Is Your Horse Hard to Catch? How to reverse this

My heart breaks when I hear people talk about ‘catching their horse’ or worse: having a horse that is ‘hard to catch’. Why is this heartbreaking to hear?

The horse clearly doesn’t want to engage and that’s not a message we want to hear from the horse we love so much. The good thing is that’s pretty easy to reverse.

Catching vs Being Welcomed in the pasture

When you need to catch your horse, it implies that the horse is walking away… That he doesn’t want to be with you! That’s heartbreaking…

Not only for the owner (we have horses to love and we want them to love us!), but sad for the horse.

Walking away from you is a clear signal that should be addressed! The horse clearly has no intention of coming with you happily. If he would, he would be greeting you at the fence or walk up to you to say ‘Hello’.

Possible reasons for this behaviour

Many reasons can drive this behaviour. Think of:

• Horse is anticipating on what he has to do when he’s caught (riding, groundwork, driving, leaving his herd, being groomed) and wants to avoid it
• Maybe he has an unbalanced rider that’s really uncomfortable for him
• Poor fitting tack
• Facing lots of aversives in training and/or punishment
• Horse is unsure what’s expected
• Distrust of people
• Learned behaviour (playing tag with you and enjoys this game)

Choosing a solution

Depending on the cause of your horse’s behaviour of getting away from you and trying to avoid being caught, you choose a solution.

If he’s in pain (poor fitting tack) you could clicker train him to accept the aversive bridle or saddle, but it doesn’t revolve his discomfort, pain or fears.

Often it starts with offering your horse a choice and showing him that you’re listening! That’s when he’ll start telling you more. The more you know, the better you can address his issue and the sooner it will be resolved.

I have a hard to catch horse

Currently I’m riding a horse that is hard to catch. She’s walking away from me and when I follow her, she trots a big circle before you I can approach and halter her. This is how they catch her.

Interesting part is that she will let you halter her, but she clearly doesn’t want to.

I’ve been showing this horse, that she has a choice.

Now I gave her a voice she’s saying ‘No’ to me and won’t let me approach her with a halter. That’s to be expected. It tells me a lot!

I’m not worried. Soon I will have taught her to approach me and nothing bad will happen. Only good things!

I’m confident it won’t be long before I can halter her and investigate further what part of being caught/being with people she doesn’t like. That’s why I’m making a video of this behaviour before the problem goes away. 😉

Give your horse a choice and you’ll get answers!

Some people are afraid of giving their horse a choice or a voice in training. Yes, it’s possible that your horse will say NO. This will give you so much information, that you can use to make riding or training win-win.

Often horses are very willing to cooperate with you, once their problem is solved.

The problem can be anything: from fear of pain or punishment, insecurity, to learned (undesired) behaviours. Once you give your horse a voice, and start acting (!) on what he communicates, your relationship will become better!

Every time you listen to your horse, he is reinforced to communicate more with you. No more unexpected bolting, pulling away from you, spooking or biting will happen. It can take time, but the more you listen (and act on his message!!) the more he’ll tell you and the more he’ll trust you.

So, I’m not worried about my free lease horse trotting away from me. Before long, I can halter her and she’ll be at the fence greeting me. Looking forward spending time together.

Positive reinforcement is giving your horse something he wants, so he’ll give you something you want. It’s more fun working with a cooperative horse that’s eager to work with and for you!

Want to know how I do this? Read the related article (bottom of this one)

Are you a compassionate horse owner who wants to build a strong friendship with your horse? Would you like to understand your horse better and help your horse to understand YOU better? Get access to many online clicker training courses and a fabulous, supportive R+ community in our HippoLogic Clicker Training Academy. Check out the link!

Not sure? Start with a free clicker training assessment to get taste of what it feels like to work with me. When you have a specific struggle that you want to overcome, don’t hesitate to contact me. In this assessment you’ll discover what’s holding you back from accomplishing the things you want with your horse. After our conversation you’ll know exactly what to do, in order to move forward towards your goals.

Book here

Happy Horse training!
Sandra Poppema, B.Sc., founder of HippoLogic & HippoLogic Clicker Training Academy

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https://mailchi.mp/5d676526ba5a/clicker-training-academy

Related article:

How to get your horse out of the pasture effortlessly!

10 Funny Horse Memes

1. As equine clicker trainer this meme always cracks me up. I am very visual (a great skill to imagine how training will go) and I know lots of farriers out these are still very traditional.

2. About the gaits. I do love a great trot, who doesn’t? Love that they are in sync.

3. Growing up with Dutch as my first language I haven’t heard so many silly and ambiguous word jokes. So if you have a lame horse joke, leave them in the comments! Humor is the unexpected and I love those word twists.

4. I wanted to find the picture of the sign at a horse rental that says:
We have experiences horses for experienced riders, Fast horses for fast riders, Slow horses for slow riders and We have green horses for green riders. But I couldn’t find it.
This one is funny, too.

