Some people worry that using treats during training will cause their horse to become pushy, nippy and turn them into a horrible food monster!
Unfortunately this is likely if your horse doesn’t learn how to behave around treats. For most horses food is their favorite thing and they just want some… NOW!
Thankfully it is easy to teach your horse to have perfect manners around treats.
Sometimes you can’t ride. Sometimes you don’t want to. Here are 31 fun and useful things to do with your horse – other than riding.
Continue reading “31 Things To Do With Your Horse (other than riding)”
Playing with your horse engages his / her brain, improves communication between you two, helps your horse become used to new and different things and is good fun for both of you! 🙂
Here are some ideas for equipment and toys that will make training really enjoyable for you and your horse.
Most items are cheap and easy to find. (My favorite horse ball only cost $5).
Once you start looking, you will find suitable equipment and toys everywhere! 🙂
Do you want new and interesting activities for you and your horse?
Then trot over here to get a copy of The Horse Happiness Handbook…
Easy. Just start with something that your horse does naturally.
This will usually be a behavior that they enjoy or do in response to something that is going on around them. It is much easier to use a behavior your horse already does and build on it to create a trick.
Watch your horse, particularly around feed time, to see if there is something they do that could be turned into a trick.
Continue reading “Which trick should you teach your horse first?”
Is your horse bored? Or would you like to try something new to engage your horse and motivate them? Here’s some ideas that your horse should really enjoy.
1. Teach Your Horse to Paint
It seems that some horses are quite creative. Horses can be taught to pick up a paint brush and apply paint to a canvas. The result is a beautiful, impressionistic painting.
2. Try Toys
There are lots of wonderful horse toys available now. Horses love to play and providing toys can really cure boredom. Try a toy that gets them thinking or gets them active.
3. Train at Liberty
Try training your horse without any restraints, at liberty. Your training will need to be fun and engaging to encourage your horse to stay with you. But it’s wonderful when they make the choice to be with you.
The more ways you can teach your horse to do simple movements like backing, the more building blocks you will have to build your own tricks.
Trigger now understands 5 different ways of backing and I can use these different movements to teach him more advanced tricks.
It gets easier and easier to teach him new tricks because he has this basic understanding.
To see Trigger’s 5 ways of backing watch this short video:
