Groundwork problems with other handlers - advice needed please

[Talism4n]

Hi all,

Been having a few issues with my horse being snappy and difficult for anyone other than me and could do with some ideas. He's had all the usual checks and will be starting on an ulcer friendly regime next week anyway, but we're all fairly sure the grumpiness isn't pain related as he will switch from trying to bite my mum straight to being cuddly and lovely as soon as I appear.

When I first got him a year ago, he was very touchy with everyone and if he wasn't getting what he wanted or feeling listened to, he would try to bite or threaten to kick and was generally unpleasant to deal with, as the switch could be over something tiny and he would be very bolshy and had no respect for anyone. With me, he is now very affectionate and cooperative with everything as long as he feels able to communicate with me - eg, he can be funny about his flanks being touched after being knocked about in an old home, so I run my hand down his back to give fair warning, and if something is bothering him, he'll tell me calmly and wait for me to acknowledge him. He'll let me do anything as long as I'm sympathetic. He's foot perfect under saddle and generally a happy horse, though he does take a lot of his confidence from me.

The problem starts when I'm not at home and my mum is dealing with him. I'm not in a position to bring him with me to uni so mum cares for him during the week and some weekends whilst I'm away, and whilst she is very competent, she lacks confidence and is finding him difficult when he gets grumpy with her. Getting rugs on and off can be a struggle as he won't stand still for her, and he threatens to bite if she tries putting his nose net on. He has now also bitten my saintly farrier. I think this is likely a combination of him knowing the boss is away, and not feeling secure enough in mum to trust her like he does me, so he is assuming control of a situation he feels is lacking a competent leader. He can be very fiery at the best of times, but is extremely sensitive and quite an anxious, hot horse by nature - he is at his calmest being hacked out by me.

I've been tasked with spending the summer solving this as mum has another year of horse sitting until I can take him permanently, but I'm not sure how to address behaviours that I don't see - if I'm around when mum is doing things with him, he is much better, although still nowhere near as good as when its just me. Plan thus far is to clicker train a few set behaviours to make sure mum can get him to stand, but I'm in need of suggestions to help build her confidence with him and his manners with other people. Both mum and farrier are happy to work with me on whatever I suggest, as they are his most regular alternate handlers, and I have near endless time over summer to work on him. I'd like to avoid calmers etc as he's perfect for me as is, but would really appreciate any exercises or insights to approach this - I'll accept any advice and criticisms, and happy to give more info if needs be, though I've written quite the essay here!

Huge thanks to all who've made is this far.

Edited to add: ulcer regime is for my elderly pony, but we're moving everyone to match just to check if it helps

 

[Meowy Catkin]

I picked up on the fact that he was 'knocked about' in a previous home because my own tricky gelding was ear twitched before I had him and it definitely impacts his trust in people. The less he trusts someone, the more difficult he is simply because he is wary and worries that they might hurt him.

So, you could work with him all summer, day and night and it may not have any impact on how he is with other people. I would suggest that you need to teach your Mum how to approach him. Spend as much time with the three of you as possible. Show her how to handle him correctly and then she needs to repeat, repeat and repeat again until she can handle him calmly and confidently and he is confident with her.

With a sensitive horse, if someone unconfident tries to 'be a leader' or the 'alfa' or 'the boss' can make them move in a jerky manner or pushy manner and that upsets my gelding. He's much happier when people approach him as if they have all the time in the world, chat to him, rub his neck etc...

 

[Gift Horse]

What about treating your mum to a few lessons with a good instructor so she is confident handling him.

 

[be positive]

It sounds as if he has 'trained' you into working on his terms, this is not a negative thing but does mean anyone who is not on the same wavelength and may be a bit lacking confidence will not be able to deal with him, clicker training may help but only if your mum is quick enough and confident enough to keep it up once you are not around if not you will end up with much the same result as you have now.

I think my approach would be to gradually put a little more pressure on him and push the boundaries very slowly until he accepts a little more from you and you expect a little more from him, I deal with numerous different horses in my yard and most will take pressure, reward as long as the rules are consistent and fair, any really sensitive ones usually benefit from some tough, but fair, love and tend to gain confidence more quickly if they make less choices themselves as it allows them to take more from the handler and think less about other options.

