Make a Horse’s Stubbornness Disappear like Magic
One of the tricks that Sandy Collier stressed in her DVD, “Bag of Magic Tricks,” is to work on convincing the horse that what HE wants to do is going to be a lot more effort than what YOU want him to do. I had heard before that if you have a horse that doesn’t want to slow down into an easy canter, but instead wants to race around, you let him race around until he wants to stop, and then make him race around some more. After a few lessons like that, theoretically, the horse will begin to think, “hey, I should just listen to what she wants me to do cause it’ll be way less effort on my part in the end.” Well, I’ve recently discovered that this technique can be applied to many ornery situations.
After about a half an hour’s work in the arena, Leo’s owner showed up to chat, so I asked Leo to whoa and hold still. But normally when “dad” gets home, it’s feeding time and Leo wanted to hit the road back to the barn. So, he began dancing to the left and dancing to the right, acting like he had ants in his pant (if he had pants). I asked him a few more times to whoa and then looked at Jim (the owner) and said, “well, lets just let him do what he wants to do.” We’ll try some Sandy magic. So I had him side pass to the left and then to the right and then to the left and then to the right and then once more to the left (I’ve never been on a horse that is that fast going sideways). Finally I asked him to whoa. And, like magic, he became the definition of “whoa,” the picture of “hold still.”
Nice trick. Les Vogt says that you don’t want things to become an argument. That’s what was so nice about it: there was no argument, just a short, logical, negotiation of sorts.
Hi, I found your site through Les Vogt’s blog site. I am also a student “at” CowhorseU, getting the program earlier this year. And yes it probably one of the best investments you’ll make for your horses.
As far as Leo being fidgety, I teach my horse to “smoke a cigarette”. Since I do smoke it’s one of the things they need to learn for us to get along. Engineers that have done time studies for corporations say it takes an average of 7 minutes to smoke a cigarette. Course if you ask my boss he’ll tell you my smoke breaks last darned near all day.
There is actually quite a bit involved. First we have to be going along pretty slow and easy on a fairly loose rein so I can get my cigarettes and lighter outta my pocket. Then we come to a stop wherever we might be at the time. Now we have to get the wind at our backs so we can get er lit. Might have to move shoulders or hips around depending on the situation.
Now we gotta trust the horse cause we gotta make those reins pretty long so I can get the lighter up and get my cigarette lit. That means he’s gonna pretty much be on his own for a bit cause if he does do something unexpected those long reins won’t be much help.
Now the easy or hard part depending on the horse. Stand still and relax while we have ourselves a smoke. Drop your head and get a little rest, take in a little scenery, listen to the birds….don’t matter to me but he’s got to stand still and relax.
Now as you know alot of them won’t do this. There’s places to see, horses to meet, grain to eat. We gotta get going. Ok, but guess what, until that cigarette is done no matter where he goes we are always going to come back to the exact same spot. We might go forward, back or sideways but we’re always coming back to get that cigarette smoked. Pretty soon they figure out they’re doin a whole lotta work and not getting an inch closer to where they wanna be.
Now he figures out I’m a stubborn ol son of a buck and we ain’t getting nowhere. He says “ok you old coot we’ll try it your way” Hey, this ain’t too bad. Stand here and relax, maybe sneak in a bite of grass when he ain’t lookin.
7 minutes, that wasn’t so bad. Bet we could do it for alot longer if we had to. Now we get to go again. Maybe even go back toward home. Wow, even got a scratch on the neck for pretty much not doin a darned thing. Maybe I ought listen to him more often…..
Sometimes you can accomplish a whole lot doin nothing at all…….
06 Oct 2007 at 4:12 pm
You’re funny Al. It sounds like you’re “smoke break” method is a lot like our side-pass method.
17 Oct 2007 at 10:36 pm