Posted by Kim on April 04, 2004 at 17:29:38:
In Reply to: Re: The Need For Education -Thanks All posted by michele on March 14, 2004 at 23:44:20:
: : : : : He is not as wonderful as he appears to be.
: : : : : : Meg
Who are you talking about beating a horse in the face? Not Clinton I hope.
: : : : : None of us are, hon.
: : : : : Scott
: : : : What does beating a horse in the face accomplish except for teaching the horse he cannot trust a human. What people need to figure out is how to be confident and in charge and be trusted. Not an easy task, some have it and some don't just like not all horses are at the top of the pecking order. We are place in a pecking order also.
: : : : Phil
: : : Phil, you are exactly correct. I would ask you to consider, however, that sometimes the horse at the top of the pecking order got there by being pretty nasty to the next highest horse. And, if you watch, you will notice them giving not-so-subtle reminders on a regular basis. I am not advocating abusive treatment, not by a long shot. I am simply stating that, in my opinion, a spoiled, agressive horse is by far the most dangerous horse we as farriers encounter. And, with some horses, a whisper just doesn't cut it.
: : : Simply my perspective,
: : : Dale
: : Your right Dale, most of the time I put horses into two catagories. 1.Scared (Flight) 2. Confident (Fight) there is a third and thats when there scared and confident and thats the most dangerous. With the scared horses you gain trust, with the confident horse you establish respect. As the scared horse gains trust they also can gain confidence and start to be pushy so you may need to change your ways with them and vise versa you can go over board with establishing respect and creat a scared horse. The number one thing is to establish respect sometimes its easy some times it is very difficult. I like what Clinton Anderson recomends about moving them forward, backwards, left and right. He who makes the other move wins. The theory here is that if you make the horse yield to you instead of you yielding to the horse then you will be higher on the pecking order. This can be accomplished by round penns or rope and halter. You need to know what to do and you can find alot of info on there Web page. WWW.ClintonAnderson.net
: : Many times I have set a horse straight just by taking them off the cross ties and leading them around, making them back up and praising them when they give me what I want takes maybe 5 minutes versus an extra half hour fighting with a horse that can't stand still. Never praise them for doing the wrong thing, trying to feed them when there bad is praising them for doing the wrong thing. There getting a treat everytime they act up. Now if a horse trys to kick me or bite me they get wacked right in the ribs just like another horse would do to them may just take a firm word the back of your hand or maybe a steel toe boot. I do not tolerate that behavior at all. Sometimes even if they think about kicking or biteing they get it (never in the face) If that don't work then I do not shoe or trim them. That kind of behavior is just a total lack of respect and it does not come from a scared horse, scared horses don't want to fight they want to run away. This gets deep and requires alot of horse handleing and experience. They can hurt us alot worse than we can hurt them and with very little effort.
: : Phil