Whatever you do your mum needs to be putting on a brave front and taking control of her emotions, possibly thinking less about his nerves and more about the task in hand, have a set way to do things so he has no say in how it gets done, obviously safety is a priority but he is in control of too many things that he really should not be thinking about by now, even an abused horse can get over itself if the rules are clear and fair.

 

[Pearlsasinger]

I picked up on the fact that he was 'knocked about' in a previous home because my own tricky gelding was ear twitched before I had him and it definitely impacts his trust in people. The less he trusts someone, the more difficult he is simply because he is wary and worries that they might hurt him.

So, you could work with him all summer, day and night and it may not have any impact on how he is with other people. I would suggest that you need to teach your Mum how to approach him. Spend as much time with the three of you as possible. Show her how to handle him correctly and then she needs to repeat, repeat and repeat again until she can handle him calmly and confidently and he is confident with her.

With a sensitive horse, if someone unconfident tries to 'be a leader' or the 'alfa' or 'the boss' can make them move in a jerky manner
or pushy manner and that upsets my gelding. He's much happier when people approach him as if they have all the time in the world, chat to him, rub his neck etc...

I agree, spend time with Mum just watching what you do /how you do it with him, then you step back and Mum takes over some bits, making sure that she does it in exactly the same way, with Mum gradually doing more with him, while you are there to reassure them both. Make sure that Mum knows your routine exactly and follows it, as that will reassure him that she knows what she is doing.

 

[Talism4n]

I picked up on the fact that he was 'knocked about' in a previous home because my own tricky gelding was ear twitched before I had him and it definitely impacts his trust in people. The less he trusts someone, the more difficult he is simply because he is wary and worries that they might hurt him.

So, you could work with him all summer, day and night and it may not have any impact on how he is with other people. I would suggest that you need to teach your Mum how to approach him. Spend as much time with the three of you as possible. Show her how to handle him correctly and then she needs to repeat, repeat and repeat again until she can handle him calmly and confidently and he is confident with her.

With a sensitive horse, if someone unconfident tries to 'be a leader' or the 'alfa' or 'the boss' can make them move in a jerky manner or pushy manner and that upsets my gelding. He's much happier when people approach him as if they have all the time in the world, chat to him, rub his neck etc...

This is him all over, but instead of getting visibly worried, he gets defensive. I get quieter and gentler the more grumpy he gets on the rare occasion that he acts up with me, and it really helps. Also nice to hear someone who gets him, all I'm hearing at the moment is how difficult he is, but I'm adamant that he's just anxious. Big problem is mum now has it in her head that he's going to be a problem, but I'll show her this thread as it might help to see people other than me saying to build their relationship up instead of just me working on it.

Thank you so much.

 

[Talism4n]

It sounds as if he has 'trained' you into working on his terms, this is not a negative thing but does mean anyone who is not on the same wavelength and may be a bit lacking confidence will not be able to deal with him, clicker training may help but only if your mum is quick enough and confident enough to keep it up once you are not around if not you will end up with much the same result as you have now.

I think my approach would be to gradually put a little more pressure on him and push the boundaries very slowly until he accepts a little more from you and you expect a little more from him, I deal with numerous different horses in my yard and most will take pressure, reward as long as the rules are consistent and fair, any really sensitive ones usually benefit from some tough, but fair, love and tend to gain confidence more quickly if they make less choices themselves as it allows them to take more from the handler and think less about other options.

Whatever you do your mum needs to be putting on a brave front and taking control of her emotions, possibly thinking less about his nerves and more about the task in hand, have a set way to do things so he has no say in how it gets done, obviously safety is a priority but he is in control of too many things that he really should not be thinking about by now, even an abused horse can get over itself if the rules are clear and fair.

In the early days, this was definitely the case, though I think now I've pulled it back a bit in his day-to-day life. I make a few accommodations for him still, like the flank thing, but I generally take the line of "I'm listening, I care, and I'm still going to insist he does this" and he's got his head around that now. It took me a while to master the balance between sympathetic and strict, and we're now at the point where he'll do 90% of the things he's asked without question, and will seek reassurance for the rest. He never says an outright no to me, just sometimes he'll need me to take a little longer preparing him for the next task and he's got really good about saying he's unhappy whilst still getting on with it.

