Can't Catch Pony!!

N

Nosey

Well-Known Member
Joined
25 June 2007
Messages
1,630
Visit site
Any suggestions?!
Completely out of the blue loan pony decides she will not be caught . Can't think what has brought this on. She has an easy life, we go up to her at times other than to ride and give her a fuss etc. Had the odd day prior to that where we had to catch her with scoop of nuts but prior to that she had been fine. Its nearly 2 wks now and am getting a bit fed up!! She freaks with ropes dangling so we can't get a rope round her neck nor grab a handful of mane or she bronks and takes off. Believe it or not this is a fairly placid pony club pony...well most of the time! The aim is when caught to get her in a turnout headcollar.
She has 2 field friends who when we take out of field for hours at end she is still not bothered about joining them. She is on restricted grazing so doesn't have a huge amt of turnout. I have tried numerous strategies over the past 2 weeks but no joy so any suggestions gratefully received. I do suspect she has done this before as has been turned away for a few years prior to us taking her on 4mths or so ago. Owners very unhorsey so I don't think I will get a lot of advice from them!
Summer hols, PC camp beckons...aagh!
blush.gif
 
ah shes like my horse! ive now left a headcollar on him as im truely fed up of chasing him round and round the field. taking our other 2 out doesnt work.. the trick is to get him intersted in you. i always have food in my pocket and dont actually give it to him, i rustle it about and then he comes upto me to get some i then slowly give him some food, getting him to concentrate on the food and clip the rope on. i then hold it down so he knows ive got him and then go to pat him, otherwise he just bu99ers off! or you could try the sitting on the floor, or coming up from the side and very carefully putting a rope over her back and then slide it up over her neck. or oyu could attempt join up which i swear does not work on sa horse that doesnt want to be caught but anyway, chase the pony away from you until it drops its head, flops its inside ear towards you and starts chomping on air. then turn away from the horse and hopefully it should come up to you.. but as i said it doesnt seem to work!
just try different things.. my horse soon works my tricks out so i ahve to come up with new ones. good luck
smile.gif
 
Couple of assistant's and a section of temporary electric fence.

I wouldn't bother putting any current on it, unless she immediately looks like going over it - if your helpers waggle the tape a bit when she goes near it she should keep away from it.

Keep moving the fence until you get her in a corner, leave a bucket of feed roughly where you want to be catching her. If she's trying it on, rather than scared of you, when you get her in an enclosed space she should admit defeat and let you catch her!

Good luck!
 
This may seem mean so I apologise. My horse is nervous of electric tape, so I get a long length, one person on each end and quietly and slowly corner her. She was a nightmare and I tried everything. When she is in a small enough area she just gives up. No other horses are turned out with her when I do this. Obviously all horses are different, and I realise she could still play up in a small area, but luckily she doesn't. After doing this a couple of times she now knows I can catch her and hasn't played up since.
 
I read this on another "i cant catch" thread, cant remember who suggested this, but all i can say is THANKYOU!!!!
I now have a ponio i can catch (and believe me, she was awful!)
All you have to do is walk her around the field, and keep her moving so that she simply doesnt have time to stop and graze. You only want her walking, but eventually (took me 3 days and an hour and forty mins the first two times!) ponio gets fed up of being moved and WANTS to stand still and be caught......magic!
grin.gif
 
word of warning with the tape though, my horse and many of my friends just jump it- my dad was holding it at his should height probs about 5.7ft and barney just jumped it... bl00dy horse!!!
smirk.gif
althogh it can work for some... it doesnt always work!
 
what we normally do to our horses mostly foals and yearlings that dont want to be caught and wait untill u reach out to grab their head collar then pull away. What we do is tie a bit of string or thread that hangs down on the loop u tie the lead rope onto, i mean lengths wise about an inch just enough to put your fingers around. so that u dont actually have to touch the head coller before grabbing them u simply grab the string. once they realise u have them they stop. try it, it does work.
 
