Teaching Manners

[RavenWood]

Okay - MarQuee is doing great. We are able to groom most of her body parts now but she's still not keen on me going down her legs. We are working on it. What I want to ask, however, is how do I teach her manners without discouraging her from coming up to us and being friendly?

Here's the deal: She is still generally a bit standoffish. I can catch her most times without grain (yay!) and she is pretty calm on lead or if I'm grooming unless we cross her comfort boundary in which case we step back a bit, wait a moment and try again. Problem is in the last 2 days when I do give her grain from her bucket (she gets this as a reward for her good behaviour, not as a lure) she is getting pushy. I want her to feel comfortable coming in close to us and being touched but how do I discipline her for being pushy without discouraging her and setting her 'training' back? I realize that she needs to develop a respect for me (and other people) and would love advice on how best to accomplish that.

[Dee]

are you talking about like when you give her the grain she pushes you right outta the way? If this is the case I would get the grain put it on the ground and kinda 'hord*spell*' it. Like hover over it and mix it around just do that for a bit and if she is pushy then be pushy back. Don't go and push her though....just guard you 'food'. Alpha horses will do this. When she finally kinda gives up ie. stands there for a bit without pushing. then give her the grain. You have to establish that you are the Alpha. Somebody will probably be able to explain this better...lol

[RavenWood]

More or less yes. She doesn't actually push me out of the way but gets rather overzealous and inconsiderate of whomever is holding the bucket - gets closer than is comfortable for the bucket holder in other words and I can see this developing into a safety issue if my kids ever chose to feed her etc. so I'd like to nip it in the bud right now!

I think I know what you mean. I need to let her know that she only gets it when Alpah says so, not when she pushes. I actually tried something similar to this yesterday evening. Each time she would come for the food I would turn away from her and if she pushed at it or circled around too closely I would knuckle her in the side. It worked sometimes but not consistently though I think if I kept it up she might get it but I like your idea better. I'll give it a try tonight and see what she does. Thanks Dee.

[cowgirlj]

I wouldn't be afraid to disipline her. Alpha horses do it all the time. All horses are very forgiving, and don't hold a grudge. As long as the disipline is in direct response to the unwanted behavior, and is delivered within the 3 second window we have to react in, and you make it quite clear what it is you don't like, she should get the picture. If you let her walk all over you with incorrect behavior, you will have a huge problem on your hands, and it will be a lot harder to correct later. Your horse needs to be quite clear that at all times you are the boss!
For example, my young colt, when he was a yearling and still a stud, decided that running into his stall at feeding time and swanning his neck at you as if to bite, was acceptable. It was an "Im the boss, scare tactict" on his part. He soon learned that when I said "OUT", and pointed to the door, and then chased him out of the stall, and made sure he did not return to the stall untill I said, "okay" and moved out of his space, that he really wasn't the boss after all, and that he HAD to wait for the okay. He now cautiously pokes his head through the door and waits until I say okay before he comes in.
Instead of turning away from your mare (she may bite you when your back is turned) try putting the bucket down and driving her back away from you and the bucket. Don't be afraid to show a little agression, and mean it! Use strong body language and tone of voice. She will understand this. Tell her "back" and "wait". When she backs off, tell her good (or whatever praise word you use), then say okay, and still facing her, you back away and signal her to come forward. It may take a few tries for her to listen, but don't give in to her or you will be teaching her the wrong thing. Don't worry, she'll forgive you and she will start to trust you more if you show her leadership.

[NancyM]

I would not be involved with making the feeding part of your training schedule. Have your training session, then dump the feed in her tub and leave. Two separate things. Don't be starting to discipline her about stuff while she is still wild.

[Cheddar]

ditto to Nancy M, train without food in the picture, and do your best to set up a food routine where she is contained and you can approach and empty the feed into a barrel, bucket etc without her being able to get to you or the food until you let her in. That may not be possible, but if it is, try it. When she has manners without food around you can up the stakes by allowing her to be in the pen/ stall with you on the outside and pour in feed and ask her to stand back.

