Trouble with New Team

Hi Carl:

Sorry to hear about your troubles with your horse. There are many on this forum with more experience than me but I will put in my 2 cents because I had an experience very similar to yours. We bought our current team of bay geldings 6 years ago. They were 5 at the time and very well broke when we went to drive them with experience on a lot of different farm equipment. The fellow who sold them to us reaffirmed that they were well trained but still just “colts” and to be careful.

For the first few weeks this team was great for us, but slowly things started to break down due to our lack of experience. Pretty soon they were no longer the “dead broke” team that we purchased but a few rogues occasionally taking our suggestions, but mostly not.

On a recommendation from an experienced teamster we purchased Clinton Anderson’s Round Pen DVD set and got started doing some round pen work. Here’s a link:

The first more submissive/fearful gelding went like a champ in the round pen. We thought we were pros. When we put his brother in pen he wanted nothing to do with moving on our command and proceeded to drive me out of the round pen. Charging and kicking he was moving me instead of vice versa. Very humiliating! We stuck with it for weeks and finally were able to exert our leadership – dare I say dominance? – over this horse. I learned so much from those experiences in the round pen. For me, it was a safe environment where I could engage my horses and learn to read them (and vice versa). It was a venue in which we learned to start communicating with each other however crude and facile. Pressure, release, approach, and retreat – I was learning the first moves to the intricate dance of equine communication. I was able to develop a modicum of confidence that I could then apply to working situations.

Looking back I feel like Clinton Anderson’s approach is a bit rigid, sequential and lacks subtlety, but at the time it is what I needed having little experience with horses and no mentors to guide me. This round pen work coupled with changing to leverage bits were some key tools in getting us started on the right track with these “colts”. Note the term “tools”. It’s hard to build a house without hammers and saws but those tools don’t make you a carpenter. The rest was just hard work. Fortunately my wife and I make our full-time living off the farm and there has always been plenty of work to do with these horses.

6 to 7 years in, we have a great team and I am constantly learning and trying to refine my craft. Incidentally, the uber-dominant horse who tried to kill me in the round pen has turned out to be a fantastic partner. He has unflagging determination and is super-responsive both in and out of harness. He can still be a bit of a handful at times, but I have come to appreciate that spirit and use it to my advantage.

I have been following the “Command vs. Communication” thread with interest as I tend to be a bit of a dominator. This is partially due to the aforementioned experiences and partly due to my personality. I have a fairly rigid set of expectations in out of harness and I enforce them consistently without fail. The results have been very good, but my current work resides in developing a more subtle approach. I currently see myself as a benevolent dictator and need to become more of an empathetic leader.

I encourage you to stick with this horse. As mentioned before, I think a lot in terms of pressure/release when I work with my horses. I try to exert as little pressure as possible to get the desired result. Once that desired result is accomplished I try to provide immediate release. I believe that clear communication is based on (1) the amount and speed with which you apply pressure; and (2) the ability to immediately release upon achieving your goal. In my head I envision a “pressure gauge” that may go from 1 to 100. Ideally you start low and increase accordingly and this can happen in a matter of seconds. Depending on the behavior, I might start at 50. In the case of this mare biting and kicking, a response in the 110 range would be appropriate.

No mentor can do the work for you. It is you and your horses working it out together, coming to an understanding where you all can feel safe accomplishing meaningful work. It is this shared endeavor that makes this work so meaningful and fulfilling.

Good luck and be safe.

George

Hi Carl, I just want to paraphrase some of what we spoke about last night.

I also have a sense of challenge here, and I an not going to outright suggest that you give up on this horse, but clearly you just want to work horses, you have a lot of work to do with horses, and this horse has become dangerous. I for one will not judge you for passing her along, whatever that looks like.

I will also not try to suggest any exercises, as I am not going to open the door for you to get seriously injured. Truthfully a $2500 loss is cheap compared to the possible alternatives.

Both George and Donn made some points above that I see having good bearing on this situation. I agree that some of the round pen exercises could be a safe place to start, and as I described last night you may need to find 110% energy to overcome her attitude. Also finding safety for you and the horse is paramount.

I will though, repeat something I told you. I have no bearing for this, but from what you have told me I think this is close. I have found in my experience that when the interaction between horse and handler is defined by correcting bad behavior, it is very hard to develop trust. I try to find ways for the horse to do what she wants to do under my direction, then take credit for allowing her to do it. Of course when she is trying to bite and kick that is not desirable, but focusing on correcting that can be distracting from the good things that she can be rewarded for. I also think that it is very difficult to ever correct behavior if there is no trust, and that trust may need to be built in ways that do not seem obvious.

I have to say that I have never had a horse demonstrate that level of aggression toward me, so my thoughts are entirely theoretical. (Well not entirely, they are based on similar, but less intimidating circumstances). I have some suspicion that this horse trusts her mother more than anything, and may actually never had much if any work with understanding how to work with humans. From your description of how she acts with her mother vs without, I suspect she may have just been conditioned to go along with everything the mother did.

I personally would start trying to figure out how to use the mother as the primary comfort, and find ways to work with both of them to build trust with the younger. Your exercises of leading to and from pasture sound like a good place to start. If they are comfortable together, lead them that way. When you try to separate them to address issues with the younger, you have found that it is one long string of corrective battles. That is not the lesson you want to teach her. I think you want to teach her that you are comfortable around them….. They may be comfortable because they are together, but you need to take credit for making that be the comforting situation it is. By that I mean express comfort in the way you step, the way you hold your head, and the way you use your eyes… don’t be constantly “checking” to see how they are acting, just act like you expect this to be the very easiest of things they could ever do.

