Spinoff Untraining Behavior...Tricks that our animals taught US

[Ajierene]

The other thread kept reminding me of the dog I used to walk. He was rather emotionally neglected - not helped that he was rescued as an adult with aggression issues to someone that was not well equipped to deal with them.

Well, when I started walking him, I would give him certain time to just sniff around and be excited about being out of paddock (he was either in his kennel that was a um…10’X10’ with shelter or the fenced in area that was about 100’X50’). Anyway…after a few minutes we would start training, which he loved. I am a creature of habit, though, so we would generally get to about the same curve in the driveway when we started “working”.

Well…then it started that we got to that curve and he would sit down and look at me expectantly, sometimes he would just look at me expectantly and I would say, “oh yeah, let’s start doing things and getting treats!”

My horse will just look at me and I’m like “OMG you are SO CUTE! you get a treat!” Then the other horses look all hopeful and I’m like “No, you need to work for it…Perfect Pony works VERY hard” (in fairness, she is the hardest working horse at the place.

She also usually likes to take a drink after riding but doesn’t like drinking with the bit in her mouth so we take the bridle off ASAP when done riding and of course, the standard is that she gets treat as soon as bridle is off. So she looks at water bucket, I take bridle off, she looks at me, takes carrot piece, noms then drinks. She’s got me pretty well trained…

I do usually fall for my friend’s older gelding’s tricks. She has taught him “foot” and he would pick up his foot and get a treat. So he will look at me, pick up his foot, and I’m like yeah…just don’t tell your mom…

I had an older horse (bought him from the auction when he was about 19) that taught me to bring treats EVERY DAY. He would walk up to me in the field every day until such day arose when I forgot to have treats in my pocket. He would not walk up to me the next day or any day after that until I brought treats again, then back to walking up to me in the field. He wasn’t mean about it, didn’t run or anything, just didn’t not “greet” me.

I’m sure there are other ways in which my various animal trainers have taught me a thing or two…what are yours?

[OverandOnward]

So easy to teach horses “stretches” using treats.

Then human can just say “stretchies!” and horse does all kinds of stretchies. For treats.

Horses quickly decide that stretches are like pulling a vending machine lever. Tuck that nose all the way around as close to the flank as you can get it. Get treat.

It is hard to brush a horse who is trying to score stretchy treats, all on his/her own initiative.

[Ajierene]

That reminds me of a horse I knew WAY back in the day. The owner had taught him “bow” for a carrot and sometimes one of the kids would do it, or you would show some camp kid that (it was a public barn with a mix of camp horses/kids, lesson kids, and boarders - horse in question is a boarder) and it’s all fun and games until you are trying to take the horse for the LONG (quarter mile? half mile? it was a TREK) up the driveway to his field and he’s bowing every other step…

[Foxglove]

Bob knows what a mounting block is --after an hour or so of work, he starts sidling over to the Mounting Block every chance and looks at it longingly if he’s not in proximity. He hopes I will take a hint and get off his back!

[MHM]

A friend of mine has a mini donkey at her farm, and he lives outside in his own pasture with a run in shed.

I usually give everybody in the barn a treat before I leave. And if he thinks for one second that I’m going to forget him, he starts braying up a storm so that I could not possibly get to my car without hearing him. Lol.

[Indy]

My old mare loooooved having her belly scratched. I had to build in extra time to my tacking up routine to make sure she got enough scratches before I got on. She would lift her back right leg up and out like a dog and stand there and wait for you to scratch her. If you were back by her leg and not paying attention, that hoof would get you. She’d also bend her neck around that direction to point at her tummy if you weren’t getting the hint with her leg. I would be sitting on her at shows waiting by the in-gate and she’d lift up her leg and start craning her neck around at the people asking for tummy rubs. It was ridiculous and also the best.

[RedHorses]

In his last couple of years, my QH lived in a different paddock from my other horse. They were opposite directions from the barn. My QH was retired and some nights I rode my other horse, and wasn’t planning on doing anything with my QH…

…until the unmistakeable whinny came out of the darkness as I returned to the barn from putting my other horse back out. He didn’t whinny at any other time.

And yes, I did go and get him and bring him in for some attention, and food (he wanted the food, I was just the meal ticket). I couldn’t resist that whinny, knowing he was standing there watching the barn, waiting for his moment.

[ZuzusPetals]

@OverandOnward

Tuck that nose all the way around as close to the flank as you can get it.

Sigh. We’re at the start of carrot stretchies for a neck thing and so far it’s more carrot than stretch.

Reach to the flank? More like, “Enh! Enh! Look at me glancing in the rearview. Look! Turning my head .025 degrees to check for cars on my left … annnnnnddddd we’re good! Eyes back on the road. Enh! Enh! Carrot, please. The whole thing, and no using my teeth as a lever to chop it in half, Missy Meanpants.”

[trakehners]

My horse has, somehow (and I truly don’t know how, he didn’t come with it), learned to ground tie and self-halter. I also accidentally taught him to back up when I point at him (specifically to give him treats, I would not give him any unless he didn’t move, shifted his weight back, or actually stepped back away from me because I refused to let him learn to be pushy where cookies are involved).