This makes a lot of sense, I think one of mum's issues has been letting the routine slide a little and not having the confidence to deal with the result. I'll pass on the comment on choices in particular, that really seems to fit him and I think explains some of the disconnect between mum's and my approach - mum works around him, so he has time to think about what he's doing, whereas I expect him to be thinking about what I'm asking next and getting ready, eg, moving out of the way as soon as I walk to the stable door, putting his head down for the headcollar as I pat him when catching etc. He's too bright to be let overthink things. Clicker training is largely a trick to make mum feel like she has more control - if she can get him to stand still without an argument, she'll feel better, and she's used to training dogs like this so if I put it in place, she'll keep it up. Thank you so much for your reply, really interesting take.

 

[ycbm]

He's not an Arab by any chance, is he?

 

[Leo Walker]

I had this with Leo. He was fine with me fairly quickly but other people were a no go. We sorted his pain issues first or it would never have made any difference. Then my friend started popping in every day and giving him an apple and a bit of fuss. It took about 3 weeks before he would tolerate her handling him, and a good couple of months before he liked her. Once he had decided she was ok, he was pretty much fine with anyone who treated him fairly and has mellowed more and more as time has gone on. Hes now retired with my friend and has her kids crawling all over him and loves it!

I'd get yours scoped and have a really good body worked go over him with a fine toothed comb. I'd want to be completely and totally certain that their were no pain issues. Then I would start your mum clicker training him. Clicker training is what turned Leo around for me. We did quite a lot for a fortnight or so and little bits for a couple of months and then almost never again and he didnt regress. Done properly they learn permanently. In this instance it doesnt matter what you teach him, its the positive association and the reward for offering behaviour thats important.

 

[Talism4n]

He's not an Arab by any chance, is he?

Actually laughed at this, he is indeed, and a chestnut one at that - every bit the stereotype!

I had this with Leo. He was fine with me fairly quickly but other people were a no go. We sorted his pain issues first or it would never have made any difference. Then my friend started popping in every day and giving him an apple and a bit of fuss. It took about 3 weeks before he would tolerate her handling him, and a good couple of months before he liked her. Once he had decided she was ok, he was pretty much fine with anyone who treated him fairly and has mellowed more and more as time has gone on. Hes now retired with my friend and has her kids crawling all over him and loves it!

I'd get yours scoped and have a really good body worked go over him with a fine toothed comb. I'd want to be completely and totally certain that their were no pain issues. Then I would start your mum clicker training him. Clicker training is what turned Leo around for me. We did quite a lot for a fortnight or so and little bits for a couple of months and then almost never again and he didnt regress. Done properly they learn permanently. In this instance it doesnt matter what you teach him, its the positive association and the reward for offering behaviour thats important.

Thanks for this, interesting thoughts. I immediately thought pain when we got him as he had some issues with saddling that solved themselves in the end, so he's had quite extensive workups. He took a few days but was eventually brilliant for my old instructor when she visited, and she taught me for 10 years, so that and the clean workup are why we think its purely behavioural. We're switching all 3 of mine to an ulcer friendly diet as is, so I'll get him on the same supplements we're giving the old boy and see if that helps. Vet will be out in mid July anyway so will have a word re scoping if we don't seem to be getting anywhere with clicker training and getting mum to copy my approach and routine.

 

[ycbm]

Thought he might be an Arab. I had a chestnut one which was a one person horse. At the time people often said they were one person horses. He would not allow anyone to catch him but me, even if he was inside a stable!

I had to sell him, it wasn't possible to work and keep a horse nobody else could do anything with.

Commiserations, the others have given you good advice, I can't add to it.

 

[Talism4n]

Thought he might be an Arab. I had a chestnut one which was a one person horse. At the time people often said they were one person horses. He would not allow anyone to catch him but me, even if he was inside a stable!

I had to sell him, it wasn't possible to work and keep a horse nobody else could do anything with.

Commiserations, the others have given you good advice, I can't add to it.

Yeah, I've often thought that part of the problem is that he's not interested in anyone other than me, as was the case with his similarly bred predecessor. Thankfully he's not completely unmanageable for everyone else, just difficult, and it won't matter next year as I'll be back and keeping him at home.

