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Less Is More Horsemanship Forum
Welcome to the Less Is More Forum. This forum is to post questions, comments, suggestions, ideas, principles, concepts and ideas regarding Natural Horsemanship and more importantly, the philosophy of "Less IS More". This is a place where like-minded people can come to throw away all the old traditional ways of training, and riding, and begin to experience a new FREEDOM in their relationship with their equine partners. Whether your goal is to learn more about natural horsemanship, get support for your own personal Less Is More belief, find solutions for problems that are hindering your relationship, begin a journey of discovery or healing, this is your home. Regardless of what the current "fads" are in traditional circles or natural horsemanship circles, I encourage you to think 'outside the box'. Feel free to post a message.
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| Author | Comment |
Kimberly
Feb 27, 08 - 2:57 PM |
Lowering Head
I would you suggest teaching a horse to lower his head for the halter? |
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Maggie
Feb 28th, 2008 - 1:32 PM |
Re: Lowering Head
I've always just taught it by applying a little pressure (I'm talking *just enough* to get the horse to move its head the slightest bit down) to the poll with my hand. The horse releases itself by putting his head down - be careful your hand doesn't follow him. I praise and repeat a few more times. I'll intersperse this with other lessons and do it several times a day. At first I only expect tiny movements. Gradually I expect the head to go lower and stay down longer. I usually add in the voice cue "head down" when I think the horse is ready for it because I like to be able to direct horses by voice, physical cues and hand signals. I actually taught my old gelding to halter himself. He'd been badly abused and didn't like hands moving by his head. Mine were fine but other people scared him. Since he had to be handled by a lot of different people because of the boarding situation he was in, I taught him to put his own head in a halter that was held out in front of him and push against it enough to get his ears to slip through the strap over his head. This way people didn't have to fumble around and it didn't scare him. Some just had to hold the halter open and he'd put it on. The halter I had for him was one where you could unclip the throat latch to take it off. Probably wouldn't work well with a rope halter. The way I taught Candy to lower his head since he was so head shy was to teach him to target. Initially it really had nothing to do with lowering his head, but if I held the whip low that's where his head would go. Same with up, sideways, etc. I clicker trained him to do a lot of things because he was just so afraid of any other method and the clicker was something no one had ruined for him. I taught him the command "touch" which meant he was supposed to touch his nose to whatever I held out. Sometimes it was my hand, a whip, a bucket, scary object, etc. At first he just would accidentally bump his nose on the whip and got rewarded. Eventually he started doing it deliberately. I made it harder and harder to touch the whip. It was high, low, far away, etc. Then he had to hold his nose against the whip until he was released. Ultimately he'd touch his nose to anything I'd indicate and hold it there until I told him to stop. "Touch" got expanded into all sorts of behaviors. It meant I could lead him without a halter or rope - he'd touch his nose to my and keep it there no matter where I moved. It meant he'd investigate scary things instead of running from them. It meant he'd follow anyone if they knew the magic word. Maggie |
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