ARGH struggling! tips PLEASE!

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chunklovescooks

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After yesterdays performance.. i decided i needed some tips on catching, i so far (since buying bob) have a near flawless catching record, but yesterday really got my down, the little bugger stuffed his head in the bucket, and buggered off up the field, went out of the field, returned again, with lead-rope and bucket.. failed, i took his field-mate billy out of the field and later returned with 2 carrots, he came trotting up to me, stood next to me, really quite nicely, i offered the carrot to him, he grabbed half and trotted off, so i went back to him, reached for him with the lead-rope, clipped it on one of the little metal squares and he canters off... with me still on one end! so i manage to dig my feet in and stop him, eventually i got him in, but its such a pain when he does this, he was getting so good at being caught. What could've caused this? (he is sometimes brought in when he is used for private lessons by other people), and what can i do to solve the problem?

Many Thanks and Help Appreciated.

Stephen.
 
has he got more grass at the moment that he's had for a while?

or

have you been working him harder than usual or been doing repetitive exercises with him?

that's what used to make my W cob a pain to catch once in a while (strangely he was called Bob too!) never did find anything that worked 100% of the time!
 
Well, he has been moved fields this month, because he had a scuffle with bubble :P but hasn't been this bad, he has been jumping recently, however he hasn't been used to jumping since i have owned him, starting to
smile.gif
as i want to show jump next year! aah, cool his names rusty really :P but i call him bob, he is a cob type too!

Stephen
 
I assume that you don't only catch him when you want to work him, but also catch him just to groom and turn back out sometimes. If I am wrong, then I think it would help to do this.
Otherwise, I don't know. I had one that would be an angel to catch, then, without any known reason, he would suddenly turn into a swine for a week, then revert.
It's one of my pet hates, so good luck in sorting it!!
 
This is a bit of hard work for you but it does work in the end (see another recent post):
Instead of giving him food to persuade him to come to you, which seems to be teaching him to take the food and run off, give him food as a reward for having come to you, at which point you turn away and leave having accomplished what you want. You need to trick him into thinking that he can train you to feed him when he comes to you. Start easy at first, find the easiest thing he is willing to do, e.g. touch the headcollar with his nose. Put the headcollar close to his nose so that it is very likely he will touch it (you want the behaviour, it doesn't matter why he does it), as soon as he touches it make a distinctive noise to mark the behaviour (to say "this is what I wanted from you", dog trainers use a clicker which you can get at any pet store) and give a small treat. Repeat three times. Then offer the headcollar and wait for him to decide to touch it, as soon as he does click and treat. Play around with this, moving the headcollar to another side, or a bit out of reach so he has to stretch to get it or even walk to it. Then play around with touching him on different parts of his head, eventually play around with putting it on. Don't make it harder each time, i.e. revert to easier behaviour and reward a lot. There is another post on today about someone who took 3 weeks with this method but can now catch a totally uncatachable horse, so it can work, but is time consuming!
 
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