You first need to put your emotions in check. You do not want your horse to see you as a threat. The object of this lesson is just to ask your horse to respect you and your space, not to start a fight.<\/p>\n
Your horse knows your intentions and can sense your emotions, so he will know if you are angry and coming at him with ill intentions. Even if you have no intention of hurting your horse, coming at him with anger will still start a fight. An aggressive horse will respond in like and the whole situation will either escalate or you will lose to a 1,200 lb animal who is much bigger than you.<\/p>\n
So, when you realize you need to ask your horse to give you some space and to stop being a bully towards you, stop and think about what you are feeling.<\/p>\n
Get your emotions in check and calm down, but be sure of yourself. You want to feel confident but relaxed without any anger or frustration. This may take a little while to get your emotions under control. Take whatever time you need.<\/p>\n
Safety First:<\/strong><\/p>\n If you are not safe because your horse is being too aggressive, and you cannot get your emotions under control quickly, step out of the area to make sure you are safe. Once you are relaxed and feel confident about what your intentions are then go to step two.<\/p>\n Step Two:<\/strong><\/p>\n Walk towards the front of your horse, meaning somewhere in front of his shoulders up to the nose, and using your hands\/arms\/whip ask him to turn around and move away from you and out of your space. Use a crossing of your arms motion and your body\u2019s forward motion to move your horse away from you. Your body language needs to be strong but relaxed and confident. Your body should be straight up, not leaning forward or backward, and your footing should be firmly on the ground.<\/p>\n You should be thinking that you just want your horse to leave your space and be better mannered around you. You are asking him to leave your area because you don\u2019t want to be around him if he is going to treat you meanly, bully you, or push you around. You are only letting him know that his current behavior is inappropriate and if he wants to act like this, it is ok, but you don\u2019t want him near you if he continues.<\/p>\n You are NOT saying that his behavior is wrong. You are NOT saying that he is not allowed to act this way. You are NOT punishing him in any way because of his actions. He is allowed to act any way he wants. He has the freedom to express himself at all times. However, you have the choice of when you want to be around him. You are only telling him that when he acts in this way, you don\u2019t want to be close to him. So he learns what you feel is appropriate behavior when he is close to you.<\/p>\n Once your horse has turned around and moved away from you; at a walk, trot, or a canter, ask him to move a bit farther. This way he truly understands that you are saying that you really don\u2019t want to be around him when he acts in this disrespectful manner.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t chase him or run after him. You just want to add enough pressure to send him away from you where he knows to stay away until he acts nicer to you. Remember, this is not a fight and you are not angry. Make sure you don\u2019t get too close to him when asking him to leave your area so you don\u2019t get kicked. Always keep yourself safe and stay out of his kick zone.<\/p>\n Step Three:<\/strong><\/p>\n After you send him away from you and he stays away, you can just turn around and walk away and go back to \u201cyour\u201d area. If your horse comes back and is well mannered, let him come close. You choose how close you allow him to be with you. Then go back to an earlier lesson and \u201cre-introduce\u201d yourself. You want to let him know you still love him and want to be the lead mare, but you want to be respected. This re-establishes your connection and brings back the good feelings the two of you share.<\/p>\n You will see an immediate difference in his attitude towards you. He will be grateful that you allow him to be free with his feelings and expressions and don\u2019t punish him for them. He will start to see you as a fair and just member of the herd. This also shows your horse that you really do understand herd dynamics and have learned \u201chis language\u201d.<\/p>\n Sometimes you may need to do this 2-3 times if you have a very aggressive horse, but for the most part, you will only need to do this lesson once.<\/p>\n From this point, you can go back to what you were doing before the aggressive behavior and it will go much smoother.<\/p>\n Lesson Video:<\/strong><\/p>\n In this video you will see a dominant stallion, which is normally not aggressive, turn aggressive because there were two mares turned out in the adjacent pasture that had both just gone into season.<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t realize they were in season and I put my chair next to the shared fence where the two mares decided to walk over to see what was going on. So my stallion decided that I was too close to \u201chis\u201d mares and so were my two geldings and he charged all of us.<\/p>\n You will see that I didn\u2019t have a whip with me as I was only there to talk to the camera for another lesson video. I also didn\u2019t have a whip with me because I \u201cfelt\u201d safe since I have never seen aggression like this in any of my horses ever before.<\/p>\n Lesson learned \u2013 horses can have bad days just like us, so ALWAYS have a whip or a reed with you when you go in with the horses.<\/em><\/p>\n I took out the audio in this video so you can focus on watching the stallion\u2019s behavior behind me to see his body language and how he was sending me warning signs before he charged me.<\/p>\n However, since he was behind me, I didn\u2019t see it. Watch is body movements and his ears to see if you can see it.<\/p>\n You will also notice that I did not react with surprise or anger or instantly \u201cgo after\u201d him with any force. I thought about it, made sure my emotions were correct, thought about what my intentions needed to be, and allowed him the freedom to express himself.<\/p>\n The second time he charged I needed to ask for him to be better mannered and I asked him to leave my area. Since I didn\u2019t have a whip with me I used my body language, crossing my arms, to ask him to leave my space. I also had a paper folder in my hands that I could use as a slight extension of my hands to ask him to leave.<\/p>\n After the situation was diffused I could sit and think about why he became aggressive and I realized that the mares were in season and I understood the situation. I could see it from his perspective and he wasn\u2019t trying to hurt me, just trying to get me and my geldings to move away from \u201chis\u201d mares. As mean as he looked, he was giving me warnings.<\/p>\n I then moved my chair and my boys and we all went into a different area away from the mares and continued our session together.<\/p>\n He was happy I listened to him, understood what he was trying to say, allowed him to express himself, and that we came to a happy compromise together. He was then his normal sweet self.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","class_list":["post-30652","tva_lesson","type-tva_lesson","status-publish","hentry","tva_courses-bo2","post-wrapper","thrv_wrapper"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/teddiezieglerhorsemanship.com\/academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tva_lesson\/30652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/teddiezieglerhorsemanship.com\/academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tva_lesson"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/teddiezieglerhorsemanship.com\/academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/tva_lesson"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/teddiezieglerhorsemanship.com\/academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/teddiezieglerhorsemanship.com\/academy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Asking-a-Dominant-Horse-to-Respect-your-Space.jpg\")
<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/teddiezieglerhorsemanship.com\/academy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Asking-a-Dominant-Horse-to-Respect-your-Space-2.jpg\")
<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/teddiezieglerhorsemanship.com\/academy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Asking-a-Dominant-Horse-to-Respect-your-Space-3.jpg\")
<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/teddiezieglerhorsemanship.com\/academy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Asking-a-Dominant-Horse-to-Respect-your-Space-4.jpg\")
<\/span><\/p>\n