Is door kicking being unknowingly reinforced

Paint Me Proud

Paint Me Proud

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The thread about what you wouldnt want in a horse seemed to feature quite a few people not liking 'door kickers'

I have always been of the opinion that a lot of door kickers have in fact been reinforced into the habit by owners, unkowingly.

Horse kicks, owners shouts 'oi!', horse kicks, owner shouts horse name, horse kicks, owners goes over and tell it off, and it goes on.....

This is a scenario I see all the time at my livery yard, and the horse never lose the door kicking habit.

The horse learns that kicking the door gets attention, your owner speaks to you or even sometimes comes over, it's great!

My previous gelding decided he would give door kicking a go, much to me annoyance. However, every time he kicked the door (normally when i was across the yard and he wanted something) I immediately turned my back on him and walked off. If i was walking towards him when he kicked i 180 about turned and trundled off, never saying a word. Only returning once the kicking had stopped.
It took only a couple of weeks for him to work out that kicking the door meant the removal of the very stimulus he was trying to get.

He never kicked the door again!

I know there are probably several reasons for door kicking but just my musing on the examples i have seen. What are peoples opinions
 
I tried this trick but being on small livery yard and having the tap right by his stable, it just didn't work. Instead, as I couldn't desensitise him to sprays (I've tried over the three years I have owned him) i asked other liveries to spay him whenever he did it - worked like a charm!
 
Sounds like a good theory I do exactly as you say. Oi, Sam, walk over and stamp My foot and he usually stops but If I was to ignore him I can't guarantee that other people on the yard would do that too
 
Paint Me Proud said:
The thread about what you wouldnt want in a horse seemed to feature quite a few people not liking 'door kickers'

I have always been of the opinion that a lot of door kickers have in fact been reinforced into the habit by owners, unkowingly.

Horse kicks, owners shouts 'oi!', horse kicks, owner shouts horse name, horse kicks, owners goes over and tell it off, and it goes on.....

This is a scenario I see all the time at my livery yard, and the horse never lose the door kicking habit.

The horse learns that kicking the door gets attention, your owner speaks to you or even sometimes comes over, it's great!

My previous gelding decided he would give door kicking a go, much to me annoyance. However, every time he kicked the door (normally when i was across the yard and he wanted something) I immediately turned my back on him and walked off. If i was walking towards him when he kicked i 180 about turned and trundled off, never saying a word. Only returning once the kicking had stopped.
It took only a couple of weeks for him to work out that kicking the door meant the removal of the very stimulus he was trying to get.

He never kicked the door again!

I know there are probably several reasons for door kicking but just my musing on the examples i have seen. What are peoples opinions
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I agree, I wouldn't mind buying a horse with this habit as it's fairly easy to get rid of in most cases compared to something such as bolting or rearing
 
Often removing the "noise" the kicking makes can help as well, such as using a stall chain or guard, or covering door in rubber matting or similar.
 
To a degree you are right, but you can't really stop them kicking at feed time which is often the main problem. With my boy we fixed it by matting the inside of his door. He still does it, but at least he doesn't make such a racket.
 
my mare is a door kicker, she is on a fairly large DIY yard, she is the only one in the block of 8 that does not get fed or hayed by the first person in the block, in fact no-one else in the block feeds/hays her ever-she has a big DO NOT FEED ME sign on her door, I moved blocks from the one with the toilet above it because people would give her 'just a handful of hay to keep her quiet' that used to infuriate me as they could not see they were making it worse. I put a rubber mat down in the doorway and a bar up so first person on the yard could open her door as she used to make a hell of a racket-she does not often do it now.
 
You're absolutely right. Mine wouldn't dare, but if he did I certainly would not pay him any attention.

We have one on the yard. Doesn't shut up. So of course, genious owner gives it food to keep it quiet every time it does it.... Does my head in!!
 
Kezzabell2 said:
Sounds like a good theory I do exactly as you say. Oi, Sam, walk over and stamp My foot and he usually stops but If I was to ignore him I can't guarantee that other people on the yard would do that too
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It's worth a go. Have a word with everyone and/or put a sign on your door that says something along the line of 'If i kick please IGNORE me - I am trying hard to learn to be patient'
 
I was also surprised at how many people put door kicking as a big no-no.

I've had horses that arrived as door kickers but as the OP says the trick is to ignore them and if you are on a livery yard ensure that everyone else on the yard ignores them too. It very quickly stops.
 
Every horse iv bought came to me a door kicker, none of them left me with the habit.

One of the easiest habits to get rid of, was surprised it put so many people off.
 
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