Earn Your Horse's Respect, Part 1

Put your safety first and establish a respectful distance when training your horse

by Clinton Anderson, Downunder Horsemanship

A respectful horse is a willing horse. When you ask him to move, he does so instantly. When you lead him, he walks next to you like a shadow. When you go into his stall, he greets you with his ears pricked forward. He wants to be your partner. A disrespectful horse pins his ears at you, nips at you, shows you his heels and ignores you. He’s unsafe to be around and takes all the joy out of horse ownership.

The Personal Hula Hoop Space

Respect is broken into two categories: a safety category and a learning category. When I refer to the safety category of respect I’m talking about the personal hula hoop space. This is a 4-foot circle that surrounds you and serves as your safety zone. Whenever I’m working with a horse, I always imagine that there’s a 4-foot circle drawn around me—almost like an invisible electric fence. Unless I invite the horse into my personal hula hoop space, he should keep a respectful, safe distance from me. The horse should never come into the circle unless I invite him in.

Think about all the times people get hurt by horses. The horse bites them, kicks them, strikes at them, runs over the top of them, etc. Each time, the horse was in the person’s personal hula hoop space. A horse can’t bite you if he is 4 feet away from you. He can’t kick you if his hind leg doesn’t get any closer to you than 4 feet.

People think that it’s just a disrespectful horse that will hurt you, but that’s not true at all. A fearful horse will hurt you just as fast. Have you ever noticed that when you’re leading a horse that is nervous and frightened, when something scares him, he tries to jump on top of you? He pushes into you and invades your personal hula hoop space. He tries to jump in your top pocket, doesn’t he? The horse is looking to you for safety, but unfortunately, we’re a lot more fragile and smaller than a horse. Eventually, you will get hurt. A fearful horse will hurt you just as fast as a disrespectful one will. I don’t care if my horse has a heart attack and gets scared; I just want him to do it outside of my personal hula hoop space.

The first part of respect is to teach the horse that you are fragile and he needs to be careful around you. When a horse kicks another horse in the belly, what does that horse do? He grunts, walks away and starts eating grass again like nothing ever happened. It doesn’t really bother him. But if we get kicked in the ribs by a horse, we’re in the hospital for a week. It’s the same kick, but it means a lot more to us because we’re smaller creatures. The safety part of respect is to say, “Listen, take care of me. I’m pretty fragile, so you can’t be biting me and kicking me or playing rough around me.”

By Invitation Only

The first rule of safety is, “Don’t come into my personal hula hoop space unless I invite you in.” It’s kind of like how you want your neighbors to treat you. You might like your neighbors, but you never want them to just barge into your house. You always want them to walk up to the door, knock and ask to come in. At that point, you can ask them to come in, but you always want the option to turn them away. You don’t want your horse to act like a nosey neighbor and barge into your space. When I first meet a horse, it’s very important for me to establish my personal hula hoop space. If I can touch any part of the horse with my Handy Stick while my arm is stretched out, he is too close.

A lot of people reading this are saying, “Does that mean I can’t love on my horse?” Not at all. I’m just saying in the first few lessons—until you have your horse’s respect, the safety category is taken care of, and you can back him up and move his feet—don’t have the horse come in close to you. When he’s in close and something bad happens, you’re going to come out on the wrong end of the stick.

Once you have the horse respectful, you want him to come up to you. I love my horses running up to me, but in the beginning they need to stay out of my personal hula hoop space until I know that I have them respectful. You can’t train the horse if you’re dead. You have to survive the experience first and train the horse second. I want myself to be safe and I want my horse to be safe, but in that order—me first and the horse second.

Check back next month for part 2!

No More Worming Worries

Retrain a horse that’s hard to worm in seven steps

by Clinton Anderson

Worming is one of the basic elements of good horsekeeping and should be a worry-free, routine practice that takes place several times a year. For many people and their horses, worming time means trouble. The owner becomes frustrated because the horse is difficult to worm and the horse becomes defensive because it has previously had a bad experience being wormed or doesn’t like the taste of the wormer.

Most people have trouble worming their horses because of the way they approach the horse. They either sneak up to the horse and then jam the wormer in his mouth or they walk straight up and hang onto the halter, trying to make the horse stand still, and then jam it in there; both of these things will make the horse defensive.

Remember that horses are prey animals. If you approach him and stick the wormer in his face, like it’s a predator, he’s going to stick it back in your face and say, "Get lost!" If you change your approach and walk up to the horse and kind of act casual about it, pretty soon, you’ll notice that a lot of his defensiveness will go away and he won’t be worried about getting wormed.

