Horse Training Articles

Toys and Equipment

Horse Play Equipment and Toys

Horse Tricks 101

Playing with your horse engages his / her brain, improves communication between you two, helps your horse to 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! 🙂

And here is a little gift for you… an eBook with some more of my favorite horse training equipment and toys. Have fun! 🙂 Jain and Trigger.

FREE DOWNLOAD: HORSE TRAINING & PLAY EQUIPMENT

 

Do you want new and interesting activities every week, for you and your horse?

Then trot over here to get a copy of The Horse Happiness Handbook…

Trick Training Tips

Which trick should you teach your horse first?

Horse Tricks 101

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?” →

Bonding Ideas, Fun Ideas

6 Ideas to Cure Horse Boredom

Horse Tricks 101

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 Toyshorse play ball

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.

Continue reading “6 Ideas to Cure Horse Boredom” →

Trick Training Tips

How Many Ways Can Your Horse Back?

Horse Tricks 101

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:

Solving Horse Problems, Trick Training Tips

Does Your Horse Do Tricks Without Being Asked?

Horse Tricks 101

When you start teaching your horse a new trick they may want to do it all the time (even when you don’t ask them to do it).

This just means they are super keen!  And they have discovered that by doing this new trick they are ‘rewarded’.  A reward for a horse can be anything like a treat or a scratch.  Some horses even find it ‘rewarding’ when their human smiles or laughs.

Even Trigger, who is an experienced trick horse, will sometimes do tricks without being asked.

And while this is cute and you’ve got to love them for trying 🙂 it is really important that your horse learns that they should only do tricks when you ask them.  Otherwise it could become dangerous or just annoying.

Your horse needs to clearly understand that they will only be rewarded if they do a trick when you ask them to do it.   

So from now on you can’t reward any trick you don’t ask for.   That means no smiling or laughing either…. I know that is hard to do! 🙂  (I even do it in the video below).

If you want to build the bond and relationship with your horse, you must never punish them for trying. You just need to explain that they should only do tricks when you ask.

Here’s a video showing how I handle Trigger doing ‘extra’ tricks (in the kindest possible way).

PS Watch for Bella trying to do some extra tricks too 🙂