LOWER HEAD is one of the 6 Foundations of trick training. You can use this simple movement to teach your horse lots of tricks.
In this video I am asking Bella to lower her head from a distance. I wanted to see how far away I could get! 🙂
I am also really pleased with how well she has learnt another trick foundation – WAIT.
SUMMARY OF STEPS TO TEACH THIS TRICK
- Start by teaching your horse to lower his (or her) head.
- Just ask for small downward movements to begin with. Reward your horse for small tries.
- Add a cue of pointing down when you ask your horse to lower his head.
- Teach your horse to wait.
- In the beginning just ask your horse to wait for very short periods of time.
- Gradually increase the time he must wait before you give him the Marker and a reward.
- Start to move away from your horse and ask him to wait.
- Gradually increase the distance that you move away from your horse.
- Once your horse will lower his head when you point down, then just work on increasing the distance.
- Have fun 🙂