Hi everyone
If anyone has any tricks to catching horses or training them not to move away to be caught please help!
I have a 1 year old gypsy cob who has lion king bloodlines, that stud was huge and I can see him growing more every day, I have only had him for a month, when I first got him I could catch him becuase the head collar was on then I decided not to take the chance of leaving the head collar on and took it off, since tha I cannot catch him.
I assessed him when he arrived and he does not like any further than his neck being touched, I put a whip (not to cause any pain) down his leg gently and he kicked out violently, I used that instead of my hand in order to keep myself safe as I have no histoty with this horse, and now I cant catch him because I took the collar off and he wont come to me.
He will let me touch his nose for a second then he is off. Only other time i can put a hand on him is if he is at the fence and im stood on the other side of it, clearly insecure.
I have watched montys catching your horse in the field and tried it loads, the body language all helps, fast is slow, act like you have all the time in the world it works perfectly with my other horse who is hard to catch but he has been handled but it doesnt work with this colt because he wont let me get close enough
I have read in a book about pressure and release of following him and when he stops turn away and drop my energy to reward him etc ec and this wasnt working he was just turning to me occasionally and looked annoyed so i stopped this and left it for the day, ive tried sitting in the field all day, tried food, tried going up to him when another horse is near him, he doesnt gallop off just walk at pace away! Only thing I havent tried is riding in on one of my horses and try catching him on a horse but I am not confident about doing this as I have a large herd and if my horse were to spook I may get injured.
If anyone has any ideas please help me, I cant catch him when its really sunny and i cant put sun cream on and he is getting a burnt nose, he has had no training at all and is being left entire so we want him quiet and well trained he will be a big boy and may hurt someone unintentionally. I dont think he is keen on humans I wish I knew more of his history but he doesnt even respond to his name so he blaitently is a bit on the wild side and unhandled!
Nightmare
Thanks for reading
Amber x
Don't worry about your colt- huge numbers of people have this problem, especially if their horses live in a big herd. It sounds like your horse hasn't had a great experience of people and I really admire you for persisting with him, but now there is definitely a concrete reason for having to catch him. I don't know if this is applicable, but if you could somehow separate your colt from the rest of your herd you could try join-up with him. It doesn't matter if you do this in a field (I have done it in a field!) but if you are frightened of getting injured due to the other horses it's probably best to put them in their stables/ another paddock. I think you just need to win your colt's trust- he deserves an owner like you with whom he can gain confidence around humans and become a lovely, well-mannered stallion!
P.S. I don't know if this is correct but I have read somewhere that colts and stallions are particularly sensitive to smells, and wearing a perfume or scent can make them bolshy or aggressive. I have no idea if this could work in the opposite way and make a horse more suspicious of you, but if you wear a perfume you could try leaving it off for a couple of days and see if that makes a difference.
That you can touch his nose is already the first step. I am sure you will make it. The important thing now is going away. If you have touched him you absolutely must go away (slowly) before he does it and until he follows you and then you can go ahead with minimal steps with the final idea to put your arms around his neck, then with a line in your hand, finally leaving the line. The general principle for all steps: you must go away before he does.
Amber
This will not solve your problem, but being in the pasture or paddock with your horse doing something like putting carrots in a bucket then taking them out but with your back to the horse. Horses are curious and if you ignore them they will come close to investigate what you are doing. If he starts to walk closer to you leave a carrot there and move off to another area and do the same thing. This may establish in his mind that you are ok and not there to control or capture him. After a period of time he may start to come close to you seeking carrots. Don't give him any and just walk slowly around the pasture with your back to him.
After a while I would then try Join Up. He will not be so wild and distrustful. If you are successful and he comes up to you for a rub walk around inviting him to follow. If that is successful walk away for the day. Don't try to put a halter on him. Repeat Join Up again in a day or so. I would think that by the second or third Join Up you should be able to put a halter on him. Give him lots of rubs and pats which will make him more willing to have you put something on his head. Good luck
Cheers
Hi Amber,
When you read Monty's book you will read, you do not want a horse to relate food with a human, not even for rewards, remember horses do not think like humans.
When I first got my filly 2 years ago I had the same problem, she would not come near me. I re-read Monty's book and followed it very carefully. It took weeks for her to trust me enough to COME near me, I was not going to chase her around a paddock.
