Horse Groundwork for RESPECT (Exercises That Work)

so we all know that one of the most common problems in the horse world is dealing with a horse that doesn't respect you so today I wanted to show you guys from rhetoric techniques you can use to help teacher horse how to respect you and if you haven't already make sure you subscribe to our channel and like this video and I love getting to know you guys I want to get to know you more so why don't you comment below your dream horse free [Music] okay so the first thing I want from my horse when it comes to groundwork for respect is anytime I am stopping and just standing with my horse I want my horse to stand facing me and this way you know if a horse is facing you that means they're focused on you and it also means that they're gonna respect where you are so in order to get my horse to stop and face me what I'm gonna do is teach them to disengage their hind end and this is when they swing their hind end around and that means they can pivot on their front hand so then they can suddenly be facing a different way so this will translate when you go through gates and you turn to shut the gate the horse should turn to face you this goes to lunging your horse when you want your horse to stop you can disengage their hind down and have them face you and just anything with ground work really you can have that control so you can control where your horse is facing so I know that's a big concept so I'm gonna go ahead and show you guys what this looks like so what I'm looking for when I apply pressure to my horse's hind end is I want their hind legs to step away from me but I want them to cross one in front of the other so if you've never done this before you may be a little confused on how to ask your horse to disengage your hind end so I'm going to show you real quick how you can do this so here's the easiest way I know how to teach your horse to do this I'm gonna grab my lead rope and I'm gonna walk back to the horses shoulder applying pressure to his face and see Tucker already know so he's gonna step away but I'm gonna bring my hand up to the withers and if I need to I can use the end of my rope to swing at his hind leg to encourage him to step away good boy so in the beginning even if your horse takes one step away from you that's great so you'll stop and you will reward them and you'll let them know that that's what you want so once you can get a few comfortable and confident steps from your horse then you can start asking them for more and asking them to a disengage their hand end in like a complete circle and so when you do that you can just stay at the shoulder keep the pressure at the withers and you can just walk with your horse as they move so good boy good boy so one problem I've heard from you guys is that when you bring the lead rope back to the horses Withers the horse just wants to back up so in that instance what you're gonna do is I'm gonna focus on bringing the horse's head out and back to the withers so I get a little bend in their neck but then also make sure you're adding a lot of pressure this way and of course he moves what I got to do that so what you're going to do is you want to make sure you create with your body a lot of motion towards the hind end so they understand they need to step away from you even if you mean to press right here to tell them that that's what you want you can do that in the beginning so I'll take my hand up here and I'm going to press on it time then good as soon as he steps away I'll release so once you can effectively disengage your horse's hind end by being next to them now it's time to disengage their hind end so they stop facing you so a perfect place to start practicing this is simply when you walk through dates and when you turn to shut the gate you want your horse to turn their hind end so they're then facing you boy so I want to show you guys how to do this from a standstill to get your horse to turn or face you before we do it lunging where we're trying or caning so what you're gonna do is when you want your horse to stop and face you you're first gonna take a few steps and you're gonna run your hand down the line to where a point where you can grab it and then I'm gonna grab my rope and I'm gonna walk as if I'm gonna walk behind the horse so when I do that he moves away I moved a little suddenly their side freaked him out but I'll do it again so if I'm lunging and let's say he's on the circle I want him to turn and join in run my hand down the rope I would walk as if I'm going behind and see he's just moving around me right now which is good let's do it out a walk okay so once I have him on the circle around me I'm gonna walk and bring my hand down the rope walk behind him so just swinging his hind end over so he's then facing me okay so let's do that a try I'm gonna bring my hand down behind them so when it comes to teaching your horse to respect you being able to disengage your hind end and having them always facing you is gonna help you a lot when it comes to just them being focused and I'm also paying attention and realizing where you are and how they should respond to you so the next groundwork exercise that's great for teaching your horse respect is having your horse back up so a lot of horses actually don't like to back up and that can be a problem let's say your horse is standing right in your personal space that means they're not respecting you at all and you push them or want them to back up but they just won't so that shows like a complete disrespect for you so one of the things I want to teach my horse is to back up with the most subtle cues possible and to have them get out of my space so to start off all I'm gonna do to ask my horses the back up is I'm gonna shake my lead rope and see Tucker's pretty responsive so I don't need to shake it that hard for hitting to respond well let's say you have a horse that doesn't want to back up so what you're gonna do is I'll put my rope on the ground so I don't picture Tucker is you'll start shaking and I'll give them a few like soft shakes but if they don't back up I'm gonna gradually increase my shake until you know I'm really communicating to the horse you need to back up so as soon as the horse backs up then you can just stop shaking and you can just let him stand there and reward them so once I can get my horse to move off for just a very slight pressure from the lead rope like this then I can start seeing if I can communicate with them a different way besides applying pressure to the lead rope so can I wave my hand and kind of move towards them and see he steps away and so you can start messing with that like do you need to apply pressure on the rope for them to back up because ideally I want to just be able to give him a look in point and he moves away from me because he know oh I'm not supposed to get in her space so once I can get him to back up on the rope and when I'm out here I also want to get him to back up if I have to personally