Best way to handle yearling sass?

Nasicus

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My filly hits 1yo this sunday, and appears to have gotten some sassyness in her!

Usually docile and easy to do, but yesterday when leading her back to the field she was a bit of a witch! Putting her head down and shaking her head about, pawing, pulling, dancing around me, barging into me, trying to jog off. Very unusual for her, usually just plods along at my side on a loose leadrope. Occasionally gets a little bit silly but a growl or a reminder pull on the head collar gets her back in line. Usually use a rope halter but regularly use a normal, padded headcollar. Rope halter was because we had a planting issue coming away from the herd at first, but pressure and release and patience and she now happily comes to me and leads away from the herd.

She came out of season a few days, and had been in overnight due to slight lameness the night before (trotted up fine yesterday, farrier still came out and all okay), but this is nothing unusual for her. She comes in every other day for feed and thorough check over, and once a week comes in overnight. Other than that she lives out in a small, well settled mixed herd. She's been with me for 5 months, and been in this current set up for 4, so it's nothing new. Stable has plenty of toys (salt lick in a net, likit and the boredom buster, Jollyball on a rope), hay in a net and hay in a tub on the floor, and she gets a treatball filled with plain fibre nuggets when in overnight to keep her occupied.

It could just have been a one off, caught her in a bad mood maybe, but I was a bit blindsided by it, and I'm not happy with how I handled it. I yanked on the rope when she wasn't listening to my regular aids, and gave her a few flicks with a crop (dont normally have one, but she was really barging into me) when she was shoulder barging into me. When she was trying to pull me along, I pulling her head around and made her circle, waited until she stood nicely and then signaled to walk on the moment she stopped being an idiot. Rinse and repeat every few meters. We made it to the field, I did not let her barge through the gate and we did our usual routine, through gate, turned her to face me/the gate, took the head collar off, made her backup a step (this she did listen to) then rubbed her forehead and gave her a fibre nugget.

I don't know, maybe I did handle it okay, but it was so out of character for her, she wasn't even that bad when we first came to this yard and she had to stay in her box for two weeks (quarantine, bloods taken at end of two weeks and tested). We do plenty of ground work when she's in, back, over, whoah ect and she's very compliant and eager to please.

Maybe I'm just dwelling on this too much, and should just wait and see how she behaves when she next comes in from the field. I'm hoping she was just trying it on. Any advice or reassurance appreciated! :p

Thanks for reading this essay! Cookies to those who made it this far haha!
 
Love the sassyness! Ha Ha!

I had issues with my yearling section D being abit of a plank when being led, if he was having 'one of those days' I used to clip the lead rope to the side of the halter and then put rope through his mouth and then back out through the side of his halter, walked like a dream. Plus the rope doesnt cause any harm to them and I never hold it tight, I find they are too busy concentrating on feeling the rope in their mouth that they forget about playing up. I never ever used to yank on his halter just because I think it winds them up more and causes more issues (personally).

Still use the rope through mouth trick now (hes 5) if hes having a moment or that way out, especially now with summert turnout being increased, and also my mum looks after him on occasions and he thinks he can get away with being stupid when 'grandmas' about, so I said to mum, if hes being a prat just stick rope through mouth and you wont have him pratting about.
 
Thanks for the reply C&M!
I think the fact that I yanked on the halter is whats really bugging me, as I don't like to do that and I feel bad for having resorted to that.
The rope in the mouth idea is interesting, but if she acts like that again I'm not sure I could get it in.

It was just so so so out of character, like I said, she normally happily plods along next to me on a loose rope :S
 
My Exie can be a t**t to lead (he's coming 4 & only off the moor 9 months) & I clip the lead to the far side of headcollar, under his chin & out the near side loop. Perhaps a Dually would help, or a good rope halter.
 
My Exie can be a t**t to lead (he's coming 4 & only off the moor 9 months) & I clip the lead to the far side of headcollar, under his chin & out the near side loop. Perhaps a Dually would help, or a good rope halter.

I did think of buying a Dually or a Be Nice when she was planting in the field, but a regular rope halter and pressure release sorted that. I was considering it again recently, but like I said, she's usually so docile that I didn't think it was worth it.

If she behaves like that again I will definitely consider it.

I supposed my main query is, how would you handle this in the moment? What would you do to de-escalate the situation and regain control? What would you do to discourage the behaviour and teach them it's not okay?
 
I prefer not to handle my youngsters every day - once a week is plenty. Doing too much with them can make them lose respect for the handler - after all you're taking them away from what they like to do something which may require isolation or concentration. There is a fine line between well handled and over handled. I think your setup sounds pretty much ideal - let the herd teach her manners. There's no harm in spending time with her in the field - does she have to come in?

As far as feed goes - be wary of growing her on too quickly, a handful of low cal chaf to mix a balancer in should be enough.

The telling off you gave her - it's understandable but will reinforce her not wanting to be with you. We can expect too much from youngsters with regard training - as long as they can lead politely if needed, tie up, yield away from you when asked and lift their feet, is there any need for any more? The stage you are at with yours I start at between two and two and a half, but even then it's not anything that requires too much concentration initially - it usually involves a walk somewhere where they can meet new stuff. Keep it fun and you keep their interest and try and ignore tantrums unless they are actually dangerous, as soon as it stops and good behaviour returns then lots of praise.

