Pony taking the mick re catching!

asbo said:
She has had nothing but positive associations from us, we feed her, we scratch her itchy bits, we rug her when cold, we unrug her when warm. She is not fleeing from us scared out of her wits, shes walking/trotting off with her ears up and her tail out.
This needs to be sorted as if she becomes injured or unwell and doesnt catch then it could mean serious issues for her.
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She may well have nothing but positive associations with you, but she clearly has very negative associations with headcollars :) And to be honest, if you generally appear holding one, some of that will rub off on you too...

Your description sounds like a pony with a major conflict - she wants to approach because you seem nice and bring food, but at the same time, you're holding a headcollar and that's signified not nice stuff in the past.

Your best bet is to completely change her associations with the headcollar, so that it means good things not bad. Do you know how to teach a horse to target something? It can work very well if you teach them to target the headcollar: not only do they learn that touching (and eventually putting their own nose into) the headcollar means rewards, but they also form new positive associations with both the headcollar and the person doing the training. A friend has used this approach on a difficult to catch SectionB, who eventually galloped across the field towards her when she rattled the headcollar.

The chasing/join up does work, but if you put yourself in the ponies' shoes, think how they view the person doing the chasing... You can find it works a few times, then you have problems again if you don't keep up the approach. So you have pony who'll give in 80% of the time, but you still have a problem for the remaining 20% (as a poster above has acknowledged :)).
 
Aarrghimpossiblepony said:
Can you make her a separate paddock next to the other horse?
Will still have company but more isolated?

(Though if she's NF, if the fence isn't that high I'll bet she goes over it.)

If she comes over I'd say it shows she's not scared, so that's something to be positive about.
So have to agree with the other posters and say, lunge whip and serious effort to chase her down when you have taken the other horse away from the field.
Keep her moving at a trot after the galloping, tail up, this is fun stage and watch for the circles to get smaller round you and the head to drop. Then tell her to stop, woah ect. so she's standing and looking at you. Try and approach with the headcollar and if she moves off, send her away again. And repeat and repeat.

I did read that "join up" doesn't work so well with natives, so don't ask for the moon. Just the acceptance that they will stand still when you approach them with a headcollar. Let her know you have a treat (carrot, something that smells good) but don't give it before the headcollar is on.
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At the moment I will take anything I can get lol. Shes a funny one in that she will not eat any treats, just carrots so thats what I normally have in my pocket, she will watch you walk up to her with the carrot, as long as you have no headcollar/rope, both hands are visiable to her, then 8/10 times she will stand for you to give her the carrot, sometimes you can have a stroke of her neck, then she will walk away, so to me, that doesnt say scared, just seems to be the headcollar that she doesnt like, so guess ing its something thats happened when caught? When you have her, you could leave her all day tied up she is so good.
 
asbo said:
At the moment I will take anything I can get lol. Shes a funny one in that she will not eat any treats, just carrots so thats what I normally have in my pocket, she will watch you walk up to her with the carrot, as long as you have no headcollar/rope, both hands are visiable to her, then 8/10 times she will stand for you to give her the carrot, sometimes you can have a stroke of her neck, then she will walk away, so to me, that doesnt say scared, just seems to be the headcollar that she doesnt like, so guess ing its something thats happened when caught? When you have her, you could leave her all day tied up she is so good.
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Not necessarily.

I know it sounds odd, but my mare seems to have this weird relationship with the headcollar. Moment it's on it's a bit like some enchanted force field, complete attitude change.

She's still nervy, but kind of controlled?:confused:

But, it took her a very, very long time to be OK with putting it on. And as she was completely unhandled, I don't think it could have been anything to do with past experiences.

Maybe these mares know that it's the magic control device.:D
 
Brightbay said:
She may well have nothing but positive associations with you, but she clearly has very negative associations with headcollars :) And to be honest, if you generally appear holding one, some of that will rub off on you too...

Your description sounds like a pony with a major conflict - she wants to approach because you seem nice and bring food, but at the same time, you're holding a headcollar and that's signified not nice stuff in the past.

Your best bet is to completely change her associations with the headcollar, so that it means good things not bad. Do you know how to teach a horse to target something? It can work very well if you teach them to target the headcollar: not only do they learn that touching (and eventually putting their own nose into) the headcollar means rewards, but they also form new positive associations with both the headcollar and the person doing the training. A friend has used this approach on a difficult to catch SectionB, who eventually galloped across the field towards her when she rattled the headcollar.