Cheers Pour Toi - glad to know I am not alone! Attempted the join up bit over 3 sessions. She really is very Alpha mare! I got to the point of rubbing her neck but couldn't get her completely submissive and she won't let the rope get near her and she hasn't got a headcollar on. I am trying the feed bit at mo but offering it to her (whilst getting mugged by other 2!). If she comes up to me she can have some if not the others get it. My daughter (who rides her) can get up to her briefly, stroke her but she eats the food then buggers off!! Two experienced horsey friends have also tried for hours and also failed to catch her. Everything has been non confrontational..she has had no bad expereinces with us.
Might try the food but she can't have it routine but its sounding like a very long haul!!
 
[ QUOTE ]
Couple of assistant's and a section of temporary electric fence.

I wouldn't bother putting any current on it, unless she immediately looks like going over it - if your helpers waggle the tape a bit when she goes near it she should keep away from it.

Keep moving the fence until you get her in a corner, leave a bucket of feed roughly where you want to be catching her. If she's trying it on, rather than scared of you, when you get her in an enclosed space she should admit defeat and let you catch her!

Tried that
confused.gif
. She kept turning her bum onto me and threatening to jump over netting so we had it raised a bit higher and she eventually ducked underneath it!:( She is not too traumatised as manages to take a flying mouthful of feed whilst evading us!!)
 
[ QUOTE ]
I read this on another "i cant catch" thread, cant remember who suggested this, but all i can say is THANKYOU!!!!
I now have a ponio i can catch (and believe me, she was awful!)
All you have to do is walk her around the field, and keep her moving so that she simply doesnt have time to stop and graze. You only want her walking, but eventually (took me 3 days and an hour and forty mins the first two times!) ponio gets fed up of being moved and WANTS to stand still and be caught......magic!
grin.gif


[/ QUOTE ]

Yo have got a lot more patience than me Joeanne. We have done 2 x 3hr sessions of this and 1 at 1 hour and I am fed up!! Perhaps it is the only answer!
 
im having the exact same problem
mad.gif
!!!! Shes in a big field with lots of grass
crazy.gif
no headcoller on and been a little witch to catch grrrrrrrrr!! going to b&q tomorro to buy some of that plaztic fencening to catch her. you could try riding another pony up to her and try catch her that way thats what i'm going to try if i cant get her with the fencing
mad.gif
mad.gif
mad.gif
mad.gif
mad.gif
mad.gif
 
Keep going, you should find with a couple of weeks persistence that the hours will become minutes.

We had this with daughters loan pony a few months after getting her, almost as if she was testing us out. Someone on here gave the advice to choose a day when you've hours to spare, keep pushing her away until she drops her head to let you catch her, give a treat/fuss and then immediately let her go. Repeat on another day (when you have a few hours spare), and after a few days of doing this and treating her, maybe just walking her to the gate or tying her up to give her a treat, or just grooming her (I went twice a day for best part of a week to just catch and let her go) she associates being caught with something nice, and also realises you are in charge of the situation and it's not worth arguing.

Since then we've had no bother at all. Sometimes she does kick her heels up just because she can (more often than not started by her 16.2 20 yo companion TB), but in the past 6 months we've never had to spend more than 2-3 minutes catching her, even when she's in our large, with lots of long juicy grass, back garden which is sooo much better than her bare starvation paddock. One time when we had a vehicle through our fields she nipped out of the gate into the bottom hay paddock (you could see her face 'whoop loads of long yummy grass', it's a fair bit damper there and no rabbits), but I ignored her - and 20 minutes later she was worried she was being left and no-one had been to see her (in truth I left her to it as I saw no point in trashing the grass while she kicked her heels up), and came trotting back into the garden looking like butter wouldn't melt for me to catch her.
 
I am clearly not alone!!
Obviously need to persist a bit longer. Thanks for the tips which seem to have worked in the end...and are along the lines of what I have been doing but I was losing faith!
Thanks Dubsie - like you I feel we are being tested. A month or so after getting her she kept planting herself when ridden + kept refusing to budge despite my daughters best PC kicks. We worked through that one so perhaps this is the next trick up her sleeve. Just never in 34 yrs of horse ownership ever had anything so persistently refusing to be caught. Most have got bored a lot sooner than that and the usual techniques have worked.
Mares eh!!
crazy.gif
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top