More on Stallions
Mar 24th, 2009 by Carolyn Resnick Method
Hi again. I’m glad my post from last week generated so many interesting comments, it’s always good to hear other people’s experiences, isn’t it?
Before I continue with my advice on Stallions and if you haven’t already seen it in the HorseConscious newsletter…
Right, we were talking about Stallions and that they can be difficult to handle, especially if they feel you don’t respect them or you try to lower their position.
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BTW The Cloud series is an excellent dvd coverage of wild horse behaviour….
Hannah, I think you have quite a point with what you wrote about the way people “anticipate” stallion behaviour, and then they pretty much get what they ask for in the long run… I would never have dreamed of owning a stallion who was already mature and “pre-programmed”, I dont have that many years of horse experience, and it is only because I have had Dance since he was born, and he is EXCEPTIONALLY laid back that I am even attempting my ways of training with him… People who visit my property are always astounded by the fact that he seems to be, and I quote, “an overgrown labrador” but I warn them to NOT relax themselves entirely around him and to avoid thinking he IS a labrador… he is first and foremost a stallion and has to have that level of respect….
I am really torn between wanting to preserve the inherent nature of this magnificent horse and working with him on a whole different level, but at the same time being entirely aware that I am just a dum person who in the grand scheme of things hasnt been around horses all my life. Granted, some people I know who HAVE been around horses all their lives are so backward in their ways of thinking yet still think time alone qualifies them to do whatever it is that they do… my NH trainier says I know more than I think I do, but there is still a little voice in me that says “Ally he’s a STALLION for crying out loud”…. As such I am constantly working on making myself someone he looks up to and respects for my leadership abilities and my standing in the herd, not just someone who feeds him… Thats my challenge…
Hi Carolyn
AT LAST!!!! We have liftoff! LOL Dance has finally figured out that he can move when there is all that stuff hanging off his head…. Funny, I only just found your reply to my post but that is pretty much what I did to solve the problem.
A friend of mine who uses traditional methods mentioned that if he tries to go backwards I should just go with him…. He is quite tall already and very strong, and in the past had reared and run away, but this time I was determined to hang on. It must have been the change in my body language because he took a few steps back, lifted his front feet off the ground only enough to turn and change direction, but then he stopped and just stood there…. so I manoevered us OUT of the trees (LOL he is a smartypants!!) and asked him to come forwards “Dance Come” and patting my chest as I do when he comes to me for his dinner… and I asked him for a kiss, once again something I always ask him to do for his dinner. NO DRAMA! Easy peasy! So he got massive praise for those few steps… I asked him again as I backed up and he got the point of moving… and then that was it for the day… we quit while he was ahead, and he had his dinner….. So now he has no problem with it whatsoever and its as if he was born to it….. No bum roping, no stress, so pressure, just pretty simple concepts really.
I mustnt have been able to see the forest for the trees for such a long time…..
sigh…
Thanks for the clarification….
cheers
Ally
Hi Carolyn,
I am going to be ordering the Waterhole Rituals as my stud muffin still has a few respect issues even though we are so closely bonded and best of firends……….my biggest issue with him is when I am leading him……..he wants his own way………..will balk, or then speed up and muscle in front of me……….looks around……..grabs the lead rope with his mouth…. Grabbing the lead rope in the mouth is really difficult as he has been close to my hand at times, and he is fast… He just turned 3 and does not have a mean bone in his body……..just I believe a tad bit spoiled…. If I try to pull it out of his mouth it becomes a game, he is perfectly happy if he can carry it while we walk, but it’s not very safe and I feel disrespectful to me………..any suggestions? I want to ALWYAS maintain my relationship with him based on love and respect…I have had him since he was 7 months old and I spend more time with him off the line working liberty and tricks, etc. and he is wonderful, he just doesn’t like the line on him……even when I lunge him he always grabs for the line……should I spend a certain amount of time with him on the line each day? I would greatly appreciate your input Carolyn.
Robert Vara’s documentary “Such is the real nature of horses” documents a wide range of social behaviors in among stallions that had never before been documented.
http://www.equivision.net/nature/nature.htm
Thank you for all of your time and giving to us so that we can learn from you great experience in the wild. I had horses in a barn where the woman spent childhood hours with the wild horses. The learning is fabuluous. It would be really intresting if there were video of wild horses highlighting these behaviors. Know of any? Thanks ever so much.