The chasing/join up does work, but if you put yourself in the ponies' shoes, think how they view the person doing the chasing... You can find it works a few times, then you have problems again if you don't keep up the approach. So you have pony who'll give in 80% of the time, but you still have a problem for the remaining 20% (as a poster above has acknowledged :)).
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I only take the headcollar if I need to bring her in/change rug etc, so maybe once or twice a week at the moment, have given up on getting her back into work for the moment as its not going to happen right now. I am still trying to get more info on her past, she had been used as a brood mare until her 5th foal was born dead, she was then sold on to the people I got her from who had lots of catching/ridden issues, so either something there or from the breeder has made an impact on her it seems.
 
Aarrghimpossiblepony said:
Not necessarily.

I know it sounds odd, but my mare seems to have this weird relationship with the headcollar. Moment it's on it's a bit like some enchanted force field, complete attitude change.

She's still nervy, but kind of controlled?:confused:

But, it took her a very, very long time to be OK with putting it on. And as she was completely unhandled, I don't think it could have been anything to do with past experiences.

Maybe these mares know that it's the magic control device.:D
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Lol, mares! Who knows what goes on in their little pretty heads. My little lady was unhandled when I got her, she was sedated for everything and we said we wouldnt do that so she had to learn, after much kicking people out of stables/turning herself upside down when getting her feet done/legging it at 90 MPH if she saw you coming, shes a different pony, had her 12 yrs, took a while lol, but will take how ever long it takes with this lass.
 
Someone may have suggested this but there's lots of safety headcollars that you can leave on in the field. I no longer need it for my horse but it's great for keeping his flymask on. My boy certainly didn't have an issue with headcollars or coming in when it suited him, he'd stand and yell at the gate if it was too hot/wet etc but he did like to come in on his terms which is why making him work was so successful. I also didn't want to keep him separate from the rest of my horses so needed to find a solution. I've hd him 14 years now and working him has been effective for him. I don't know the history of your pony but my boy is a clever enough to know that a big field full of grass is a nice place to be and I just had to make it less attractive!
 
If you can get a hand on your horse without a head collar (i.e. it is the head collar that it is shy of), use a rope head collar.

You can scrunch it up in your right hand just holding on to the end that goes over the poll with a couple of fingers. Move your scratching to the top of the neck and gently drop the head collar over the other side and catch it with your left hand. Voila! Horse is now caught! It is a rule here that all youngsters are caught this way and we never have a problem. Sometimes they get a reward immediately they are caught to reinforce the exercise.

Then, in a secure place (stable? round pen?) practice with the normal head collar. Approach with the head collar in the left hand and a treat in the right hand. When you notice she might move away, stop and offer the treat. Let her do the approaching and take the treat. DON"T MOVE THE HAND WITH THE HEAD COLLAR! Keep that quite still.

Repeat but hold the treat nearer the head collar each time. It may take a few days, even weeks, but it is quite possible to train a head shy horse to put it's head right into the head collar to get the treat.

The trick is to let the horse set the pace and make it move to get the treat. Just keep reducing the distance between the head collar and the treat. This works once you understand the underlying principles.
 
My home bred yearling developed a headcollar phobia. Do you know why? Because twice she was wearing one when she was wormed, and twice the vet did jabs. Never mind the other many days that headcollars mean she goes out to a field full of grass and friends, those bad things are remembered! Argh!
 
Oh, and I do what dryrot suggests with the treat with my foals, works well. Alas said pony above refuses to eat any treats/carrots/apples while you are looking!
 
Put her in a 1 or even 1/2 acre field. My friend had a very similar problem with her pony, but when it was put in a 1/2 acre field by itself ( there were other horses on the other side of the fence though),with electric tape around the outside so it can't take of the head collar, it would come over for a bucket of food!
 
My Shetland is exactly the same. He has a field safe collar on all the time as it would be impossible to catch him.
My tricks are food he is a greedy little expletive. I use Armas as bate if he sees Armas eating he will come over and shove Armas out of the way to get to the bucket. I stay crouched next to the bucket as the Shetland makes a grab for the food I let him do this a couple of times each time raising my hand bit my bit. Most of the time I manage to grab the head collar.
This is the reason why the Shetland is always tethered when not in his enclosure.
 
Thank you for all the ideas and tips, shall be trying them out on her.

The cheeky little wotsit herself!





 
Good luck, let us know how you get on, what works etc. This is such a common problem, I'm sure it will help lots of other people. I think the pony is lovely and obviously is a bit of a character!
 
Thank you, I shall def post how I get on with her x

She is a funny little sausage, she always has her ears up and looks very interested in you when you try to catch her, and then strolls away when you put a hand out lol.
 
