Pony won't be caught- would join up be any good?

TommyTwoShoes

TommyTwoShoes

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Hi everyone, I'm just looking for some advice for my 4 year old NF gelding.

Ever since I've had him (bought as a yearling, known his whole life) we've had trouble catching him. He can be as good as gold for months and then suddenly change his mind and decide he doesn't want to be caught.

I've known him since conception so I know he's never had any traumatic experiences and him not being caught certainly isn't because he's afraid. He just gets it into his head that he doesn't want to play the game.

Sometimes this only lasts a day, but it can last weeks. We've tried bribery, keeping him in a smaller field, herding him into the yard/stable, ignoring him, everything we can think of really.

At the moment he's out with a head collar on as this makes it easier to get hold of him before he realises you've got him, but even then it doesn't always work.

It's been suggested that join up might be a good technique for us, but my experience with horses has been largely 'traditional' so I haven't got much experience with NH methods.

I was just wondering if any one had any suggestions, or could talk me through the join up technique?

Thanks
 
Yes join up or similar works, have used the PNH version, as far as I can tell they are the same thing. You should start in a smaller space though for it to be effective, a round yard, or arena rather than a large paddock. Once all sorted though you can have your pony race to you accross the paddock.

There should be heaps of stuff on website re these methods, but if you have trouble locating, pm me and will dig out what i have.
 
They can be such monkeys can't they, these natives?

Join up might help, but with the best will in the world it won't do much good unless you've been taught the finer points of it first. The body language is important and the timing is crucial, if you get those wrong you'll end up confusing the pony and yourself.

If I were you I'd get on to the Monty Roberts/Kelly Marks website http://ihdg.proboards.com/ as I'm sure you'll get some good advice and offers of help there.
 
Thanks for the replies :)

During the summer he was coming in daily (if I could catch him!). Sometimes it was just for a feed and a cuddle and some days it was to be tacked up/lunged/walked out etc as we're in the process of backing him.

Like I said, he'll be caught quite happily for months and then suddenly decide he's changed his mind one day for no apparent reason.

I know trying NH takes a lot of experience, I'm just running out of ideas and I'm fed up of having to stand in the p*ssing rain for over an hour just to put a rug on the ungrateful beast!
 
guido16 said:
How often are you catching him? Daily? Weekly?

What do you do with him when you catch him?
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Yes! You need to make it worth his while for him to be caught!!! Every day for a week, catch him, lead him out of the paddock and give him a bucket with some nicies in it - tiny bit of hard feed, carrots, apples.....if he doesn't want to be caught sit down, or wander around doing something interesting along the hedgerows....something to get his attention. KEEP YOUR COOL DO NOT GET MAD!!!! Use your brain to outsmart him!!! Good luck and have fun - both of you!!!
 
There are a lot of practitioners out there and some of them not very good. There are also a lot of versions of natural horsemanship - not mentioning the one beginning the P...

Make sure you get a personal reccommendation and that you are entirely happy with the ethos behind what they want to teach your horse to do - especially as he is so young.

IMO you should be fine with the Kelly Marks / Richard Maxwell approach (although both are different.) But - as they say on the BBC - there are other providers out there. And posters with other opinions!

We got seriously stung by someone practising her "techniques" on my daughter's coblet to get him to lead respectfully. I have never seen anything more vicious. Join up and similar is great - just be careful who you choose to help you.
 
It really will help, I would definitely get an Intelligent Horsemanship recommended associate to come and show you - it would only need an hour to really get started and also teach you how to use your body language to continue when they have gone.

My greedy playful pony sometimes really doesnt want to come in, but using the technique I have always been able to catch her within a few minutes.
 
Try a lasso:D

why not go up to im on and off through the day with a small treat a polo etc, so he wont know when you are actually going to catch him.




I have tied electric tape to the fence before one end and corralled mine into a small area when can be caught.

can you put an area electric tape round the gate area with tape with feed and then pull tape across so he is in small area, feed him in here daily so he gets used to it?

give him a little calmer in his feed so may have less tendency to be like this
I have lots ideas just haven't the time to list
 
Thanks for the replies.

During the winter he only comes in for a feed (no facilities and working full time so he has to have the winter off) and that still makes no difference. He'll go for literally months of being caught perfectly and then change his mind about the whole thing.

If I had £1 for every hour I've spent in the field trying to make myself look 'interesting' I'd be very very rich by now.

I make a conscious effort to catch him even if I don't plan on doing anything with him and he always gets a treat when he's caught but he isn't very food orientated so most of the time he'd rather be off up the field than with me and my packet of polos!

