Posted by Guest Author | Posted in Sport | Posted on 23-04-2011
Horse training involves plenty of things especially teaching the animal appropriate ground manners.
Instilling appropriate manners is essential in horse training. The way that the horse behaves around you on the ground reflects a great deal of your horsemanship competence. It cannot be stressed enough that patience and positive mindset is necessary when teaching ground manners.
Also, be perceptive with your horse’s temperament. Be certain that your equine is receptive for some good old training. Closely watch the horse’s body signals. Instantly start teaching your horse when you notice that its head is down and eyes are hooded as these are signs of submissiveness. Otherwise, your horse is apprehensive and maybe fearful. If the latter’s the case, take a step back and study why the equine is feeling that way.
Respect and Dominance
If the horse respects you on the ground, it will respect you on the mount. In reality, animals are more than happy to become loyal followers of humans as long as man knows how to establish dominance without scaring the wits out of the animal. The horse-human relationship should be symbiotic. Keep this always in mind when you are with your horse.
Young equines are a playful bunch. They’re easily distracted and will surely test you on the ground. They are driven by fun and pleasure. They will play in every chance they get but in spite of all that, you need to claim your leadership and make the horse understand that you command respect.
Never allow the animal to boss you around. One crucial mistake that you can make is leave an impression that you are lenient and weak. An equine that’s pushy is never going to respect you and respect is one of the most important things in horsemanship.
With that, you need to be the Alpha entity. If you allow the equine to be aggressive and bully you, forget your training because you can never reach your horsemanship aspirations with a belligerent horse. How can you expect the horse to follow your directions if it does not even respect your personal space?
Signs of docility and submissiveness
It cannot be stressed enough that body language is key to the trainer-equine communication dynamics. Before training your equine new things, you should look for body language that indicates docility and submissiveness.
Common signs of a horse at ease:
* Ears does not look alert
* Head is lowered
* Licking of the lips
* A cocked leg
* Taking deep breaths
There is no better time to train your horse than when it is at its most comfortable state. The signs stated above are exactly what you want your horse to exhibit before training time.
You should know what pleasures your equine because you can use them as reward every time the horse does a great job. If it finds pleasure when you scratch its neck, do it after the equine follows your instructions. Always keep in mind that when training your equine ground manners, do it with positive reinforcement and not with fear factor.
If you want to know more about horse manners and how to teach them like a true horseman, visit EasyHorseTraining.com. The site provides useful resources and natural horsemanship training videos that you and your horse will love!