touch him and apply pressure so you can do this to the chest I can push him here and go back up or even the nose if I were to push it here I want him to be able to back up and take a few steps back so when it comes to teaching your horse to back up by a pressure here personally applying with your hands it's the same exact thing with the rope so let's say I'm pushing on his chest I'm gonna push lightly first and if he doesn't respond I'm gonna push harder and if he doesn't respond I'll push it even harder until he even just shifts his weight or takes one little step back I'll release and just that I'm sit there for a minute so he knows that that's what I wanted and then I'll just keep gradually doing it until he starts to move off of it good boy and then what the nose it's the same thing so you can take your fingers right here and I'll just apply pressure good boy but same thing I'll apply light pressure if he doesn't respond I'll make it a little harder she doesn't respond a little harder and you just want to hold that pressure until he responds in the right direction good so one thing that's very important when it comes to your horse respecting you is being able to touch your horse all over and apply pressure without worrying about them biting you kicking you or freaking out so the next thing we're gonna do is I'm just gonna show you guys how to you know get your horse used to being touched and respecting your touch but also respecting any pressure that you apply for them to move away from you so to begin with I'm just gonna start touching my horse all over and getting them used to being touched and making sure that they're okay with me touching them so I can touch their legs their head their ears back here on the inside of their back leg and this is just to make sure they're gonna be comfortable with human touch so if you have a horse that you're maybe not comfortable with touching everywhere or there's one specific area that they need to get more comfortable with you can use your lunge whip to start and just rub it all over your horse's body and this is kind of kind of act as your protector so like let's say your horse is bad about their back legs and you touch the back legs with the crop and then kick out you're like oh well I'm glad I didn't go over there so you can start with the lunge whip making sure they're comfortable with the touch of the lunge whip once they're comfortable with this then you can move back there so let's say you touch up with the lunge whip and they start dancing away from you or they're getting really upset one thing you can do is once you hit that trigger area and they start getting worked up just move the crop back to someplace that the horse is comfortable with so let's say I get right here and the horse starts getting antsy and upset I can just move the crop back here to the horse cells down and that will just slowly work my way back to that area that they're kind of upset about just so they can get used to this pressure and learn that it's good and it's not gonna hurt them so once we can touch the horse everywhere now we can start kind of seeing how they're gonna respond with the pressure so I want to be able to touch my horse everywhere and apply pressure and have them react accordingly and so you're just going to use pressure the exact same way we use to ask the horse to back up I'll apply light pressure if they don't respond I'll just gradually continue to increase the pressure until I get the right response so you know we can start up here apply the pressure and his head should go down basically you're just saying what happens when you apply pressure to a certain place so if I apply it right here to the groove of his neck he should just step over good and same thing you can run your hand down the legs apply pressure get them to pick up their feet so how many of you have had a horse that just does not like to stand still so we all know how annoying that can me but it's also a great thing to teach your horse to respect simply by just standing still and learning to look to you until they make their next move so we can see Tucker here he actually looks like he's kind of falling asleep but he hasn't moved this entire time I've been talking and that's great he's looking to me to see when his next move needs to be so if he's just standing here and I point my hand he knows he's gonna have to start moving that way so I'm gonna show you a super easy way just to teach your horse to stand still so the only thing you're gonna need for this exercise is patience basically so what I'm gonna do is have a backup like we've just worked on and once he gets a little far away from me I'll just have him stand and what I'm gonna do is I'll just stand here and watch him and if he takes even the slightest step out of this place I put him I'm gonna just wiggle my rope again and make him step back to where he was so Tucker has done this exercise a lot so he's not gonna move but let's say he was and he starts moving this way so then I'll immediately have them just go back and stand and in the beginning your horse is only gonna be able to stand there for maybe a few seconds at a time so as soon as we start to move away you can correct them and then if let them stand for just a few seconds and then you can go over and reward them and let them know that that's what you wanted and so as you continue to do this exercise you can start to expect them to be able to stand for longer and hold them to that expectation you know I'll stand maybe make them stand for ten seconds and if he can do that then I'll come over and over wore them and and then I can even walk him around and be like Oh a break from standing I can move so our next point is something that's very vital if you're working with a pushy horse or a horse that doesn't respect your space and it is moving your horses shoulders away from you so your horse is gonna go wherever their shoulders are pointing so in order to control where my horse is going I want to be able to control where their shoulders are pointing towards so basically what we're gonna look for is the exact same thing we looked for when disengaging the hind end although this time it's with the front end so when I ask my horse to move their shoulders over I want to see their front legs crossing one in front of the other good boy so from the beginning I teach my horses to this without me having to personally touch them because I want to be able to get them to respond even by just me pointing and having them move out I don't want to have to touch them because they shouldn't be in my space in the first place so the way I do this is I start by taking my hand and bringing it up to their eye and for some horses they're sensitive and you can just make a pushing motion and see he automatically just starts you know turning his head the other way so in order to get these front legs to step over all I'm gonna do put my hand up here and then move towards him with my body so he