I'm probably teaching you to suck eggs as it sounds like you have though it all out but please don't be too eager to do too much with her too soon.
 
Around this time of year my youngster was always a little tricky to lead. He's coming three in summer and is much better behaved this year than he was in his yearling and two year old year, now he only gets a bit joggy and head shaky but before he'd be so bad and throw a few good rears. I always figured it was because he became over excited as he's excited about anything whether that's going out to the field, coming in, moving fields or just going for a walk - it was so exciting!! Especially with all the excess sugar in his system at this time of year, he just couldn't contain himself.

So we played the waiting game literally, as soon as he started to play up we'd stop and I would wait until he calmed down again before we started moving again. If he started again we'd stop. And so on and so forth - it took a little while for him to get but finally he understood that if he wanted to get where he was going he would have to walk nicely. He got pats when he was walking nicely and calmly and still does now just to reinforce the idea as he is a bit dense. If he ever got too close to me when he was having a tantrum I would just use the end of the lead rope to keep him at bay and make him back up with my voice and/or body language.

It's seemed to work but you will need to make sure you have some time spare as I once spent a good 45 minutes just walking with him until he was calm. :)
 
I've been very lucky with my now 3 year old Warmblood (had him since he was 1) in that he's rarely done anything naughty when being led other than one or two occasions. When that happened, I guess I thought the same as you; wondering how I could have handled it better, should I be buying a dually/control headcollar of some description....etc. But the fact that it only really happened twice in 2 years shows that I cant have handled it that badly!

I've found with mine if he starts to look like he might fancy a misbehave (I know that look all too well now!) I start walking a lot faster - if I'm marching him along down to the field he doesnt have the time to mess around! The one time he was a real terror on the way out to the field I wasnt overly proud of the way I handled it, I pretty much just yelled at him and gave him a bump on the shoulder to get him away from me as he was too close in my space. But once I'd done that and got him back on the ground in a fashion, I frog marched him down the path to the field so fast he had no idea what was going on and was trotting to keep up with me. I turned him out as normal, but didnt give him his usual pat so he knew something was wrong. He stood there for ages looking shell-shocked, looking back at me - he knew I wasnt a happy mummy! He normally goes walking off to his field mates but that time he stood staring at me knowing he did bad.

Next day he was sweet as anything! I did try the stop and wait tactic on a different occasion as the other poster has mentioned, but that made mine worse - he would start messing around as soon as we moved again. So the walking faster approach is my fail safe tactic if he chooses to have a silly day, but I must admit I've been so lucky, they are few and far between.

See if it happens again - could just be spring grass & youngsters feeling fresh, but if it does become frequent then look at either the frog march approach or the stop/start approach and see if that helps. But as someone has said previously, dont expect too much of youngsters and if they are naughty you dont need to worry too much as this is normal, they have their moments! Just try not to react to harshly, I probably wouldnt use the crop, and just keep going!
 
IMO, ignoring you and/or barging deserves a 'wake up' call. I strongly dislike horses trying to pull me anywhere or shove me about and both of those behaviours earn the horse a reprimand.

I do expect a horse to walk calmy beide me but now and then they an be on their toes and either jog/prance about an/or snake their heads. I ignore it as long as they don't pull or push me.

I would have been quite firm in your shoes too, so don't beat yourself up about it. Forget it ever happened, carry on as normal and only concern yourself if this behaviour happens again in the very near future. If it does, then you need to be all over it before it escalates or becomes learned behaviour.
 
Thank you for all the replies! I have read each one thoroughly :)

Equidae, over-handling has been something I have been worried about. She comes in so she can be fed, and then goes straight back out again. We tried feeding in the field once but the other horses made that difficult. I think maybe in future, I will go to see her in the field, and if she willing comes to me from a distance, I can bring her in, but if she's more reluctant to do so, I can just give her some fuss and a quick check over in the field and leave her be. I've been bringing her in for feeds every other day as when I was only bringing her in twice a week she started looking quite poor and lost condition, ribby and sunken neck. The grass is rather pants where we are, hardly any nutrition in it. We regularly go on little walks around the farm to explore things, which she seems to enjoy, cars don't phase her and she's getting bolder with tractors and farm equipment :)

Lammy - Interesting you mention about sugar, I had been giving her regular Mollichaff with her dinner to bind it a bit, but I'm planning to move her over to an unmolassessed chaff, as I think the molasses is unnecessary.
I was a big fan of the waiting game with my previous mare, and employed it a lot when I was a dog walker, so I think I'm going to have to dust off my waiting skills!

KC100 - Haha, that frogmarching idea is excellent! I would certainly give it a go, but the path to the field is either slippery as all get when it rains, or like the surface of the moon with craters when it's dry! I think I'd either end up on my back in the mud, or on my front in a pit :p

Illusion100 - Thank you for the reassurance, I think I may have been a bit harsh, but I wanted to nip it in the bud. I don't mind it if she's giraffing or calling when we're walking, thats just normal horse stuff, but when she's walking into me than it's not okay.


I think my main takeaway for all the advice given and this incident is to being her in a bit less, and to understand that tantrums happen, but not to ignore dangerous, space invading behavior :)
 
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