If you have someone with a round pen and advanced skills who can help you work with them like that, then it may be the way to go, but as George points out it needs to be you working on this….. and it seems to me that as soon as you have that young mare by herself you will be needing to address her aggression…. I see that as the first lesson you have taught her…. You are purposefully creating the aggressive response because you have changed her comfort zone without allowing her to accept it….

Again, if this mare (and her mother) came to me as a freebie, and I thought she would fit into my operation, I would start as I described above. However given your situation, financial, experiential, and emotional/intellectual, I would support you moving back to the free lease team that allows you to get the work done that you want to do. If you have the time to dive into this, because you see it as an investment, and you want to go down the rabbit hole, then find a way to be safe.

Tools are important, and you may need some time to get them, and to refine your use of them, but also try to delve down into the situation and find the blocks in the foundation that need attention before you can get up on the roof.

Carl

george, did you ever think that if all you drove was good sound horses for thirty years, you’d end up fifty years old and still not know much about horses?
i wonder about that. its good to have a challenge now and then. maybe in the end, its the problem horses that end up teaching us, and we end up learning more from the horses than they do from us.
still wondering,
mitch

I would seperate her from her mother for an extended amount of time like months and really seperate them. Then I would go to the very basics. Start with things she can do and that you can do with 90% assurance that you are going to succeed. You need to get your mind and body language in a place that will help you convey the message that you arn’t scared. Her mother needs to be so far away that you might need to board her away for a while.

I had a horse like this that I got for free–spoiled, kicker, biter, but had some attributes that i thought might work out. She had turned out to be a fantastic horse with alot of training.

I am willing to speak to to you if you want by phone and try and help. To set up a time email me: walt@workhorseworkshops.com. I am in Oregon.

Wally

Hi Carl J:

Regarding the biter, I am careful having others work around him. We had someone visiting our farm last winter and he reached over his stall, bit through her jacket and broke the skin. That said, he is boarded for a couple of months during the winter so my wife and daughter car ride in an indoor arena. The staff gets along with him fine there.

I concur with Carl about having other folks drive this horse. I had an experienced driver drive my horses once and they ran away with him. It was deep snow thankfully and he was eventually able to stop them. Oddly enough (we were very green at the time), I could see it unfold before it happened as we were both in the forecart together. I didn’t say anything b/c I had little experience at the time, but even at that point in my budding horse career I knew the horses well enough to know what he was doing wasn’t right. Long story short, no one drives my horses except my wife and I.

One last thing regarding the round pen. I have never used a “real” round pen made of wood. I have always used a temporary poly wire set-up. I have worked with half a dozen horses this way. As long as the horse is fence trained and you don’t put too much pressure on them, you should be fine. I encourage you to try it if you move forward with this horse.

George

Carl, Nice work and fascinating stuff, isn’t? I think there are some trick dynamics going on here. I think Mitch hit it on the head with the relationship between toe two mares. In my experience this can make them hard to drive together initially. I have a few questions from your description of the day and they are not judgments at all but just curiosity. And maybe a few comments or suggestions.

First, when you brought them out and tied them to the trailer and the mare “pinned” you, was has tied next to, or near her Mom? realize that what I say next is easily said and not always easily done, it won’t be done perfectly by any of us every time, but when an animal starts to invade your space like that you need to fight back with the first step and not allow her to put you in that position. Examples: was there ample room for you on that side of the horse when you went in? Folks will try to squeeze because they don’t want to ask the horse to move, or don’t know how to ask the horse to move over. You you are along side of the horse and in no way pinned, any half step, sway or but moving my way is an unwanted invasion from her will be met with a finger, thumb nail, four fingers, knee, something direct and to the point aim into a flank, hip leg, with some controlled energy, get the “f” off of me.

The reason I ask about where the other horse was is, was she tied on the other side?

A small round pen with obstacles is very difficult. It sounds to me that this horse will link up very easily and this is a good thing. Don’t keep demonstrating this fact to yourself.

When she was trotting around the pen you commented on how little pressure it took to make her move. Could you have used less pressure and had her walking? How would this have changed the dynamic?

Getting everything out of the pen is the most important part. I will suggest that with a rope halter and a lead rope she can come out of there that day. be asked to move around you. Be asked to stand while you move around her. Pick up her feet.

I mentioned the thing above about the horse pinning you for another reason. Lenny mentioned a pair of pliers for a horse that bites. I see some flaws in that response? If a child was going to bite you what are some of the thing that we might do? First, see it coming; if this is not the first time I know I will. Second address their open moth head with my hand in a way to protect myself and send a message I will not tolerate this behavior. Right on their chin, right then, hopefully without getting bit. How would I use pliers? If they are in my pocket I would have to get them out. Now in that time did I get bit? Am I really going to bite them back? My point is timing is everything. Anyone that keeps getting bit (or kicked) by the same horse doesn’t need to increase the strength of their response, but improve the timing.

I once had a friend who asked me to look at the younger, newer horse (gelding) being teamed with the older “solid” mare. My friend was so frustrated – the younger horse didn’t want to lead, didn’t want to pull, didn’t want to turn in certain directions; etc. I got that mare so pissed at me that day, because she had been running the whole show. You will slow down, you will keep you head in your lane while turning, you will not rush through the turn. you will start together with everyone else. A little line adjustment and bitting down of the mare and these two worked great together. My friend had miss read where her problems where. I find this is common for the “horse behind”.