Sounds a lot like my old boy. He was very hard work to catch for the first few years of me having him. No real bad experiences that we knew of but if he was in a field with a lot of grass (or sometimes just a lot of hay) in it he'd just rather he wasn't removed from it! Some days even looking at him from a hundred meters away was enough to make him canter off to the other end of the field! We tried all sort of things from rustly bags, carrots, scoops of food, hiding the headcollar, not hiding the headcollar, hiding behind other horses, trying to herd him into a smaller area, chasing him, not chasing him... the list goes on. Through trial and error we found that paying attention to his body language, rewarding him every time he allowed himself to be caught and rubbing him with a hand then putting a rope over his neck before putting the headcollar on worked best (this last bit was discovered by accident when I grabbed his mane in desperation one day and realized that as soon as I touched him the "game" was over). Anyhow back to practical suggestions... What is the area you're wanting to lead her into like ie how safe and enclosed is it? If she'll let you go up to her and touch her without a headcollar or rope in your hand then will she lead from a hand placed under her chin and if so would it be possible to get her into the yard or other enclosed space like this where you can work with her more easily? Or if it's the putting the headcollar on that causes the issue how about passing a leadrope over her neck and leading from that? (not meaning to tie it together or anything like that, you keep both of both ends to make a loop but because the two ends aren't secured together you can release the horse safely at any time). Obviously neither of these would solve the problem of not being able to get a headcollar on her but they may allow you to get her into a smaller area to work on that issue without having to chase her around the field for hours! If you look on youtube a guy called rick gore (think I've got the name right?) has a video up about catching a difficult horse. Made interesting viewing for me as it shows how you can use your body to stop the horse running off miles away by either stopping or turning it. Had already mostly sorted the problems with my old boy when I watched this but it helped me make catching times even shorter on the odd day when he did still decide to give me the runaround.
 
Also just looked at your pics. When you approach her trying doing it sort of slightly from the side so that you're giving her your shoulder rather than looking at her straight on as some horses seem to find this less threatening / are less likely to use it as an excuse to sod off
 
Boulty said:
Also just looked at your pics. When you approach her trying doing it sort of slightly from the side so that you're giving her your shoulder rather than looking at her straight on as some horses seem to find this less threatening / are less likely to use it as an excuse to sod off
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My daughter is the one in the photo, she had just been standing ignoring pone who was wandering around and she came and stopped right in front of her, hence my daughter sticking her hand out with a carrot. We normally try from the side more, with eyes down etc.

If you try to hold her by the rug/mane she ******s off, she will not let you put a lead rope around her neck when loose, but you can hug her, as long as you have nothing in your hands or on the ground, unless a bucket.

When you do actually get a headcollar on her she is 100%, you can take her on the yard and slip the headcollar around her neck and then put it back on, take it off and put it back on etc, its just the actual catching & putting it on thats the issue.
 
Armas said:
My Shetland is exactly the same. He has a field safe collar on all the time as it would be impossible to catch him.
My tricks are food he is a greedy little expletive. I use Armas as bate if he sees Armas eating he will come over and shove Armas out of the way to get to the bucket. I stay crouched next to the bucket as the Shetland makes a grab for the food I let him do this a couple of times each time raising my hand bit my bit. Most of the time I manage to grab the head collar.
This is the reason why the Shetland is always tethered when not in his enclosure.
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There is your problem. Horses are a predated/prey species (as I'm sure you've been told!) and they object to being pounced on and avoid it by running away/escaping!:D

Take it slowly, keep your hand holding the head collar still, and move the hand with the treat to gradually bring the horse's head nearer the head collar. Never grab!

Think out what the horse doesn't like doing and erode that fear by using treats. The first day you may only succeed by an inch or two. But that is success and you can build on it.

One of my youngsters used to spook when I approached him from a particular angle. The solution was to give treats from an out stretched hand and gradually edge around to the angle he didn't like me approaching from.

So he had a choice - either spook and lose the treat, or tolerate my approaching from what he considered a threatening direction and get the reward. Success breeds success, so the more treats he got for doing it right, the bolder he got. He is now a very bold and loving pony as he always gets a scratch or a slice of carrot every time he is near me.

The same principles are involved in whatever particular problem your horse has. Just make him work for those rewards, as above. You'll get there. It gives me a lot of pleasure to succeed with this sort. I almost look forward to handling the difficult ones!:)
 
You have to give her a reason to want to be caught as right now she doesn't have one.
If she was mine she'd be on a quarter of an acre or less so she was reliant on me for food and had no where to run too to get away either
She's got to learn trust again and hunger helps a lot - I don't mean starve her but make it so she sees you as the provider of her number 1 need
Chasing her around might work occasionally but it also establishes a habit - human comes in field, human chases me around till I get fed up etc - join up is exactly the same thing and is about defeat not willingness
I've turned horses like her out in a breakaway headcollar with a small length of baler twine attached and no harm ever come of it but if you do that make sure its soft and comfortable - not going to rub her. It can be a lot better than grabbing close to her head
Good luck!!
 
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