Austin Horses 101: Creating an easy to catch horse with relationship training

July 30, 1:24 AMAustin Horses ExaminerVirginia Bowen

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The author's Mammoth Donkey, Edie, enjoying a walk.

I cannot count the number of times I’ve heard someone say “my horse is hard to catch” or seen someone think they’ll “catch” their horse by walking suspiciously into the pasture or paddock, holding the halter and lead rope behind their back. Do you really think the horse doesn’t know you’re up to something? The people who try to “hide” halters in an effort to catch their horse telegraph all kinds of major sneaky intentions. Their body language is obvious even to me – a mere human – so I know the horse is completely aware of what’s going on, with their incredibly well-developed ability to read human body language and intent. Remember, that’s how they’ve successfully survived among humans for centuries and centuries.

So what is it that makes horses “hard to catch”? I believe it boils down to the horse associating the halter and lead rope with something negative. This is why it is important to look at situations from the horse’s perspective. Most horses do not want to leave the safety of their herd, so if they are pastured with other horses, coming in and taking them away from their herd mates and then making demands of them would naturally be perceived by your horse as a negative. Add to that the fact that so many ways of working with horses are based upon telling the horse what to do rather than asking him to do something, and it’s no wonder that so many horses are not thrilled with the prospect of coming with you when you enter their pasture with lead rope in hand.

So what can you do to make your horse “easy to catch” and halter? It’s simple…but that doesn’t mean “easy.” Simply, you work to make your horse’s time with you enjoyable, so he will look forward to seeing you come with halter in hand, and come running TO you, instead of away from you. Does this mean you must never do anything your horse dislikes when you come and halter him? Obviously, that’s impractical. The veterinarian must examine your horse, and de-worming does have to happen. It’s also true that your horse will not always enjoy every training session with you. However, if you have a horse that’s hard to catch, you should endeavor to make ALL of your visits with a halter a good time for your horse for the first several weeks at least; and after that, make sure the majority of encounters with the halter are still positives. Only when your horse is coming to you enthusiastically when you enter the pasture with a halter should you allow a minority of your visits to lead to something negative; and even on those visits end with a positive, even if it’s just a cookie for being a good horse for the vet.

Many people mistakenly believe that when working with positive reinforcement training, the “positive” must always be food or treats. That is not true. In dog training, we speak of “life rewards” and these are even more pertinent to horses. Life rewards are things other than food that the animal finds rewarding and satisfying. For horses, this includes turnout time with other horses, grooming, and attention – especially when it involves a two-way conversation where you listen to your horse instead of just demanding he do things for you (clicker and target training are wonderful for building a conversation with your horse). Of course, treats and food are also huge rewards for most horses, too.

I take my donkeys on walks as a reward. They enjoy the opportunity to look around and inspect the world outside their paddock, not to mention getting to eat that greener grass on the other side of the fence! Spending undemanding time with your horse, mule, or donkey, while they wear their halter, is a wonderful way to begin building positive associations with the halter in their mind, and that is the beginning of creating an “easy to catch” horse.

Taking the time to think about the things your horse will enjoy and associate those things with wearing the halter may seem time consuming, and sometimes pointless, to you, but it could very well save your horse’s life some time. For example, tonight my herd had two visitors –neighbor horses that had gotten out. It turned out their home was probably about a mile or more from my house, so the horses had wandered far afield by the time they found my herd and made buddies with my Quarter Horse Magnum. Another neighbor was walking nearby when I came out and saw the horses and, fortunately for me, she said she thought she knew where they belonged. So I lured the two wanderers onto my property with some oats and hay. Then she and I drove off to find the owners of the horses. When the owner’s daughter and her boyfriend followed us back to my house to pick up the horses, they had a very hard time “catching” the pair. In fact, this pair of horses were clearly determined to not be haltered, and worked themselves into a near frenzy attempting to avoid us humans.

Had they instead been worked with under the umbrella idea of building a relationship with each horse individually, the response might have been similar to how your dog probably responds to you – bounding up to greet you with happiness and excitement. Do my horses all always greet me like that? No. Some of them came to me with already established histories which I am working to replace in their minds, so sometimes they are still cautiously suspicious. But the majority of the time they are happy to see me, and do not run from me, especially when they see the halter and lead rope, because it means something good is going to happen.

As of 9:30 tonight, the owners of the two horses had still not caught them. So would it be better to have spent that many hours over a few months working to build a positive association with the halter, or waste the time trying to catch, and thereby stressing, their horses each time they “escape.” Personally, I’d rather spend the time up front, and have the reinforcement for myself of seeing a reaction in my herd that makes clear they are happy to see me and want to come home with me when I show up with halter in hand. What about you?

To learn more about clicker training, especially for horses, see the Clicker Training Examiner's page, Karen Pryor's Horse clicker training page, or Alexandra Kurland's site. An interesting site for learning more about target training is Kayce Cover's Syn Alia Training System site.