The manners you want to teach are first with the lead, back away, step towards you, swing the hindquarters around away from you, whoa, etc., all on a loose line (ie, she leaves slack in the rope and isn't pulling on it, either to run you over or run off). Then see if just body language will work while she is loose,( a voice command that you add in from the beginning may help too). If you step up to her and say back or wave your hand lightly and say back, she should back away, if you step to her side and point at her flank and say over, she should move over. When she can do those exercises, consistently without you having to push on her, then you can bring in the food. Her abilities will probably regress, just be consistent and quiet and firm.

[RavenWood]

Thanks for the helpful suggestions gang! I tried NancyM's idea and oddly enough it seemed to make things worse. I put her grain in her bin and then proceeded to leave her a lone to eat it while I cleaned her pen and she attempted to kick me once when I came 'too close for her liking'. It was a bit shocking actually as she had never tried that before. In addition the next day afterwards she then resisted me touching her and would swing her bum around each time I tried. Perhaps this just wasn't the right application for it. Evidently leaving her to her grain illicited what I've been calling a greed response. So we went back to bucket feeding.

So, I tried something similar to Dee's idea and it seems to have worked

Just to clarify, she wasn't getting grain during training as a reward, but rather after we were all done she was getting it in a bucket held by me to finish our session. Since she is a pmu foal we needed to utilize the grain lure initially to encourage her to come near so that we could get her used to us being there, then used to us touching her etc. I then decided I wanted her to come without the lure of grain and we tackled that well and fine and pending that outcome also decided that she would be more inclined to let us work with her if she was hungry or expecting her food and it seems we were correct. The pushiness only resulted several times as she seemed to have termporarily forgotten who the boss was but the technique we tried seems to have re-established that. Given her termperament I don't doubt she will challenge it again many times but we will deal with each as it comes.

Regardless, I thank you all for your ideas and willingness to help! TMS is great!

[tapestry]

by holding the grain bucket while she eats, you're inviting and rewarding her for coming into your space. so it's no wonder that she gets pushy. this is why I don't like hand feeding, and I DEFINATELY don't like holding onto the bucket while the horse eats. (my mother did this with my mare who tends to get pushy, and I had to ask her to stop because it was making her worse).

as far as the pushyness thing goes now, you have to teach her the boundaries. use your body language to get her out of your space, and bring a whip if you need to. you don't have to hit her with it, but waving it around should be warning enough. she shouldn't be punished however as she's only doing what you've taught her to do thus far. work with her on the halter as well. ask her to turn, back up, stop etc. do this in her pen so she knows that you're the boss mare even in "her" pen.

if she's hard to catch, give her a reason to associate being caught with good things. put her halter on and lead her to her grain bucket, put her grain in there (but DON'T allow her to be pushy about it) and groom her so she stops being territorial about feeding time. this is one habit you should nip in the bud right now.

[NancyM]

Hmmmm, seems to me that my advice was to dump the grain into the tub and leave, not stay in the stall and clean it while the horse is eating.

[RavenWood]

Originally posted by NancyM@Nov 24 2003, 08:31 AM
Hmmmm, seems to me that my advice was to dump the grain into the tub and leave, not stay in the stall and clean it while the horse is eating.

Sorry Nancy. I didn't mean to offend you. Evidently I did something wrong in implementing your technique. As I mentioned the first time I tried it I was still in the pen and she threatened me. The 2nd and 3rd time I tried it I left her as per your instructions and for those 2 days she seemed also to be standoffish and not want to be touched. The only thing I could figure is that in being fed hr grain in that manner it cued her to think she no longer needed to allow me around. That's just what I gathered from what I observed.

I know it is difficult to determine precisely what is going on when a written description is given as opposed to actually witnessing the situation. Perhaps I am not describing the scenario properly. Perhaps I'm going about the whole 'foal training' thing wrong too for that matter. I never meant to offend you but I thought perhaps you would want to hear how she reacted so I tried to recount it. I'm sure you know much more than I and I appreciate your input.

Regardless of where, when or how I gave her her grain I don't think it is appropriate that she get defensive when I come around. She has to become accustomed to my presence in the pen at any given time. I tried as best I could to assess the situation and took the advice I thought appropriate, applied it, assessed the situation again and modified it to suit and hopefully alleviate the problem.

Side note: She's not in a stall, she's in a 50'x60' paddock.