Consequently, I now constantly forget that other horses do not just come with those things already installed, especially since I’m not usually handling anyone other than him. I’ve also been trained to always give him at least three treats when I turn him out (it has to be three separate presentations, doesn’t matter how many there are in my hand for each one) because I started doing that for some reason (well, the treats after halter comes off were to teach him to never bolt away from the gate, I don’t know why I picked three) and now he will stand at the gate and stare at me until he gets three if I forget or try to stiff him or something (unless it’s a German horse muffin, and then one is acceptable). I wasn’t convinced horses could count but now I am, lol. Apparently they also know what expensive tastes like.

[endlessclimb]

I teach them to target and hold to avoid the hgnh hgnh bouncing stretch, but I laughed imagining it based on your description. You are dead on

[2DogsFarm]

I shareboarded a QH whose owner taught him to Shake Hands. He’d lift a front & presumably get a treat. I never did this & found it unacceptable when I’d bend to pick a front & it would come flying up to meet me
He caught on pretty quick that this Stupid Human wasn’t taking the hint.

My 3 know nightcheck means cookies!
Horse & pony will stand at their partway opened stall doors for me to dispense the treats.
And, @trakehners yes, they know 3 means that’s all.
Mini has appointed himself my Assistant feeder.
Precedes me in through the service door & “inspects” the stacked hay while I dispense flakes to the other two.
When he hears me filling buckets, he strolls over to help himself to the TC Sr he gets as his sole grain & horse gets as a supplement.
When I tell him “Go to your house” he goes into his stall, but those little ears are pinned. Plainly telling me “I’m going because I want to, not because you told me to!”
OTOH, I started working on his Whoa by following him to the service door & tugging on his tail.
Now he offers a Whoa on his own, about 3 steps away from the door

Horse picks up his empty feed pan to hand it to me when he’s finished his grain.
If I’m not quick enough taking it, he’ll toss it into the aisle < stall doors to aisle are closed, but not latched so I can retrieve feedpans (so they don’t become frisbees) he noses his open enough to toss the pan.

[albytb]

In the outdoor ring at my barn, there’s a an apple tree in the center. One time while on my gelding I meandered over there during a walk break and plucked an apple for him to eat.

Guess where he wanted to go for every subsequent ride that summer? And then he would get there, turn his head and just look back at me expectantly. Smh

[OnAMission]

I think it would break my brain if I actually tried to figure out how many ways I’m trained.

[MHM]

@albytb

In the outdoor ring at my barn, there’s a an apple tree in the center. One time while on my gelding I meandered over there during a walk break and plucked an apple for him to eat.

When I was a kid, we used to go riding on a trail system in a state park, and there were a couple of trails that went through patches that had tons of blackberries, depending on the time of year.

It was always a challenge to see who would spot the blackberries and get to them first. My pony had a pretty good eye for them. Lol.

[ParadoxFarm]

When I was a kid, I took lessons at a big “lesson” barn. I had a favorite mare, Lucy, who I would pet softly on the forehead. Well, one day my friend was riding her, and I was riding someone else. Lucy came up to me, parked her head about where my knee was so I could pet her. Of course, I did. Then after that, anytime anyone was riding her and I was on another horse, she would come up beside my knee so I could reach down and pet her. I felt special as a kid.

[MHM]

Aww. That’s super sweet.

I remember a lesson horse named Maverick when I was a kid who loved to drink soda. So of course, I would always share a soda with him after a lesson. In hindsight, it’s probably a miracle he did not colic if every person who had a lesson on him did the same thing. Lol.

I believe he is the only horse in my life who has ever flat out run away with me when I took him out for a little trail ride one time after a lesson. Knock wood.

If there had been a video of it from back then that I could watch now, I wouldn’t be surprised if we were not really going that fast. But at the time, I felt like I was on Secretariat! Lol.

[Ajierene]

A colleague once told me about the most amusing “bridle lame” horse I ever heard of. This was at one of those trail/dude ranch type places. They would take the horse out and if it didn’t want to go that day, it would go out on the trail seriously 3 legged lame. As SOON as you turned it around to go home, no more head bobbing or limping and walking along without a care in the world. Of course at a place like that, it is hard to train something like that out of the horse because all the general public sees is you riding a lame horse…sigh…

[MHM]

@Ajierene

This was at one of those trail/dude ranch type places.

Those horses all must be such saints. Bless them.

[BWP]

I’m not really sure who has trained the other, but my yearling learned to pee on the way in from the field, in the expectation of a treat.

I know it can be helpful for some disciplines (endurance) to have them pee on cue, so the odd few times he needed to go when I was leading him anywhere over the summer, I whistled and gave him a treat.

The first night he came in overnight this winter he didn’t pee, he was probably expecting to go straight back out. The 2nd night he stopped, neatly parked himself on a grass verge and peed, so he got a whistle and treat. 3rd night the same. I genuinely thought it was just a coincidence but 6 weeks into night stabling it’s absolutely his routine now.

I have learned not to treat until he actually pees; a few times he has parked out ready and so I’ve treated him, only for him to walk forwards then stop a few strides later and look at me expecting ANOTHER treat!

A cleaner drier stable in the morning is well worth a treat IMO.

[MHM]

@BWP

I have learned not to treat until he actually pees; a few times he has parked out ready and so I’ve treated him, only for him to walk forwards then stop a few strides later and look at me expecting ANOTHER treat!

That’s hilarious!

My mother told the story of how when she was young, they had a barn full of horses that would wait until morning to pee on command in order to keep the stalls clean. I don’t remember now the details of how they trained them to do that. But I’d have to think there were treats involved.