Horse napping when led...is it cruel to use a libby's halter??

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Natassia

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Since he's been living out my horse has been getting worse to catch, this has been solved with patience and using a fieldsafe headcollar. Now once I have caught him he naps at the gate because he doesn't want to come out of the field. I thought I should be patient with him and this led to me standing at the gate for 1/2 hour coaxing him to come out. Once he's through the gate he's fine to be led to the yard, and he's immediately rewarded once he's out of the gate and then again at the yard. But people have told me he's just being naughty, and he's started to do it when I've caught him, before he's at the gate so I bought a Libby's halter that puts the pressure on when they pull back and then releases immediately when they come forward, is it cruel to use that? I don't like punishing horses as they don't really respond to it, and I dont like to be handing out treats all the time. So far its worked really well.
 
No IMOit is not at all cruel! Its got to be better than someone whipping him to get him out of the field-that is classed as cruel!! When I got my horse as an untouched 3yr old I used a dually halter (a pressure halter) to teach her to lead properly, I still use it form time to time as she sometimes naps leaving the field, or going back to the field.
 
I have a horse who is strangely nervous, she is dubious of being caught(doesn't bomb off around the field just shies away) but as soon as you touch her she is fine. She also has a fear of horseboxes and being loaded and being put into a new stable. The reasons for this are unknown as I don't know her history but the dealer I bought her from used a control halter to make her do these things rather than the gentle encouragement she prefers. The result of using this halter now means that she becomes very agitated if you hold or lead her by her headcollar, I have have to give her a looseish lead and she is fine. I would never use one of those things on any of my horses - our relationship is a partnership and I wouldn't bully them into doing something they were scared of.

If you think it's him being naughty then the halter should be a temporary measure - if he continues to do it then there could be a good reason why he naps. My shettie is petrified of coming through the gate as she thinks the electric fence will get her(it's 3 times her width, she's just an incredibly skittish mare), with a little coaxing and when she sees everyone else going through she is fine.
 
A pressure halter of any kind is just like any other halter... only more so. It is not the pressure that does the job, but the release of it. They are not magic, it is how they are used. If you use a normal halter in the same way, the horse learns to yield to pressure in the same way. What ever did we do before pressure halters?

Simply catching the horse, then releasing it and catching it, taking it in feeding and grooming, then releasing it make the horse want to come in.

Horses prefer freedom & their mates to being caged in a stable or made to work. If this is all that happens every time they are caught then why would they want to be caught or come in? This is training them not to come in... there is no reward.

Spending time teaching/reminding a horse to lead correctly is never time wasted.
 
I agree with all the above it's far from cruel. Taking a nappy horse aside and beating it is cruel (yes, I know people who will still recommend a good hiding... no, I do not agree with it...) Letting a horse walk all over you because you want to be the horse's "friend" is not exactly the opposite of cruel either though. Horses like routine and they like to know where their boundaries are. Your horse will have no idea where they are until you set them, and you need to be far more confident than you are to be able to do that. Using a pressure halter is not punishing the horse as such, it's just making them uncomfortable when they misbehave and (as rightly said above) most importantly releasing that pressure as a reward when the horse behaves.
 
no

i had the same problem.... she went out in her headcollar... and then once i had eventually caught her i put her in a rope headcollar (pressure/release) she backed up i stood my ground... unless it went to fast!! and she dragged me bk....

eventually got better

stand ur ground and persevere... and reward... but only if he has behaved impecably!!!

good luckx
 
To take a slightly different tack on what others have said, just like bits and spurs and whips, any headcollar (and in fact most bits of equipment), used wrongly, can be cruel. To give an example, I'd rather see someone ride with a feather touch in a massive lever bit than rag all over a snaffle. Anyway, one of the vital elements of training your horse (and you can be unwittingly training them wrongly without realising it) is that the discomfort happens the very instant they do something wrong, and that the reward happens the very instant that they do right. The connection between behaviour and stimulus needs to be as close as you can make it to maximise their chance of making the connection. Pressure halters can help you with this, but if you are a quick-judging, watchful, careful person, you could do this yourself with an ordinary headcollar. However, all ways around it might be good to get someone to teach you how to pressure/release whichever headcollar you choose. This way you can be sure that you're rewarding the good behaviour and punishing the bad, and not inadvertently giving mixed signals.
 
I know a naughty black horsey who likes to see how long he can stand for a wee when I catch him!!!!! He has usually had one as I walk down the field, so I know he doesnt need one really.....

Any kind of pressure he will put up with, so that doesnt work..... but it works if I reverse him each time he stops (in the direction I want to go in)...... he is too thick to realise that we are heading in the right direction still
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I assume you mean the Libby's knotted rope halter? When used correctly I think they are great, certainly not cruel.
 
Thank you very much for the replies, I think its working after only 2 days as he's been much better today, I didn't even use it this afternoon, I just used his fieldsafe and the eye contact technique (looking him in the eye when asking him to walk forward then dropping the eye contact immediately when he walks forward, read about it in a magazine) and that worked really well. He's getting to know the boundaries as well and is starting to listen more, so the Libby's knotted halter is definitely a temporary measure, I hope. I would like to have a partnership with my horse, this was purely to teach him the boundaries, as he was starting to walk all over me.
I have been going to him in the field and giving him some fuss without catching him as well and he likes this, yesterday he let me sit with him while he was lying down which was really sweet, surely this means he trusts me?
 
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