How do I get my herd bound horse to trust me?
Note: The following excerpt is the transcript from a question I answered from my Facebook Live made in the Steady Horse Facebook Group on 8/7/19. Watch the video or read the text below to learn the answer to the question.
You really hit on something. There is that trust. It’s good that you recognize that if she won’t take your leadership to direct her somewhere, she doesn’t trust that where you will put her is a better place than being with her friends. So, what you have is a pony that wants to group up and be by other horses, or is sometimes buddy sour. You need to change their thinking. You need to make them understand that when you’re asking them to go some place that is the best place for them to go.
So you’re leading her from one pasture to another, or by a paddock near another horse, but she doesn’t want to go (she’s pulling towards her buddies) we’ll let her drift by her buddies. But while she’s there, send her around in small circles, and I say small circles cause you really want it to be work. Get that hind end up working underneath her, get her moving and let her know, that she can be by her buddies and friends and all the other horses over here, but you will be working. Then once she works for a bit and she has a little bit of an incentive to want to slow down.
So say if I’m prodding her to circle and I can see that she’s starting to lower that head and she takes a deep breath, try to slow down so she can walk on her own. Those are all good signs that she’s wanting to slow down. Try to figure a way out of that.
So then what we’ll do is then you’ll go back to asking her to go to where you initially asked her to go, and if she doesn’t go there, well then you put it back to her. But if she goes there, you’re giving her an opportunity to let her rest in that spot.
Take a deep breath and give her a rub. Let her know that she’s awesome, and really affirm her. Let her really understand that where you asked her to go is a good place. When she doesn’t want to go where you told her to go (when she pulls someplace else that will cause her to have to do a lot of work) she can go there. That’s her prerogative, but it will be costly as far as the number of calories and energy that she has to expend in order to hang out over there by those friends. She’s going to learn that when you point at that direction, that’s where she wants to go because that’s where she gets to rest and relax.
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