Pushy, Aggressive, Biting, and Dominant Horse Behavior

hello welcome to tim anderson horse training today we're going to be working with spade here spade just came in uh a day or two ago and what they told me was that he is five years old and the owner that rides him it's a teenage girl looks like maybe a high school age they're not really getting along and not really sure in what way they're not getting along i figure it's probably a combination of being a younger horse and maybe a rider that doesn't know how to work with the younger horse but we're going to work with spade today and i'm going to see what he tells me i am a firm believer when a horse comes in that i'm going to i'm going to observe what they do i'm going to assess and then i'm going to react to what they do as far as improving those behaviors so i'll see what behaviors he's doing and kind of assess him and come up with a game plan how we're going to move forward with him so start off by coming into the stall and if you saw my video with the half-langer i want them to present themself at the door for me to halter them and he he's done a pretty good job of that he's a little bit more into my space than what i would like but he's not trying to push through to go out the door so uh i like what we're getting so far he is a little closer than i would like i do feel like he's into my space so that's something to take note of and i'm a real firm believer in the horse is going to tell you that that little thing right there that's what i'm getting to the horse is going to tell you ahead of time what's going to happen what he's going to do how he's going to act many owners miss those little things those little conversations if you watch horses in a pasture they're constantly having little small communications between them and the pasture and when you start interacting with a horse in a stall the horse immediately starts with those interactions they're herd animals and they're constantly going to interact with you and see how i keep he's getting into my space i just kind of keep pushing him out of my space that's the little things that i'm talking about that's the things that he's communicating to me that he's okay with getting into my space and now i see he's turned his head that way not wanting to push his head that way and you see him lip at my hand right there he could be a little bit nippy also so that's the little communications that i'm talking about now he's trying to get a little bit pushy let's go and put the halter on it these are those little communications that you should be paying attention to with your horse miss out on the little things that's how horses become big problems people miss out on those little communications the little things that the horse tells them and the horse keeps escalating in the herd structure you should always be at the top and your horse should be below you and what gets you into trouble is the horse is constantly it seems take a step towards me that's one of those little things that's a big deal so the horse is constantly trying to figure out where he is in my her and our herd structure between the two of us that's just natural for the horse they want to know where they are in that order so the first thing he's going to do is he's going to push on me a little bit just to see if i give see right there i pushed on him he did not move his feet that's a big thing to take note of i've had to give him a pretty good push there to get him to move his feet right now we're kind of in a situation he's pushing towards me trying to see if i'll move my feet i'm trying to see if he'll move his feet we're establishing our herd right here now what i'm going to do to go ahead and bring this to a situation where i want it to be i don't want to i don't want his mouth right there by me i give him a chance he he keeps putting his mouth close well if he can't get him into my space and make me move the next thing that's going to come is he going to take a nip and see if he can make me move little things those little things are big things if you don't pay attention to the little things so in order to go ahead and establish what needs to be established here is i'm going to make him move his feet so what i'm going to do let's i'll go this way since there's more room over here and just make him move his feet that little bit up he must step forward into my space i'm gonna make him move his feet again back up good boy i'm not going to pet him here i'm not trying to reward i'm not trying to reward a behavior i'm trying to establish our relationship and our pecking order right here if i pet him i'm going to be inviting him back into my space i don't want to do that see the difference in his head right here he's not bringing his head to me challenging my personal space like he was a minute ago and he's not stepping towards me either that's the little things those little things are important now he's thinking about well maybe i can challenge the space see the head coming to me getting really close into my space again so i'm going to move his feet again don't have to be mean i don't have to be aggressive all we have to do is move his feet i have it to establish with him has brought his head to me again i have to establish with him that i am his leader and i dictate what goes on there we go now he actually took a step away from me right there now we're making progress already his mind is in a much better place than it was just a minute ago he's trying to go see what the camera is now his mind is in a much better place he's still creeping into my space i'm going to back him up and i'm going to back him up again move his feet now we're establishing a relationship between the two of us those little things that people skip they don't pay attention to and it brings out so many big problems i am a big opponent of hand feeding horses treats maybe 75 percent of the horses out there you can feed treats too and it'll never be a problem and there's so many owners out there that say oh i feed treats to my horse and my horse is an angel well maybe it is or it may be that your horse is telling you something and you're not paying attention to it and it may be that you can feed treats to your horse and it never become an issue but the horses that it is an issue it's a big issue he's testing the space again testing his limits just just like a adolescent person testing their limits see what they can get away with i'm giving him plenty of time here to think about what he's doing and make his decisions good boy much better back up there now i have established oh i don't want his head right up against me again he has already showed me that he will nip because when i first walked in here he did a little maui thing on me now you have to be able to tell the difference between wanting to take a nip you saw a minute ago i'll play a replay for it here that's different than like a baby mouthy thing where i'm a baby that is a submissive thing doing the i'm a baby mouthing thing taping a nip is a aggressive action