knows he needs to move away from me and for Tucker he's sensitive enough that that's all I really have to do if you have a horse that's a little bit more dull I'm still gonna bring my hand up to their eye but then I could also use my lunge whip and just kind of wave it right here at their shoulder so they learn to move away and so that one would look something like this boy so once you have control of your horse and shoulders you have control of where they go so let's say he's walking up in my space all I have to do now is bring my hand up to him and he knows oh I better get out for space so they're learning to respect you where you are and where you're telling them to go our next exercise for gaining respect on the ground is to actually lunge your horse and how your horse responds on the lunge is going to determine whether they respect what's happening or not so if I have a horse that I'm lunging and they're constantly pulling at the rope and trying to test the boundaries of the circle I put them on then that means they don't respect the pressure of the and they also don't respect how you're controlling them at the moment so ideally I want a horse that can't ride around on a loose line and go around me and not test the boundaries but also respect my space and not try to cut in and run me over or something so Tucker has done a bunch of lunging and he's been over this a thousand times so he can go around nicely on the lead rope but let's say you have a horse that it's continuously pulling at the lead rope as you're trying to lunge them so what I'm going to do at five a horse that's pulling at the lead rope or the lunge line is I'm gonna use what I've taught in my first point which is disengaging the hind end and so anytime they start to pull on the rope I'm gonna disengage their hind end to have them come back and focus on me but also just to remind them that pressure towards the hind that means that they need to come in so when the horse starts to pull on the lead rope what I can do is I can just start kind of stepping towards the hind end and encouraging the horse to then start turning and bending towards me and so that will take that pull in the lead rope away and they can learn to go off of a nice loose lead roping so I'm not sure if that made sense so I'm gonna walk you guys through it all right so let's say he starts pulling on the lead rope I'm gonna disengage the boy he stopped he's looking at me he's focused and so every time he pulls on the lead I'm just gonna I start here then I'll send it back out and then I'll have them do it again so pretty quickly the horse is gonna learn that when I move to their hind ends they need to start bringing their front end and starting to face me so then when I start lunging again and I feel a little tug on the rope from them I can start walking towards their hind end but encouraging them to continue forward so then I have this bend and they're kind of looking to me and they'll be like this instead of like this and so then you know they're gonna be focused in on me and in that circle and they're not gonna pull as much so once you're lunging your horse and disengaging their hind end and getting that good response from them then what I should be able to do because they're so focused in their understanding that mean going towards their hind end means for their shoulders to move is I should be able to walk towards their hind then encourage them to go forward with my crop and they're gonna they turn towards me and see how loose my lead rope is right now and if you Church to walk out I'll just give it a little tug good boy and so if I'm doing this and he's going well and then he starts to pull I'll just step disengage good boy they don't go and so I'm kind of driving him from behind but look how nice and loose my rope is so our next point is teaching your horse to yield to pressure ahead of them so this can help in a number of ways let's say when you're riding your horse and you apply pressure to your reins does your horse ever fight that pressure and get strong and try to run through that pressure or maybe you're lunging your horse and you put your arm out or your lunge rip out like this to try and stop them but they just run through the pressure so it's like the horse sees something coming like this towards them and their first instinct is to take off and try to get ahead of that pressure and so what I'm going to do is teach the horse to yield to this pressure and instead of running through it I want them to turn and go the other way so to begin all I'm gonna do is have my horse stand like this I'm gonna use my lunge whip here and I'm just gonna start making circles and bringing it towards them and ideally I want him to move this way so if I bring the crop this way he needs to move that way good boy and same this way good boy so when I go to lunge him now I'll just start at a walk because a lot of horses if they're at a trot or a canter they're going to be more apt to try and run through the pressure don't have them walk what I'm gonna do is start my pressure and he immediately turns and goes other way good boy and so you need your crop in your hand that ahead of him good boy good boy if you have a horse that tries to run through the pressure of the lunge whip ahead of them what you can do is come and bring them over to the fence and I just have Tucker standing here so you can just have your horse stand and I'm just gonna use the fence kind of as a barrier so take my lunge whip start moving it the horse will move away so then I can get them to walk I'm just gonna use the fence is the same way but I'm good that was so good so what I can do is I can step in towards the fence and use my lead rope as a block to encourage the horse to stop and this way the horse is just learning you can't go this way you're gonna have to turn around and go the other way so once you've taught your horse to respect the pressure applied ahead of them that helps you out a bunch so let's say you're leading your horse and they're starting to need to get pushy and in your space I can just take my lunge whip and put it out here and see he immediately starts backing up so they're gonna learn that any pressure ahead of them means they need to yield to it and respect it if your horse struggles with other specific problems when it comes to respecting you and respecting your space we have an entire other video dedicated to that and it's about grand manners so we'll put the link in the description for you to go and check that out thank you guys so much for watching make sure you like this video subscribe to our Channel and also leave in the comments any questions you may have and I'll try to answer you guys but I'll see you next time [Music] [Music]

Channel: Equine Helper

Views: 106,689

Rating: 4.9702315 out of 5

Keywords: Horse Groundwork for Respect, How to gain a horse's respect

Id: YZFjsf5t0cM

Length: 21min 18sec (1278 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 29 2020