Personal Space and Youngsters

[emcon]

I'm having problems trying to teach my 3 year old Sec D to respect my space. He is really good and very laid back and I have no other problems with him. But uses hs shoulder to push me around. He has already knocked someone over. He is fine with his back end and moves over when I ask, but he is always in my face.

He is kept out 24/7 along with 6 other Ponies and they are all fed in the field. How can I teach him to back off? He just seems to lift his head up and barge through with his shoulder.

Please help I want to get on top of the problem, before he gets bigger and stronger!

 

[Denise657]

With my pony if you held your hand out to the side she moved into that instead. Well if you stroked her as a reward when she did when she did. So i encouraged her to only touch my hand (pushing her away and making her walk backwards when she barged me).
That meant that if my hand was held out at arms length she stopped at arms length. This is my first experience with youngsters however so i don't know if it will work for you. xx
She continued to barge my mum and knock her over until my mum got angry and just pushed her out of the way all the time. She soon grew out of it when she found she got ignored and pushed away for pushing people.
Good luck

 

[Donkey66]

our 2yr old filly used to barge. I watched a parelli video where Pat held a spur next to his arm so that the horse leant on it when it pushed him.
I don"t use spurs so I used a very blunt table fork instead! It took two goes - no more barging! You don"t need to chase the horse at all, just let them realise leaning on you hurts.