It also makes no difference if you remove the other horses from the field first, all he does is charge about and then you've got even less chance of catching him and if you do then you can't do anything with him afterwards because he's so wound up.

He's got a head collar on at the moment because most of the time he'll be your best friend until you produce a head collar so at least if he's already got one on I can just sneakily get hold of it. Although sometimes he'll b*gger off the moment he see me walking down the field!

It's so frustrating! I've lost countless hours of time I should be using to back him and I want to show him next year but I can just imagine the amount of entry fees that will be lost because I won't be able to catch him on the morning of the show!

Leviathan That's not a bad idea! Catching him has been known as 'Lassoing the little beast' for a long time in our house!
 
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I don't 'do' join up but I do walk after them for as long as it takes and never give them time to get their head down to graze while doing it. Keep him on the go unless he turns and comes up to you and I agree about leaving a headcollar on at all times AS LONG as it's a leather one; the cheap Indian ones are just as good so it needn't cost a fortune, even a Kincade one is less than £20 - but anything's worth not using a nylon one, they are so dangerous.
I wear them down so they are glad to come to me for a rest but then I'm bloody minded and won't let them win. I hate non catchers with a passion.
 
Maesfen said:
I don't 'do' join up but I do walk after them for as long as it takes and never give them time to get their head down to graze while doing it. Keep him on the go unless he turns and comes up to you and I agree about leaving a headcollar on at all times AS LONG as it's a leather one; the cheap Indian ones are just as good so it needn't cost a fortune, even a Kincade one is less than £20 - but anything's worth not using a nylon one, they are so dangerous.
I wear them down so they are glad to come to me for a rest but then I'm bloody minded and won't let them win. I hate non catchers with a passion.
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That's our usual technique but it can take ages with him and if I'm tight for time then sometimes he wins because I haven't got hours to spend in the field. It also means that sometimes by the time I get hold of him anything I had planned to do with him has to be shelved for another day because I've spent so long catching him.

It's so very very frustrating and when I've got 2 other horses as well sometimes I just think can I really be bothered to spend hours trying to catch him and ignoring the other 2.

Thanks for the replies guys. Any more pearls of wisdom are greatly appreciated!
 
I'm old and won't walk after a horse for hours on end! So when my (very experienced) young helper couldn't catch one of the ponies (who is usually easy to catch) I got out the quad, rounded them all up and put them in the round pen. The offender was easily caught in there and hasn't misbehaved since. Did I accidentally hit on some undiscovered facet of equine psychology or was it coincidence? ("No point in trying to evade him, chaps, he'll just get the quad out!"). Incidentally, we put them straight back in the field and the naughty one was very easily caught the second time. I haven't been able to try out the theory since as everyone has been very well behaved!:D
 
would he follow a bucket of food into the yard???

When I get a horse not coming in I leave gate open and they normally come in behind me loose then i just shut the door of stable
 
Dry Rot said:
I'm old and won't walk after a horse for hours on end! So when my (very experienced) young helper couldn't catch one of the ponies (who is usually easy to catch) I got out the quad, rounded them all up and put them in the round pen. The offender was easily caught in there and hasn't misbehaved since. Did I accidentally hit on some undiscovered facet of equine psychology or was it coincidence? ("No point in trying to evade him, chaps, he'll just get the quad out!"). Incidentally, we put them straight back in the field and the naughty one was very easily caught the second time. I haven't been able to try out the theory since as everyone has been very well behaved!:D
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Unfortunately no quad to help you test that theory, but it certainly would save my legs!
 
Leviathan said:
would he follow a bucket of food into the yard???

When I get a horse not coming in I leave gate open and they normally come in behind me loose then i just shut the door of stable
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We do let them graze loose on the yard so I can get him on the yard no problem, but getting hold of him once he's there can be almost impossible. Sometimes he'll follow a bucket, but if he realises what you're doing he's off!

Unfortunately no two days are the same with this pony so we've never managed to find just one technique that works.

I've tried to put a stop to the loose grazing now so that he learns that he needs to be caught before he comes on the yard for a feed, but that's difficult when you've got 2 other horses that need doing and limited time to get everything done.
 
Mine are little sods about being caught sometimes...the only way I find works when its wet out is in the car. I have a disco so it goes across the field ok and ponies know that treats live in the car :) so if they see the car, they come running. If it is dry, i just sit on the floor-they think I've gone mad, I just look at the floor and then they come to check I'm ok...thereafter we can cuddle and catch etc etc

I have also wondered about NH, one of my friends did a weekend course and the difference in her pony is incredible...I'm tempted :)
 
nicolenlolly said:
Mine are little sods about being caught sometimes...the only way I find works when its wet out is in the car. I have a disco so it goes across the field ok and ponies know that treats live in the car :) so if they see the car, they come running. If it is dry, i just sit on the floor-they think I've gone mad, I just look at the floor and then they come to check I'm ok...thereafter we can cuddle and catch etc etc

I have also wondered about NH, one of my friends did a weekend course and the difference in her pony is incredible...I'm tempted :)
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Unfortunately we can't use the car, and I've spent many an hour sitting on the floor and it makes no difference.