A horse that is good to worm will stand still with his head down, body relaxed, and readily accept a wormer because he realizes you are not trying to hurt him.

Step 1: Desensitize the airspace around the horse’s head.

If the horse won’t accept the wormer in the airspace around him, he won’t accept it in his mouth.

Stand to the side so you are out of the horse’s way if he tosses his head or strikes at you. Wave an empty wormer back and forth around the horse’s entire head and muzzle, keeping it eight inches away from his muzzle. When the horse keeps his head still, stop waving the wormer, retreat and rub his head with your other hand. Repeat this step until he keeps his head still for the entire time you are moving the wormer.

If he is not relaxed at this point, don’t go on to the next step.

Step 2: Rub the horse with the worming syringe.

You want the horse to understand that he can be touched by the wormer without actually getting wormed. Starting at the horse’s withers, rub an empty wormer all over his body, making your way down his back. Work back toward his withers and onto his neck and jaw. If he throws his head in the air or moves away from you, continue rubbing until he stands still and relaxes, then retreat. Rub the worming syringe all over the horse’s face, continuing to use the approach and retreat method. As the horse becomes desensitized, gradually rub the wormer down and around his muzzle.

Don’t rub it real slow like you’re sneaking around him hoping that he’ll stand still. Rub the horse vigorously with the empty wormer. The horse will think to himself, "Man, you’re an idiot, you don’t even know where my mouth is."

You want him to realize that the quickest way to get rid of the wormer is to stop moving his feet and relax his head and neck. Keep doing this until you can rub the wormer all over him and he doesn’t move.

Step 3: Coat the worming syringe with something sweet.

Coat the empty worming syringe with honey, molasses or sugar to help teach the horse to accept it in his mouth. The sweetness will help the horse disassociate the bad taste of wormer with the worming process. Make sure he already has a taste for honey by putting a little of it on his feed every night.

Stand to the side and ease the wormer into the corner of his mouth. Keep the wormer in the horse’s mouth--raise your arms if he throws his head up and move back with him if he steps backward. As soon as he stands still, lowers his head and relaxes, take the wormer out of his mouth and rub his face with your hand. Repeat until the horse stands still.

Step 4: Worm the horse with something sweet.

Worming the horse with honey makes the horse think whatever is in a worming syringe tastes good. Fill the empty wormer up with honey, then wave and rub the syringe around the horse’s nose to ensure he is desensitized to it. Put the honey wormer in the corner of the horse’s mouth and slowly worm him with honey, letting him lick the honey off the syringe. Repeat for several days.

Step 5: Worm the horse with real wormer.

When the horse accepts that he likes having the worming syringe in his mouth, you can worm the horse with real wormer. Put honey on the outside of the syringe of wormer and worm him. Wait for the horse to digest the wormer, and then immediately follow up with a honey wormer. Always leave the horse with a positive taste in his mouth. If you just give the bad-tasting wormer and then walk away, the last thing he remembers is a foul taste.

Step 6: Follow up with positive reinforcement.

Over the next three to four days, remind the horse that worming does not have to be a horrible experience by continuing to worm him with a honey wormer. Remember to always desensitize him to the honey wormer before putting it in his mouth by waving and rubbing the syringe around his nose.

Step 7: Repeat the process before the next scheduled worming.

Start the process again and worm the horse with honey for four days before the next scheduled worming. Follow up by worming the horse with honey for four days afterward; doing this will always leave your horse with a positive worming experience. In time, you should be able to just walk up, worm the horse, and walk away.

About the Author

Clinton Anderson was born and raised in Queensland, Australia, where at the age of 6 his family recognized a natural ability with horses. They cultivated his interest, buying him his first horse at age nine and driving Clinton began attending horsemanship clinics at age 12. Clinton started his training apprenticeship full time at age 15 with nationally acclaimed clinician and horse trainer Gordon McKinlay of Rockhampton, Queensland. During the next two years, he started and trained more than 600 horses under Gordon’s expert guidance as he established his own foundation of safety and learning to gain respect and control of the wide variety of horses he worked with.

In October of 1997, Clinton officially made the United States his home where he began training, touring and conducting clinics. Today, Clinton continues to inspire, instruct, and innovate as he works tirelessly to help horse owners of all levels and disciplines learn to be safe and effective while enjoying their horses and achieving their horsemanship goals.