Victoria Allen
St Louis Missouri
Just a couple of peripheral thoughts on stallions and the psychology of humans. Did you ever see the movie “Easy Rider”? There is a scene at the turning point of the movie, where Jack Nicholson, an accountant who takes to the road with the two hippie bikers — are camping out and talking about the incredible feeling of being “at liberty” in nature. And Jack — having come from an affluent family and having had to work with business people in a servitude capacity– warns that the IDEA of liberty is strong in the imagination of men, but when they encounter it — when they run into beings who are truly free — they seek to destroy it. This is part of the psychology and projection of humans and stallions. They idealize his liberty and freedom, but when they encounter it, they most often fail to engage it at that level. They seek to diminish it by control, abuse, etc… As if liberty was something like money– the more you take from another, the more you’d have yourself.
Secondly, a tale of my stallion and everyday things. ChoCho teaches people in my program all kinds of things about respect and reaching for their highest selves. He works with people who have never even seen horses, sometimes, much less a stallion. But when I tried to board him at a stable this winter to take advantage of the indoor ring, the handlers there couldn’t deal with him. Now here is the scenario. Five horses arrived on the same day. In on paddock, an old mare was kicked so bad she went lame. IN another paddock, a gelding was kicked by another gelding so badly he had to be on butte for a week. In the paddock ChoCho went, was an older Morgan gelding. ChoCho danced and pranced around him like a suitor. No one got kicked except the Morgan had to warn ChoCho not to sniff up his rump with a warning. No one got bit either. But the handler couldn’t seem to enter the paddock without getting into some kind of argument with ChoCho. Whatever it was, I didn’t see it. He said he couldn’t lead ChoCho out to eat, and he couldn’t lead the Morgan past ChoCho to eat. When I got there, I could lead ChoCho without a halter or lead rope. No problem. So this handler named “Travis” — who I never met, I assume had some kind of stallion baggage. ChoCho came home after only 3 days.
I find that with stallions you can ritualize all kinds of training. For example, I ritualize your water hole rituals with my stallion, ChoCho. I have this stick — just an ordinary stick I picked up from the paddock — and I hold it on a spot in the paddock and strike that spot once or twice like an Indian claiming holy ground. My stallion LOVES this ritual. He will prance outside this holy spot, at the precise distance I ask him. I can move him in, or move him back — but there is an imaginary line that he won’t violate until I let him in. He is actually PLEASED with this game. He tries so hard to be as stunning and irresitable as possible, with his big bold trots and his soft eyes. Then I start to give him some feeling that soon- soon, he will have his chance. And he looks in/ toward me with expectation and he is very VERY soft, because he has learned that to brace or to push, or to jump the gun, so to speak, will ruin the moment when I open the door– but still, he is not allowed to cross that imaginary line where his trotting circle is drawn, not yet, not yet… For him the “Not yet” is terribly joyful. THEN, when the timing is right, I step out of the circle, and he circles in, our movements drawing crossing circles like the Olympic rings…. There is a tremendous sense of “Self” he carries to have earned this little right of passage. And joy, too. He radiates this, but gives me the same highest status. As if we were two gods (very small “g”) playing in the foothills of Mount Olympus.
Carolyn,
When you described your dance with Mustano — I could FEEL what you might have felt, because this is what I feel is inside my stallion. This attention to his highest self which does not fear returning respect to someone who can engage at this level.
Ally, This might help you. Get someone to come into the paddock when you have a rope on him and have them bring his breakfast and put it down in front of him at the best distance from him that might get him to move forward and then ask him to walk to it. When he does remove the halter and lead and try again the next day. If this does not work do it at liberty untill he has the pattern down. Then use the halter with out the rope and then later with the rope. Before you do this make sure you can drive him away for you when he is at liberty. This will help to put the forward into your horse. It also builds respect and trust.
Build in small steps.
Let me know how you fixed your problem when yoy get it fixed.