She was in a large feild and I stood there everyday just watching her and her watching me, I would pretend I was doing something, anything. I kept my adrenalin down at all times just breathing deeply and before I knew it her breathing was matching mine even when she wasn't watching me (ha ha, they see everything, every movement). Horses are naturally courious and it seems the more you ignore them the more they want to be around you, no pressure.
When you have a more challenging horse and you get to the point that you are able to do join up, do it everyday at least 6 days, once each day, it will be imprinted on their minds especially when they are young, do not stop when you are in the middle of it, not matter what!!! Always end each session on a postive note, a nice brief rub, on the forehead. Remember horses hated to be patted, try it on yourself or a friend and ask them, does this feel good, NO.
THROW away your whip!!!!!
Elliean gave you some really good advice, separate the colt from the others even if you need to put the others, easier to approach ones in another paddock.
Joining up in a larger pasture is more work, leg, on your part but it can be done using the same principles as a round pen, patience will help you win in the end.
Once it's done properly it will be there for the rest of his life. You can do it girl!!!!!
Amber
Monty does not say that you should not use food in any training. What he does say is do not feed them from your hand. giving food as a reward is not bad, but you don't want the horse to eat from your hand.
Cheers
This is a real challenge here Amber but you seem to be on the right track. I am in total agreement with EllieandMyler and Dennis. You are more likely to get your colts attention and draw him to you if he is separated from the others. If you have a nice quiet responsive horse in the herd I would take it out and put it with your colt so that he doesn't panic about being separated from the whole herd. Then try to work with the two horses together as in Monty's video - "Catching your horse in the field". Remember however that your colt is unbroken and fearful of humans so the whole process will take much longer and will be so much harder. Monty's horses in that video all appeared relatively quiet, broken in and used to humans. I have never used a neck rope as Monty did in that video but when you can get close enough to your fellow then perhaps putting a neck rope on him could be a first step. I think you did the right thing by removing the head collar as they can cause injury if they get caught on things but the neck rope could be a safer option. As Monty's students I do not think we are always required to agree with him in every instance - no teacher would wont that! Always agreeing is not a healthy learning environment we need to have room to question and explore options. I certainly differ from Monty in relation to carrots and even feeding them from your hand is fine in my opinion. It is quite easy to teach your horse not to look for carrots but to waite until offered one. To me the occasional bit of carrot is a fantastic asset in gaining a horse's trust and friendship. It is a great reward for correct behaviour too and I believe fastens up the learning process. Certainly catching them in the field is much easier and simpler if you have a carrot reward waiting for them.
Do u use treats? I agree, seperate him. Try going out in his field with no halter or anything like that. Give him love, grain, and treats, but don't try to catch him. If he doesn't even allow that, i don't know
Hi there! I had a very similar problem to you. My yearling was completely wild and hated any contact with humans. I started off doing a join-up, which worked ok but he didn't follow up, but that was ok. I did this a couple of times but with the same result. I then started to feed him with a bowl and just held onto it. At this point he started to accept my prescence and me rubbing his head. From there I then progressed onto taking pieces of carrot into the field. Each time he walked towards me i threw a carrot to him. Now 2 weeks on I call him and he trots over (still nervous), but takes a carrot from my hand and he allows me to rub him all over his head and neck. He then continues to follow me around the field while I poo pick. I occasionally turn side on, talk to him with no eye contact and offer another slice of carrot and then walk away. Every day is better and he's growing in confidence. Goodness knows what happened to him before, but I now know that he knows I'm not going to hurt him and he has a friend for life! Bring on the next 30 yrs!!
Don't try the use of treats unless you have separated him from the rest of the herd otherwise you will have all your horses coming over and if they have not been trained to be polite you will get run over. I have two mares that have been trained to take turns and to step back when asked but each was trained to step back individually first.Even so they still need the occasional reminder to mind their manners.
Thankfully my horses were very friendly when I got them so teaching that being caught was pretty easy. Like Monty says, have your horse catch you, just by hanging out in the pasture will make him curious. If you can pet his nose, try that and walk away from him before he does, I found that that helped. Also letting them investigate the halter and then taking it away, makes them curious about it :) Once he learns that he can trust you catching him will get easier. Just go out there and take things very slow.
When I first got my horses last year I would put their halters on randomly, like when I fed them, and take it off after a minute or so just so they didn't associate the halter with feet trimming and deworming. Now my horses are out in pasture 24/7 and when it is feeding time and they are out eating I just have to get them in sight and call them and they follow my to their grain bins in a single file line :D