If I'm lucky he'll come over to say hello but the moment you touch him or he thinks you've got a head collar then off he goes!

I think I'll have a look and see when the next local NH demo is and go along to see what I think. We've always used more 'traditional' methods but at this stage of the game I'm open to anything within reason!
 
My old horse was a real toad to catch. There was no chance of putting him in a smaller paddock, or on his own, or herding him into a smaller bit - these due to livery yard rules (massive 15+ acre fields), and me generally catching him on his own.

We had one day where he was trotting around the field for two hours whilst he was lame... all I wanted to do was to feed him with his medicine in it!

He did eventually get marginally better. What I started doing with him was to take him a bucket of food in the field, and leave him with it. Due to the size of the fields, I could generally feed him, and the other horses wouldnt notice he was eating, or it was easy enough to drive them off it. This then progressed to him eating from his bucket and me stroking his neck etc, eventually clipping a lead rope onto his headcollar, then unclipping him.

We then progressed to a small bucket of feed in the field/treats. He would then come in and get some more food before ridden. (Either very small amount of normal food, or some chaff etc, so no tummy upsets.) Ride horse. Put horse back in stable and feed horse again. Because he was such a pig, this eventually worked. He thought he was getting one over on me, because he was getting what he wanted ie food.
 
Unfortunately the little beast just isn't that interested in food, especially in the summer.

During the winter it's a slightly different story but as we feed hay in the field he's not too bothered about whether he gets his bucket or not and I haven't really got the time to be chasing him around in the dark.

There's a chance he might be stabled at night this winter so I'm hoping I can solve it by making sure he's caught to come to bed rather than 'putting himself to bed' like our other gelding does.
 
nicolenlolly said:
Mine are little sods about being caught sometimes...the only way I find works when its wet out is in the car. I have a disco so it goes across the field ok and ponies know that treats live in the car :) so if they see the car, they come running. If it is dry, i just sit on the floor-they think I've gone mad, I just look at the floor and then they come to check I'm ok...thereafter we can cuddle and catch etc etc

I have also wondered about NH, one of my friends did a weekend course and the difference in her pony is incredible...I'm tempted :)
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You are quite right! I train gundogs and have used that to catch a nervous dog. It does work for horses too but I lie flat out and just hope I'm not stepped on. It does work.

Wasn't there a film with a scene in it where a native American tries to catch a horse? He eventually gives up and sits down. The horse then comes up behind him and nuzzles his neck! I heard about it but did not see the film and have forgotten the name anyway.

Better not lle down in the field just at the moment or you may drown if it's anything like here.:eek:
 
As I've said up thread, I've tried this so many times, he just isn't interested. He's a smart cookie and seems to have sussed that Mum sitting on the floor means she's up to something and not to be trusted!
 
I sympathise. Until I met my match with a mare, there was never a horse I couldn't catch. Horses that are not food orientated are doubly difficult.

Sometimes she'll be fine for months like yours and then suddenly she changes.

My vet knew what she was like and memorably once he did a lameness exam on her in the field while she helpfully free lunged herself around us, changing direction when asked.:)

Sorry. TTS, I haven't found a solution yet after trying every trick in the book, although singing a familar refrain seems to help my breathing when my annoyance is beginning to surface.

Only things I have thought might work, are accepting it will take hours when its dark and rainy. And failing that; 24 hr stabling or a bullet.:p
 
horserider said:
I sympathise. Until I met my match with a mare, there was never a horse I couldn't catch. Horses that are not food orientated are doubly difficult.

Sometimes she'll be fine for months like yours and then suddenly she changes.

My vet knew what she was like and memorably once he did a lameness exam on her in the field while she helpfully free lunged herself around us, changing direction when asked.:)

Sorry. TTS, I haven't found a solution yet after trying every trick in the book, although singing a familar refrain seems to help my breathing when my annoyance is beginning to surface.

Only things I have thought might work, are accepting it will take hours when its dark and rainy. And failing that; 24 hr stabling or a bullet.:p
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Nice to see someone else who is in the same boat! He free lunges wonderfully, but getting him in so I can do a proper job can takes hours...

I don't know about singing, but I often threaten to sell him to the gypsies. Lord only knows what the neighbours think!
 
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