 

[ponies4ever]

I have exactly this with my mare (very much not an arab though). She's pretty much fine with everything with me but it took her a long time to like me. However with others she can be dangerous. She will bite others over her door and is likely to attempt to kick if the wrong person enters her stable or tries to groom/touch her. She has very little trust in strangers and unfortunately its very much a person by person thing as to whether or not she will let people handle her. However she has been in pain for some time now. I fully believe it has been a pain response and she improves dramatically every time we get to the bottom of another issue. I would get everything checked first thoroughly.

 

[sjp1]

Horses who have been knocked about tend to get better with one handler. Mine is like this, he is distrusting of people but he is getting better all the time - he was in a lot of pain bodywise when I got him, had a lot of bodywork done on him and he has gone from a horse who couldn't be groomed to one who is happy being groomed - and now actually enjoys it! He was also headshy, ear shy and mouth shy - which obviously made catching him difficult! I have done a lot of NH work over handling his head - it has helped massively. We have a lot more ground work to do over all sorts of issues - but in our experience it is really helpful and he is now engaging with the other two liveries who have horses out with him - one of whom is a man and men he has been petrified of - but not this man. I think from our experience that scared horses shouldn't be treated as scared horses or they will always be scared - they just need help to realise that they aren't going to die which is what they think initially when they have had horrible experiences. Or their parameters as to what they will accept are just too narrow. Horses that never hack out are scared of everything, horses that haven't seen kids or dogs are scared of them - I think increasing horses parameters as to what is normal is really helpful. And there is lots or really helpful advice on the web about how to do that.

 

[Talism4n]

Huge thanks to everyone who's responded, feeling a lot better about getting this sorted. Even to ycbm, it's nice to know I'm not the only one who's struggled with this (and to know he's not as bad as he could be!).
I'm as certain as I can be that pain isn't a factor at this stage - he's very good about pointing me to the problem if something is hurting, and all the checks we had done only showed up what I already knew were issues. He had some tightness from his old home's saddle and his old girth had rubbed but a sheepskin cover and regular back/tack/teeth checks solved pretty much all my issues with him. I'll be talking to our vet about checking him again, but it would be very out of character for him to be in pain and not showing it to me.
I also don't think he's scared so much as hasn't been given enough reason to trust other people, as mum spends more time with him than I do lately. I've recruited my OH, whom he likes slightly more than my mum, so we can take a two pronged approach getting mum to build her relationship with him and my OH to help him learn to tolerate different people handling him. Will update if any of this works. Thanks all

 

[Talism4n]

Just to clarify, the issues we flagged up were solved about a year ago, we've just carried on checking and there's been no change.

 

[lottiepony]

Yeah, I've often thought that part of the problem is that he's not interested in anyone other than me, as was the case with his similarly bred predecessor. Thankfully he's not completely unmanageable for everyone else, just difficult, and it won't matter next year as I'll be back and keeping him at home.

Oooo snap! Owner of a chestnut part bred Arab who's a totally mummy's boy lol!
Mine thankfully never acts out things but makes very intimidating faces and being 17hh it certainly works! However I've made a point of getting friends to deal/do stuff with him and he's just had to accept it as I need to know he can be handled by others as you never know when it might be needed! A lot of it is actually just ignoring the face pulling etc and just getting on with the task, although it's easier to be bold knowing he most likely won't follow through with an actual bite etc. It can be a bit of a case of tough love at times. Nothing of any real help to add but would say your mum defo needs to be the one doing the 'homework' (with your help) as if doesn't show the behaviours with you then there is nothing to 'correct'

 

[Pinkvboots]

He's not an Arab by any chance, is he?

I thought the same thing!

Years ago a friend bought a young entire Arab he had not been managed very well previously and he could be aggressive, she did have him gelded and he was really easy to back and ride, but could be awful on the ground and in the stable, I looked after him everyday and rarely had an issue but he would regularly bite his owner.

Arabs can be very much one owner horses some like being handled by one person, they are also highly intelligent and can spot if someone is not confident hence the change of behaviour,

One of my Arabs is no way aggressive but if handled by someone he deems as not confident he gets really nervous, he will run to the back of the stable and won't be caught in the field.

It's very difficult as they pick up on the lack of confidence so much more than we do, I think your mum just needs to spend a lot more time with him when your around to help her so she can become more confident around him, some groundwork lessons would be a good place to start.