I once had a swan that LANDED on the horses head at night in the outdoor arena. Similar experience as below…

5. As a cat person I see the humor in this one! I love the smiles!

6.Again a word twist… And horses do think this!

7.Having a horse is a lot of responsibility and keeping them is hard work. We, equestrians, that have cold or muddy Winters know all about it. We’re troopers!

8.This one is about context shifts. Yes, we behave differently if we want to show off, an audience is often a context shift and still… we fall for it, right?

9. What do you wish to be?

• 

• 

10. I love this one because this never happens to me anymore! The other day I called Kyra and I got Kyra + her friend coming over to the gate. All horses at the barn love to engage with me because I have to offer something: the Magic of Clicker Training. Can you relate?

More FUN

10 Funny Horse Cartoons

10 Funny Horse Pictures

10 Funny Halloween costumes for Horses

Join HippoLogic’s Facebook group

Become a member of our Happy Herd on Facebook and get access to my Facebook LIVE’s.

Sandra Poppema, B.Sc.

Helping horse people to bond with their horse and get the results they want.

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What Impression does Your Horse make?

Have you ever been in a situation where you wanted to show off the amazing goals you’ve accomplished with clicker training?

Visitors at the barn

One time a Facebook friend who was eager to learn more about clicker training visited me at the barn.

On this particular day in Winter it was cold, windy and rainy. The field was muddy and when we arrived all horses where gathered around the feeding place in the field.

As soon as Kyra heard my voice she came over to the gate and while I was haltering her, I was pondering how I could show off and what I would do in order to impress my friend.

We went to the indoor arena where Kyra and I demonstrated a few tricks at liberty.  I also kept it short because it was cold and when we brought Kyra back to the field, I asked her what she liked best.

Her answer was not at all what I expected!

 Instead of asking me about How I trained lying down or Spanish walk, she told me that she was very impressed that Kyra had came across field, all the way to the gate. My friend assumed we had at least to wade thru the ankle-deep mud in order to get Kyra or maybe even chase her a bit before I could halter her.

To me this was not something impressive. I didn’t realize that something as simple as your horse coming over to meet you could impress people and I will never forget that feeling. She was already impressed before we started! Just by Kyra showing me she was eager to interact with me and willing to go through the mud!

From that day on, I paid more attention to what impresses horse people.

Some people are surprised that, when Kyra gets loose because I am bad at tying knots, she doesn’t run away from me and I can simply walk over to get her.

Others notice that she’s not mugging me while I obviously have treats in my pocket. While I hope they are impressed by the behaviours I spent hours training, most people are impressed by the side-effects positive reinforcement training has: a confident horse and the relationship I have with Kyra.

How does your horse impress other horse people?

Next time you’re at the barn, pay attention to what others admire about your training. What remarks do they make that tells you they want what you can do? Sometimes their sentence starts with simply with the words “I wish my horse would….

• I wish my horse would be easy to catch…
• I wish my horse would stand still…
• I wish my horse was more like yours…

Share with in the comments what others admire about the relationship you have with your horse or what you’ve trained they wish they could.

Read more: How to Get your Horse out of the Pasture (effortlessly)

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Become a member of our Happy Herd on Facebook and get access to my Facebook LIVE’s.

Sandra Poppema, B.Sc.

I help horse owners get the results in training they really, really want with joy and easy for both horse and human. I make training a win-win.

Get your free 5 Step Clicker Training Plan.

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Step-by-step Guide to Teach Your Horse to Come When Called

This month Horse Rookie published another article that I’ve written for them. It’s a shaping plan to train your horse to respond to his name so that you can get him out of the pasture effortlessly.

Why teach it

The better question might be, why not teach it?! It’s fun to have a horse that responds to his name, but it’s also useful.

Instead of trudging out to the back of the pasture, simply call your horse’s name and watch him come running. 

If your horse ever escapes from his enclosure, whether at home or away, he will come to you when you call his name.

Icing on the cake? People will be quite impressed when your horse responds to his name!

Click the picture below to read the whole article on Horse Rookie.

Join the Clicker Community!

Do you want to have a horse that comes trotting to the gate with a nicker to greet you, instead of a horse that requires you to go into the mud to get (or catch) him? Start small and learn a bit of clicker training. It will almost happen instantaneously. I’ve seen this happen over and over with my students.

• Are you looking for professional positive reinforcement advice?
• Do you need an affordable program?
• Do you want to turn your equestrian dreams into reality, but you don’t know where to start?

If you have answered ‘Yes’ to one or more of the above questions, join the Clicker Training Academy for online positive reinforcement training, personal advice and support in training your horse.

Sandra Poppema, B.Sc.

I help horse owners get the results in training they really, really want with joy and easy for both horse and human. I always aim for win-win!

Get a FREE 5 Step Clicker Training Plan.

Related article:  How to get your horse out of the pasture. Effortlessly! (with video)