and it has to be met with a very firm correction immediately, or he tests for several days before giving it up again.
My view is horses have a natural sense of wanting to be with their herd outside as much as possible and if not, why do they not want to do what should be ingrained in their mind via years of breeding, move their feet.
Not that they have the option to not go but what is making this horse not want to go. What can I change in this horses environment to make going out a pleasant experience so he wants to go out and move forward.
I know it’s foo-foo to most and seems ridiculous. It works for me, but I don’t claim to be a trainer or top class horseman either. I just putz around with my horses.
OP is absolutely doing right by this horse, I just have a different view based on the information given earlier in the post. Thankfully, there are many roads to Rome and each is a journey.
Agreed. This is not an otherwise normal horse acting in a strange manner though.
He’s a horse who has learned that his opinion is the only one that matters. He needs a military type boot camp for awhile, so that unusual behaviors can be recognized as such.
What is making this horse abruptly stop in his tracks and refuse to lead forward? Who knows, but he does it 50 times a day so you can’t sort the BS from something more serious. He’s got to get on the bus so that abnormal behaviors can be recognized as such. That means that for the next month, his opinion on basic handling is not important - it’s not optional to lead, or to be haltered in the stall, or (fill in day-to-day handling thing here).
It is not just under saddle. You can be walking down the barn aisle and if he decides he doesn’t want to go where you want to go, he slams on the brakes.
The horse has had X-rays of spine, neck, hocks, bute-test, everything but a body scan which obviously no one wanted to do because truthfully the horse isn’t super valuable even without the training issues that he has. Former owner exhausted herself medically for this horse.
That’s what I was wondering, if he would ever give it fully up or if that’s just the way it’s going to be, forever and ever amen. It doesn’t really bother me since I do have control (my barn, my staff etc.) to the degree that one can have control, but I was kind of hoping he’d give up the ghost eventually.
Agreed. To be fair to the horse, it comes out less and less now, and most commonly when something changes that causes him to try to re-assert his authority. He stopped on the way in from turnout when his friend was still out (he’s usually last in). He stopped out hacking with a working student who was a quality, but not super confident rider.
To answer your question, previously I hadn’t given you enough information, so I totally understand where you’re coming from on this one.
I have two horses who prefer the indoors. The second horse is a 15 year old, who - like balker - was raised in the indoors in a show environment. The pasture has bugs in it, and is full of other horses, unlike his safe, comfortable stall. They’ve buddied up, but that’s still not incentive enough to make either one of them really want to be outside. However, the 15 year old, as much as he hates the outdoors, he knows that he has to listen and if I say go outside, he has to go outside. This does not mean that he won’t complain about it. But he’ll go. So if there is inclement weather, or too many bugs, he gets to stay inside. He’s earned the right of a preference. And he doesn’t balk anywhere else, not under tack, not to go on the trailer etc. etc. He’ll toss his head and get cranky if he doesn’t want to do something, but he does listen. I promise I’m not a monster LOL
The horse that balks is much younger, so there’s a decent chance that he might change his mind about the outdoor environment, but he also is refusing to do all sorts of things, so he doesn’t get to make the choice. There might be hope that I will one day take some of his preferences into account and he will feel relieved, but for now, he’s gotta go along with things. It’s possible that he will never ever be able to be given the latitude that the other horse gets. Which again, is sad, but this is where early training would have been really really useful. Now it’s a problem.
Yes - that’s exactly where we are. I could avoid making him do things he doesn’t want to do, and I’m sure that would be nice for him until he colics and needs to go on the trailer, or needs his feet done, or his shots, or whatever. Then it could be very very bad.
I do feel for this horse, which is why I agreed to take him on. It’s not his fault he wasn’t taught any better. But he’s not irredeemable, I don’t think. He doesn’t do anything super super dangerous, but it could have easily gotten there in another few years. And that is why I’m also very very careful when I handle him. He doesn’t seem like he has that in him right now, but it’s always a possibility.
I did watch him come at former owner with his mouth fully open to bite her - randomly, she wasn’t even doing anything other than standing with her back to him, and not just a nipping bite, he was about to take a full on chunk - so his boundaries are seriously lacking. I corrected that one right quick to the degree that I could at the time, but it’s in there.
This sounds like a training issue.
Horses respect boundaries.
His former owner did not give him boundaries. She did not have his respect He is a result of her training, as whenever you interract with them you are training them, and that includes standing in front of him, with no knowledge of what he is doing behind her.
2 success stories for you with leading as I described above.
Dodge ex school horse. He would just stop when being led. Anywhere. Into stable, out of stable, into arena, out of arena, into paddock, out of paddock
With him I think it was the opposite of your boys problem. He was well trained at one point. Then kids trying to lead him were not standing at his shoulder, then turning to face him. Do not turn to face them unless doing the backing up like described above. He then started stopping all the time.
