Constantly breaking baler twine!!

[K9Wendy]

Bee is having a joke I think. Over the past month when tied up, generally for no reason she just pulls back, head in the air and pop! baler twine breaks. She has a look of satisfaction on her face, she doesn't run off or misbehave, just stands there breaking it.. So what do I do? I don't want to tie her straight to the ring, just in case of a genuine incident. Also have tried using two peices of twine, she still does it. It's getting very annoying especially as she did it at a pleasure ride today when tied to trailer..

 

[serena2005]

someone on here was talking about this before and a good suggestion came up saying to use two lead ropes at different lenghts so when she brakes one she is still tied up...
she will probably brake that as well, but you never know she might get bored!

 

[henryhorn]

get one of those elasticated ones, they can't quite figure out how hard to pull back to break them as easily..

 

[serena2005]

thats a great idea, i might give that a go... they will get a shock when it does breaks and pings them in the face!

 

[Ferdinase514]

Finni does this when he is tied with a quick release knot.

To get around it I tie a knot in the rope and just leave the rope looped through the baler twine. If he moves the rope will not go right through the string, but it is easy to disentangle him if he pulls back.

It means that I don't leave him tied to the truck unsupervised. Instead I put him inside with ramp down so he can watch everything.

Doing this has dramatically reduced the amount of times he pulls back prob to 3 times a year from 3 times a day.
He just seems to know when he's tied up!

 

[Fairynuff]

Try using the inner tube from a bicycle tyre. It can be funny to watch as they pull back and cant find the breaking point. I wouldnt tie up a horse who is honestly afraid of being tied up but would leave the lead rope loose in the twine. Its a bummer if you have to leave them for a moment but I always have visions of ned galloping off with half a wall tied onto his leadrope!!!!!!!!

Mairi.

 

[old_girl]

My ned was a bit of a numpty, and used to break baler twine. If she moved about she'd panic on finding that her head was attached to something, and pull back and break it.

I just put the leadrope through the baler twine, and left it dangling. Hey presto, no more problem, and she never pulled back again. To be honest, I could have left her with no leadrope, as long as there was a haynet there!

 

[Prudence]

This is probably the esception to the rule, but having seen one of those stretchy things break and pop off and thwack the horse in the face, I personally would never use one. If you don't want to tie up to the bars/ring (which IMO can often be the only way to teach a horse that pulling back is not an option, an opinion that is backed up by having worked for some of GB's leading trainers/riders who will not allow string on the yard - it stays in the hay barn!), then tie up with either 2 ropes, one shorter than the other, or 2 headcollars & 2 or 3 ropes.