Carolyn this is really interesting stuff – thankyou!!! I have a young QH colt 16 monoths of age who I am working with at his very very slow very very relaxed pace – (this young man is so laid back its ridiculous!!!) but as you have said, doenst appear to need any training as such in what i am doing with him at the moment, obviously only ground skills…. 99% of what I do with him is out in a paddock with no ropes or halters, however I learned the hard way that I should have done SOMETHING with him in the early stages, as he had a severe cut on his nose and right through his nostril when he was about 6 months old that I couldnt get near for ages… wont make THAT mistake again. Because of the length of time I took to work with those basics, he is now reluctant to move FORWARDS when I put a line on his halter to try and teach him to lead… It is the first time I am working with a hrose at such a young age and whilst I am desperately trying to AVOID like the plague using “traditional” methods in working with him, I am at my wit’s end in how I can do this without applying a bum rope… Its funny – he will lead with the halter on, but as soon as I put a rope on that, even a very light one, he seems to forget what his legs are for! LOL I am trying to find a way to sort out this issue for him, mainly for his own safety. I dont need a horse who cant be led by a rope in a situation such as a bushfire where his life will DEPEND on it…..
Anyway, thanks for the information so far, looking forward to reading more on this subject…
cheers
Ally
Queensland Australia
PS I so WISH I was closer o you and I could apply to work with you!!!! That would be AWESOME!!!!!!!
Yes, that makes a great deal of sense — needing to combine focus with knowledge. I suppose it is rather like a child learning to read; he can focus as hard as humanly possible on the markings on the page, but if he lacks the knowledge to translate them into words, he will not make any progress in reading. Perhaps it is the same with horses.
I can certainly send you the picture I have of my horse rearing, thank you for asking.
Yes Hannah,
You are on the right track. But still even if a person was very focuses and attentive one really needs to know horses though may years of experiance unless they have a stallion that is natually easy going. But I do not recomend it.
I have had many students that there frist horse was a stallion and they had not problems, but I think that the people I am seeking about were exceptunally gifted and the stallions were miled in temperment.
Hannah, Please if you could send me a picture of your horse rearing. Vincent said you had one.
That is an interesting point. It seems that stallions get rather a reputation for being difficult to handle; I wonder, however, if this is actually a reflection primarily of their handler’s lack of focus? It seems that many of horses’ difficulties result from a lack of focus on the part of the handler — allowing the horse to take lead position, via “Taking Territory”? — and perhaps the consequences of that general lack of focus is magnified in the stallion’s behavior more than it would be in a mare/gelding, thus making stallions “notorious” for bad behavior. Am I on the right track?
Jack, You sound like you have a very nice way with horses. Thanks for sharing with us!
I was given my beautiful Arabian stallion, SC AHMMU, because the breeder couldn’t handle him. It seemed that he thought that getting a selenium shot the day he was born and being caught 30 days later and given another shot and being wormed were not ways that he deemed showed friendship, so he consequently decided that he would have nothing more to do with people. For the next 18 months he refused to be caught. This caused the breeder to rope him and throw him down in order to accomplish whatever they thought their mission was.
Now I come along. I don’t rush him. I don’t try to trap him. I take him home and turn him into a stall attached to a 2 acre paddock. He really likes this kind of freedom. Within a day or two, he finds out that I won’t just throw him hay and leave. That I want to be with him as he enjoys his meal, so after I put down the hay, I stand there until he will come up with a good attitude and eat. And, I stay with him and talk to him as he eats.
He tried to nip me once and immediately got the edge of my boot just above his cornet band and that annoyed him so that he never tried anything like that again.
I am giving you this background because you mentioned that sometimes stallions don’t appear to need any training. At the time, Ahmmu’s stall faced out into my small training arena. He watched many weeks as I worked with other horses. Ofttimes he watched as other horses would invite me up for their first ride. He must have memorized the routine, because when I went to saddle him for the first time, he acted like he had done it a million times. Not only that, but that first day, he invited me onto his back and we rode around the arena. The next day when I went to ride him, the only problem I had with him was that he didn’t want to stop. In fact, when I’d ride him out on the trail it was all I could do to turn him for home. It had to be getting very close to dinner time before he would want to go back to the barn.
Consequently, he was never really trained in any sort of classical sence of the word. However, he already had the moves and would move in any direction and at any gait that I asked for. The only drawback was when a friend asked if they could ride him. I agreed. However, the moment they mounted I felt Ahmmu tense up and gather himself as if to blow, so I asked them to get down and he immediately relaxed. He has since let me and anyone else know that I am the only human he trusts enough to ride him. Oh, well, things could be worse.