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Lunging for Respect

Part 1

By Doreen Shumpert with Terri Kinney

            Previously, Terri shared how to start gaining your horse's respect on the ground before you ever climb aboard. Remember—typically, what happens on the ground transfers to the saddle. Consequently, Kinney begins by softening the body parts (see Basic Training, installments 1 and 2 on (Archived - Tip of the Month). Once the horse has a good  handle on that, she moves into lunging for respect.

            In the old days, that often meant grabbing your buggy whip and running your horse silly in the round pen, unfortunately. But since then, the round pen has become a training tool that can be just as valuable or essential as a bit or set of spurs.

            “Basically what you are doing is telling the horse that you can control their feet,” Kinney said. “You get their feet moving, you get them thinking. When you get them thinking, that's when you can get respect,” she explained. “Horses react with either the thinking side of their brain or their reacting side. If they are using their reacting side, that's when they are running all over acting like an idiot, not paying attention, and not doing what you ask,” she continued. “When you can get them thinking, that's when you can get them to do what you want, and you'll have a calmer horse because they are thinking about what it is they are doing, versus just reacting.”

            And, a great way to do that is to utilize the round pen, as Kinney demonstrates.

1.      One of the toughest things for  people to understand is that a horse thinks well when their feet are moving. Instead, people think they are just reacting, because they have to move to react, right? The thing about it is you control the feet, and you dictate where they are going. That makes it different than them just reacting on their own. You get them thinking about what you want them to do. Then, you start gaining respect because they think, “This person knows how to move my feet, they have control of me!”

  I start with young horses, two or three years old, that aren't broke. The first thing you have to do is teach them to move their feet on command. Once again, it is pressure/release where I ask with the least amount of pressure I can. You can actually put mental pressure on them just by thinking about what you want them to do.

 The next thing I do is point the direction I want them to go.

If I get no reaction, then I cluck. If there is still no reaction, I might slap the ground

 The minute they start moving, I'm going to release that pressure and let them be responsible for moving their own feet.

4.      A lot of times when you star this, they will pull on you, jerk on you, run off and all kinds of stuff. But I want them thinking about what I want them to do, and what I'm doing, and what I'm telling them. I want that face and that eye on me. Every time this mare slows down or stops I put a little bit of pressure back on. With this horse, I just cluck and that's usually enough without having to slap the ground. If I did, and she still didn't move, then I'd have to spank  her.

5.      A-B. Now, to get theses horses to start thinking about my body language and what I'm doing with my body, I don't usually tell them 'whoa' or stop them by saying 'whoa.' Instead, I disengage their hind quarters. In other words, get them to step to the outside of the circle with them to stop their motion, instead of driving forward. If I can do that, I know I have good control of the feet. So, I slide my hand down the rope, step  up toward the horse's hip and ask him to step out. I want the horse to wind up facing me, as this mare is getting ready to do. She has stopped her motion, is getting ready to disengage by crossing that right hind over her left, and she'll end up facing me.

6.      A-B. To switch directions, I go through the same motions. I'm not going to move around her; I want her to move around  me. First I point. If there's no reaction, then I cluck and should get a little movement. If I want her to go faster, I'll hit the ground and then leave her alone             

 If she wants to crowd me, I step into that ribcage and push it out.

7.      This is also how I start teaching a horse to be light in the face. I want slack in the rope when I lunge; if they pull on me, I'll bump their face into me with the rope until they learn to give to that pressure. I want the horse to look to the inside of the circle.  Most horses that first come to me want to look to the outside of the circle and pull because they don't want anything to do with me and are looking for a way out. To get them to stop, I don't want to have to pull on the face when I step toward the hip as described above. But at first, I may have to.

Part Two coming next month......

Doreen Shumpert is an award-winning equine freelance writer and for more information about her and her talents you can go to  http://www.x2dhorses.com/equinemedia.php. You can also contact her at  doreen@x2dhorses.com .