good boy all right so i'm gonna get him out of the stall i'll work him in the aisle way just a little bit and then i'll put him in the washrack and brush him down a little bit started out better he didn't immediately get into my space but then he kind of creeped into it move back him into now we're going to come out of style let's see what we do now i am never going to lead a horse with the horse right here next to me i'm not leading him at this point he's leading me see him ears he has immediately went into he's in charge of me position i'm going to make him move his feet back up back up right here he's wanting to push his shoulder into me the shoulder needs to go that way because i'm going that way get the shoulder out of my space get the shoulder there we go shoulder out of my space that's much better good boy back up much better much better don't want his face on me that could become a big problem i'm not gonna let any horse get their face that close to me this is the first time that he's been in the voice rack here he just came in this is actually the first time he's been out of the stall since he came here back up some more back up a little more same push your shoulder into me i'm going to push it away i'm not going to let him do anything to come into my space anything that's going to challenge my position as being above him in the herd so i'm going to run a brush over see how he does for that and it's not that i want to see that he can be brushed i want to see how he behaves when he's brushed the little things see his ears forward he's looking out there he's not paying me a bit of attention that i don't care for hey over here hey hey move your feet move your feet over here there see that ear come back i need his attention on me even though he's getting his first look from inside the washrack doesn't matter he should be looking to me for confidence he should be looking to me as his herd leader to tell him what to do you ever seen a group of horses in pasture there's that one herd leader that decides whether are we going to spook are we going to stand here when they see something new i am the herd leader he needs to be looking to me to see what do we do this is giving me a pretty good indication of what the problem is with him he's lacking a person as a herd leader so that's what we have to establish first thing i'm going to do is work with him get him in the mindset of a person is my herd leader and then i'm going to work with his his rider and get her in the position of his herd leader little things it's easy to see a horse that's got his ears pinned back to his head and teeth spared when i went into the stall a minute ago he didn't do any of that but i got the same reaction a little bit of a nip well that little bit of a nip can become a big problem if you don't pay attention to the little things that's what i would like for you to get out of this video pay attention to those little things before they become a big thing so let's pick his feet up i have not done his feet i have no idea how he's going to be he needs his feet trimmed all right what is he telling me right there he knows i'm asking for the foot but he don't want to give it to me so i was getting it out real forward that licking right there is not licking of acceptance he didn't give me that foot and said okay i understand you can have my foot he's licking because he just won that foot situation so let's do this again see where that foot went it went that way he's not wanting to give me the foot now i'm going to hold his foot kind of high i want him to know that i control this foot just like when i made him move in a stall made him move his feet i'm doing the same thing right here by picking it up kind of high and holding it i'm letting him know that i'm ruling his feet he got his mouth over here and what did he tell me a little bit ago he told me if he gets his mouth over to me he would take a nip at me so i pushed his face away i'm not going to let him get his face in a position where he could take a nip at me and i give him his foot back when i say he can have his foot back now we're going to do the other front foot when i go to pick it up let's see if he gives it to me or if he pulls it away right there he's wanting to tell me that i don't deserve his foot i got it i'm going to hold it up high it's easier for me to have more leverage when it's high that takes the leverage away from him if it's really close to the ground then he has the leverage he needs his feet trimmed pretty bad but i'm not going to put my farrier in a position to where he has to train on the horse that's not fair for you to do with your farrier it's not your failure's job to train your horse i hear so many people talk about well i can't get a failure to come out or my pharaoh came once and won't come back well might be a reason for that you might need to train your horse a little better there we go all right now i'm gonna go back foot next we'll see how that goes with him being willing to nip at me a little bit ago he might be willing to kick at me so i'm gonna make sure i stay in a safe position we'll see there's a lot of things he could do we'll see what he does what i need to do is i need to get it picked up and hold on to it and not let him have it back let him know that i'm in charge of his feet that actually was pretty good i bet you by winning the battle with his front feet it converted in his brain to his back feet good boy now we'll go around to the other back foot i'm going to push him over a little bit give myself a little room push over push over there we go good boy now let's see what it does with this foot actually pretty good i'm happy with that i feel like i got something done with him all around mainly mentally 90 of horse training is mental 10 is physical once you train their mind to be accepting and willing to do what you ask them to do the task is easy it's the mind that you have to train first so that's what we accomplished today was working on his mind even though it seemed really small with the things that we did spacing the stall and picking up his feet brushing on him leading over here those were all small things but mentally establishing the relationship between the two of them those were really big things so that's going to be it for today with spade you'll see me do a lot more with him in the future until next time thank you for watching

Channel: Tim Anderson Ranch and Horse Training

Views: 314,187

Keywords: Aggressive horse Behavior, How to train an aggressive horse, How to stay safe while training a dominant horse, Aggressive horse, pushy horse, dominant horse, biting horse, dangerous horse behavior, aggresive horse behavior, pushy horse behavior, pushy horse on the ground, nippy horse, nippy horse behavior, Horse Behavioral Training, Establishing Leadership with Horses, Young Horse Training, Horse and Rider Communication, Correcting Nipping and Space Invasion in Horses

Id: K9cNxdfGqcU

Length: 20min 49sec (1249 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 12 2022