Turning off the key on my haflinger

I’m interested in the same question. I have a bakery wagon that I have taken into town and tied to a makeshift hitching post. The horse would lost patience with it and get twitchy.

I am not sure exactly how good, patient standing while tied is best trained for. I would guess that tying frequently and for successively longer periods would bring about the right results? I’m interested in others’ responses.

Erik

Hello,

I wouldn’t allow her grazing while hitched. You could consider unhitching her for grazing but don’t let her make the connection that grazing is allowed while “working” aka “being hitched.

Standing reliably has to be trained. Horses don’t generalize easily. If they stand one place, they have to relearn it on other places.

You could train her to certain markers, though.

Teach her to stand beside a pole that you put in the ground always, or ground tied to a dangling leading rope, or next to a traffic cone, etc.

Use that marker first at home next to the barn, then move the marker to other locations and retrain her there.

If there’s grazing around, make sure she’s not hungry – this makes it easier to train her. And take into consideration that after the winter they are so much more craving for anything fresh.

George –

What reprimand do you use when your horses try to bob, scratch rub etc? I’m working on getting mine to stop that business but they interpret any feedback through the lines as a sign to step up or back. Just curious on that account.

For situations where there is no place to tie up w/ lead, I wonder about bringing along a home made anchor of sorts. Maybe a smaller bucket filled with concrete and an eye bolt anchored in it? I know the longterm goal is to not have to tie up at all and there are likely potential risks with my thinking, but in cases like Erik’s where you’re in town w/ the public around, it’s sort of insurance. A runaway there could be catastrophic.

I find that a check (I use a sidecheck) drastically cuts down on the amount of extracurricular fussing about that my horses try to engage in. Sometimes I let it out for working and shorten it while standing for long periods. Often, however, I disconnect it entirely when working and only clip it up while standing.

I never allow them to eat in harness, unless it is in a nose bag. The nose bag presents a specific situation that I feel allows them to fully understand and compartmentalize the exact time and place in which it is permitted to eat in harness.

I don’t like to tie solid to something in front of harnessed horses because it gives them a target against which to pit their boredom. I prefer it if they stand free, whenever possible.

I do sometimes hobble my very “busy” horse, especially if I have to get down in a vulnerable spot and clear a jam or work on something. That particular horse just doesn’t seem to be able to put her brain entirely in neutral unless the hobbles are on. She is a very sensitive horse; eager to please and is always ready for the smallest cue that I might give. Putting the hobbles on is the only way she can really relax while standing hitched.

I have an antique hiching weight that is a good 20lbs but I have never used it. On the rare occasion that I feel the need to tie my horses by their heads/mouths, I have always somehow managed to find an easier and more convenient way to do it…. a way that DOESN’T involve lugging a 20-lb chunk of iron around, securing it to the vehicle so it doesn’t slide around, removing it from the vehicle, attaching it to the horse, etc.

Sabine, makes sense to me. I was responding to Geoff’s comment about a portable anchor.

George

Went to see an Amish guy that I know one time and found him cleaning out stalls and shoveling the stuff directly into a manure spreader which was sitting just outside the barn. He was throwing it through an open window and it was making a pretty big racket as it was hitting the far side of the spreader. What surprised me was that hitched to the spreader was one of his big Belgian mares and a younger Percheron that I knew he had only been working with about 3 weeks at that time. I looked out the window to see what they were tied to and they weren’t …tied that is. When I asked if he wasn’t afraid they would run away he told me to go outside and look a little closer. He had dropped one tug from the outside of eveners for each mare and snapped it into the keeper on the hip drop. He had also tied their lines to the upright on the seat that he had mounted on the spreader. Finally, he had cut out a set of chocks that followed the contour of the rear wheels and had chocked both rear wheels, in front of and behind the wheel.

I asked him what made this work and he said if they thought they could pull the spreader with their mouths, especially with the rear wheels chocked they were more than welcome to try. Then he said that the real secret though was get them real good and tired before you try something like that. They were not moving a muscle and stood there a good 45 minutes while he was working. He had been using them on a harrow all afternoon and they did look drained. Not sure I would ever try his method out, but it was interesting to look at.