Teaching him to walk before you walk means that it doesn’t matter where you are standing. They are not following your feet or body so he now goes when you click.
So yesterday. I called him. He came to me. I put a halter on as we would be going past another horse. I didn’t need it.
I click this is solely between Dodge and I and no-one else, most people would not hear it. I say halt. I walk in front of him and open the gate. I click he walks through it. I say halt. I go behind him and shut the gate. I drape the lead rope and my arm over his neck like a little kid. I have never done this before, the lead rope yes, the arm no.
I click and we walk together to the house yard. I let him lead the way through the rocks. I say halt. He halts. I go ahead and drop the chain to the house yard. I click and as he walks through I slip off the halter.
SUCCESS.
Sim. OMG. THE hardest horse I have ever retrained. I don’t know if he had been clicker trained or what but he couldn’t walk beside you without his muzzle touching your hand. Teaching him lead with a click means you can do it with no halter and no hand near him. That helped my sanity! I worked on him walking straight before teaching him to walk without touching your hand or arm.
So yesterday the other 2 had had their teeth done, now it is Sim’s turn and he is waaaaay up the driveway past the bend. I call him. He ignores me. I start walking to the bend and call again. He starts walking. I stop and call Good Boy. He picks up the trot, as he gets close I raise a finger and say halt. I don’t want him trotting all the way to me, because if he tries that when it is wet, he will just slide over the top of me. I put on the halter and lead to the gate. I say halt. He halts. I open the gate and click,we both walk through it and I walk him up to the tack shed and say halt. The dentist comes through and shuts the gate and joins us.
SUCCESS.
Personally i don’t see anything wrong with “bribery” in the form of positive reinforcement and actually think it’s the number one most effective way to end this behavior… I give every horse a treat when I catch them in the pasture, every single time (when I’m getting them for work/riding, not for mealtimes obvi).
I agree with JB - there’s gotta be something else going on. Horses don’t just ~decide~ they don’t wanna go outside for no reason.
This 100000000%. People assign way too much human-like agency to a horse when they don’t do what you want… it really is much simpler than that. You can’t avoid making horses do things they don’t want to do, but each time you have to beat them into it and use force, you’re making it that much worse for them and that much more of something they don’t want to do.
Everything you listed - shots, feet, baths, fly spray, crossties, wash racks, trailer - are not natural things that horses should automatically agree to wholeheartedly. It’s all negative associations vs positive associations, and when you make something rewarding for them, they immediately want to do more of it.
I am not a positive reinforcement trainer by any means, but I do have one example where +r REALLY worked for me. My mare HATES baths with all her little heart and will balk on the way to the wash stall which is separate from the barn. I tried beating her, it would work once or twice but would get harder and harder over time to the point where if I even turned her body to face the general direction of the wash stall she would plant her feet.
The only thing that worked was literally going back to square one and rewarding her for every single step she took towards the wash stall. I taught her targeting with a clicker and she learned to take steps towards her target stick for treats, and we’d do a super slow process with that, basically slowly luring her towards the wash stall.
Over like a session or two of this, she was completely fixed… I had to put “money in the bank” of her associations with the wash stall so that she thought of it as a rewarding place and not a bad, unpleasant place.
She was never ever scared or in pain, she just doesn’t like cold water and we don’t have hot water available, and she has no choice, she has to get hosed off when she’s sweaty. Now that it’s winter she has no problem walking in there, because she hasn’t had to have a cold unpleasant bath in awhile.
So I’m the summer when I was hosing her every day, I had to reinforce that positive association quite often. If I ever got impatient and beat her into it, she’d backslide and balk again the next time. I couldn’t whip her to take a step forward and then reward when she did because it just wasn’t enough positive to outweigh the negative; she already doesn’t want to go to the wash stall as it is.
And since I don’t have the option of making cold baths better by installing hot water at my boarding barn, I have to do a lot of reinforcement in other ways to make her agree to going. However, in other cases besides this, it might be actually really easy to improve the environment or the circumstances of whatever the horse is saying no to, to make it easier on everyone.
When you build trust with your horse in this way you might find that a lot of stuff comes easily after that. They learn how to learn and they get excited to see you and go with you wherever, instead of saying no to everything, and with good reason from their point of view, because nearly everything is a nasty, unpleasant experience for them. And I’m not saying that’s how it is for you and this guy, but that’s definitely how it used to be for me and my horse, and our relationship has completely transformed since I started approaching things from a positive reinforcement angle instead of a “consequences for being wrong” angle.
There is a huge difference between a bribe and positive reinforcement. This horse was bribed, and if he didn’t want to do something, he was allowed to say no.
Did you see the part when I mentioned that he went at his owner with an open mouth and bared teeth?
If you haven’t had a horse like this, I’m sure it’s hard to understand. I hadn’t until this one.
Ok best of luck!
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