SIGNS A HORSE DOESN’T RESPECT YOU | Horse Behavior Guide

hey everyone so if you have a horse that doesn't respect you it can be very problematic and also cause a lot of issues so in today's video i wanted to share some signs that your horse doesn't respect you and what you can do to help better your relationship with them so if you find that your horse does display some of the behaviors we're going to cover just know that this video isn't here to condemn you it's here to educate you horses are herd animals by nature so this means they're constantly going to be vying for their position in the hierarchy of social dynamics so that being said it is perfectly normal to run into respect issues with your horses the important thing is knowing how to address those issues when they come and so that's what we're going to talk about today so i find that there are three main areas where horses have the most problems when it comes to disrespecting their handlers and most of this just relates back to a lack of training or maybe just not a solid foundation when they were first started the first sign that your horse may not respect you or the aids that you're giving is that they will fight or ignore the pressure you apply so this can look like a few different things and i'll just cover a few examples of some common situations you may be facing with your horse so an example of this would be your horse trying to graze as you lead them and even if you're like pulling them to try to get them to move they're just going to ignore you for the grass come on buddy another example is a horse that doesn't want to walk up with you and you're constantly having to pull on the lead and fight them to get them to walk faster another one is if your horse jerks their head up every time you try to get them to lower their head so if you apply pressure here and they lower or even to their pole and they jerk up rather than see he's kind of ignoring my pressure there oh see he's ignoring there he'll soften down if your horse jerks their head up when you're trying to get them to lower their head that's a good sign they are disrespecting the pressure you're applying another way your horse may be disrespecting pressure is they refuse to pick up their feet when you try and you just find yourself pulling and pulling at their leg and they just won't pick up their foot the good news is if you have a horse that can be disrespectful in this area it's super easy to correct this is basically a training issue where all you have to do is solidify in your horse's mind the idea of pressure and release what i mean by this is horses a lot of times learn by the release of pressure so that means if i apply pressure like pulling down on the lead rope as soon as he responds correctly i release the pressure so when he dips his nose i'll release the pressure so by starting with the light pressure and gradually increasing pressure until your horse responds you're teaching them to respond to the lightest pressure so in essence this should help any situation where you find your horse fighting your pressure so whether it's picking up their feet or leaving them all you have to really do is work on getting them to respond to the right pressure another area that i find most horses have a hard time with respect is when it comes to your personal space as their handler so this solely comes from the fact that horses are hurt animals and they're just trying to secure a better place within the herd so one way your horse may demonstrate this is by walking into you as you're leading so this can look like them bumping their shoulder into you maybe budding you with their head and just getting all up in your space as you lead them another good one is that your horse may always try to be walking ahead of you technically the space ahead of you is your space so if the horse is wanting to walk ahead and pull on you that means they're disrespecting your space another common way horses show disrespect when it comes to your personal space is that they'll stick their head up and over you so tucker here can't really do that because he's a short little guy but a lot of horses can do this with their handlers like if you're trying to put the bridle on they may just stick their head right over you and that's really disrespecting your space if you watch horses in the pasture usually the more dominant horse will put their head up and over other horses and even like push them with their chest so when it comes to teaching your horse to respect your personal space the best thing i find that you can do is groundwork groundwork refers to training you specifically do with your horse while you're on the ground this is considered the foundation of horse training because your horse is getting to know you on a face to face personal level a horse isn't going to get to know you if you're just sitting on their back all the time there are so many different groundwork exercises if i were to take time to explain them all today we'd be here for probably a few days so if you're looking for a step-by-step guide that walks you through exactly how to do very useful groundwork exercises i created an online course that walks you through a bunch of different exercises you can use and how this course works is it has different lessons so in one lesson you'll learn how to do a specific exercise and then you can go practice it with your horse and come back and finish the course on your own time and you can space it out as you need to in order to progress correctly you can go to shop.equinehelper.com and i'll also put the link in the description where you can find this online course the next area that i find horses can be very disrespectful in is when it comes to showing aggression so some horses don't have a mean bone in their body towards humans that's kind of like tucker here he's always very passive always been very nice and polite to me but some horses will be aggressive towards humans and some will be very aggressive to where it's dangerous some horses that show aggression towards humans so not all of them but some some of them do this out of protection for themselves so this means they may not feel comfortable around humans or maybe they just haven't gotten to interact with humans a lot and so they're going to be a little bit more aggressive and weary when they're around them that being said it's always important to be aware of why your horse is being aggressive sometimes they may be aggressive because they're literally scared of you while other times they may be aggressive because they're just trying to be dominant and get their way one way your horse may display aggression towards you is by swinging their butt to you when maybe you go out to catch them in the pasture or maybe you go in their stall or maybe they're eating and you're walking out to them horses do this because they use their hind end as a defense mechanism they can kick you and that's a great way they protect themselves in the wild y'all honestly i've had tucker almost five years and i don't think i've ever seen him put his ears back which is kind of crazy i guess that's geldings for you if he was a mayor oh my gosh so another way your horse may display aggression even though this is a little bit more subtle and more common is that they may pin their ears back at you so this is usually just a warning sign that they're not happy with the situation or that they may escalate to do something dangerous another way horses might be aggressive towards you is by biting so there's different kinds of biting that horses do sometimes it's just playful where they're nibbling at you trying to play with you other times it's the horse is coming at you they're lunging at you their ears are flat against their head and they want you to get out of their way or you're going to get bit another way your horse can be disrespectful by displaying aggression is when you're riding them and they just start acting up so sometimes a horse will act up when you're riding them because maybe the saddle isn't fitting correctly they may be in pain or they may just be getting frustrated or sometimes a horse acts up to get you off of them i've been on horses where we're just out on a nice peaceful trail ride and suddenly they just started bucking like crazy and their sole purpose was to get me off their back and of course as soon as i fall off they take off so that's what i'm talking about here a horse that is trying to get you off them so it's important to address these behaviors as soon as they happen otherwise the horse may learn that they can display these aggressive behaviors and scare you out of working with them so as soon as your horse does something where it's aggressive towards you the best thing to do is just start working them let's say you're riding your horse and your horse gets mad and they just suddenly start bucking like crazy if you're able to stay on the best thing to do is ride them through it and then work them hard enough so that they understand that's not right if you don't feel comfortable being on the horse but you feel comfortable being on the ground the best thing you can do in that situation is probably just launch the horse and work the horse like that to make them tired and help them understand that that behavior is not right another thing to keep in mind is preparation helps horses succeed in the long run so let's say your horse is aggressive when it comes to feeding time and they pin their ears back in charge at you when you approach their food bucket well if you take the time to prepare where you're taking the feed bin and it's empty and you're just working the horse around it getting them to walk away from it and you're preparing that way then when you add food the horse is going to be much more able to accept the situation and allow you to come close to them and move them away from the food another great solution we've already mentioned in other points is groundwork so by using groundwork to get your horse even just focused on your personal space it can get them focused on you and respecting you to where they're not going to do anything aggressive or dangerous towards you so once again go to shop.equinehelper.com to check out our online course if you found this video helpful please be sure to give us a thumbs up and subscribe to our channel for more weekly horse videos

Channel: Equine Helper

Views: 223,202

Rating: 4.9060383 out of 5

Keywords: signs a horse doesn't respect you, horse behavior guide

Id: rjxIyX95Okk

Length: 8min 53sec (533 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 18 2021