Teaching your horse tricks!

tobiano1984

tobiano1984

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Does anyone teach their horse tricks? Like bowing, shaking hands, sitting down and so on..?
My 3 year old loves to learn, and whilst he's doing very well with his schooling I want to give him more to think about, as he seems to love it! I try every week to give him a session or two in the school, off the lead rope, just doing join-up exercises and 'bonding' a bit! He's very biddable, and loves just following around, backing up, mirroring my moves etc. I'd love to learn how to teach him to do a few tricks - I've heard that teaching them to bow is fairly easy.

Any tips/instructions out there?
 
I bought my daughter a book off Amazon. Can't remember what's called as its buried in her bedroom somewhere - although I seem to remember that after browsing through it, I didn't agree with all the methods. Taught ours to bow easily enough by lifting front leg and waving a carrot from under stomach. Just be warned that your horse may start doing the tricks when you don't want him to - quite often when I try and pick his feet out now, he bows!
 
I have just started clicker training with this horse, for exactly the same reason, his confidence and our bonding. Currently just working with umbrella - would love to be able to sit on his back with an umbrella (he isn't wild about flappy things).

Next mission, playing football with a gym ball in the school.

After that, ground tying!!! How useful would that be?

Would love some inspiration on other useful things to do!!
 
JFTD and KatPT both trick train their horses. If they don't arrive naturally you could try looking them out by PM?
 
I'm working on mine right now with different things, but no set things, get her to do new things for a carrot reward in the mornings and she cottons on to all of them quickly. Just different steps, head movements, shadowing etc.

I have trick trained pigs goats and sheep in the past (pig most sucessfull, followed by the goat. Pigs will do anything for food and goats for attention!)

Pan
 
Recently taught my 3yr old to shake a paw ;) and bow, he picked it up really quick but unfortunately I created monster!

He started constantly waving his leg at me or putting his head to the floor, then nudging me like, c'mon treat now mum! Nightmare, so now he's learning no treats unless he's asked!!
 
I taught one of my ponies to bow once - the idea was that he would then do when presented with a rosette in the ring. It worked beautifully but I got thoroughly sick of it after about 6 months and I owned the pony for twenty years after that :D I decided after that I wouldn't do it again.....

It's pretty easy to teach and they never forget!

ETA - a lady at the yard taught her horse to pick up his front foot for a treat and I have lost count of the times the little ***** has caught me on the knee or the wrist when I'm catching in and turning out (she treats him at these times, I always seem to forget as I don't do him that much!)
 
Haha I can imagine that happening with mine - he'll do anything for food!

How did you train him to shake and bow?
 
To shake, just kept saying shake a paw, and picking his front leg up at the knee (like you do when you pull the hair flat under the girth) then I could tap his knee and he'd pick it up now I just have to say it and he picks it up... I think it's cute anyway!

My friend rolls her eyes at me and mutters "he doesn't even have paws!" ;)
 
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http://www.theclickercenter.com/ Clicker training but can be applied to anything you want to do.

http://www.trickhorse.com/

www.imagineahorse.com

http://shawnakarrasch.com/

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Ground tying is very useful - most horses I've ridden in the US (western trained) ground tie - but how do you teach it?
 
What is ground tying?

I have taught my gigantic WB to bow :D quite amusing and did it without being asked when I jurned him out this morning so think it might be time to stop that one ;)
 
Ground tying is when you can just drop the lead rope or reins onto the ground and the horse stays there as though it's tied to the ground. Very useful when hacking, hunting etc or just can't find something to tie your horse to!
 
tobiano1984 said:
Ground tying is very useful - most horses I've ridden in the US (western trained) ground tie - but how do you teach it?
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Lots of different methods, here's one:

http://horselife-steve.blogspot.com/2010/01/teaching-horse-to-ground-tie.html

Just Google ground tying.

http://youtu.be/unpxl0BFT8g
http://youtu.be/3r-3GvvCbnM

I use the word "Ho!" rather than "Stand." I teach my horses that "Ho!" means stop, now not the rather diluted BHS version that means slow down. I teach halt/stand/ "Ho" in hand first, and ground tying comes easily after that, you just drop the rope and make sure they understand that a rope on the floor is just another cue for Ho. The first time I said whoa to my mare, meaning slow down, she stopped dead and I almost went straight over her head, lesson learned, do not say whoa/ho to a western trained horse unless you want to stop.

I also train them (before ground tying) to put their head down and release pressure when they stand on a rope, dragging an 8' thick rope around a round pen for a bit soon gets them used to sorting themselves out and learning that a rope on the ground isn't going to kill them.
 
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Actually the trick master on the forum is Stacey 8867 ? or something? not good with strings of numbers :p And Enfys' mini of course :D

Ground tying is just like immobility for trec? mine do that, but in the real world, would probably eat instead :S

Mine can do a few things

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holding things

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waves legs about... he crosses them too.

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reins back / turns on forehand / has all the basic manouvres without tack, which is sort of trick training :p
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pedestals
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and er... well...

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And that's before we consider what the dog can do :p
 
Feathered said:
JFTD, fab fab... Just fabbb! Dare I ask, how do you teach the rear?
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Thanks :D

Depends on the horse and whether you want it in hand / ridden really... If your horse responds to a distance "rein back" in hand, or reins back under saddle, he puts his weight back onto his hocks and you can usually convince them to give a small rear/bounce just by positioning / encouragement, then build up from there.

What you don't do is pull their teeth out and annoy them into it :D
 
I knew someone who taught her pony to rear, did it quite regularly. When her circumstances changed and she needed to find her pony a new home, she could not loan or sell it as it would rear if anyone tensed on it. She could only really sell it to a small adult. Think it ended up stuck in a field and not used at all.

Just a thought.
 
Equinus said:
I knew someone who taught her pony to rear, did it quite regularly. When her circumstances changed and she needed to find her pony a new home, she could not loan or sell it as it would rear if anyone tensed on it. She could only really sell it to a small adult. Think it ended up stuck in a field and not used at all.

Just a thought.
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That's the only thing. But, if a horse is properly taught to do something on cue it should mean 'no cue = no action'.

Always best to be totally upfront and inform people and rather than just tell them what cues you use send the pony away with an instruction manual. :)
 
Having ridden JFTD's guys I can definatly say its only done on command and is actually very safe when done. Theres very specific buttons to get them to go up and they only start small.
 
dafthoss said:
Having ridden JFTD's guys I can definatly say its only done on command and is actually very safe when done. Theres very specific buttons to get them to go up and they only start small.
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I was just about to post and say you'd have to be pretty retarded to dig both your heels into him in front of his girth and get him to go up :D

But it's nice to have some external validification of that :p
 
Unless your knees bend the wrong way or your sitting the wrong way round then I think its rather hard to acidently get the spot. You might get a bit of terrifing rein back or they might walk forward ;).
 
dafthoss said:
Unless your knees bend the wrong way or your sitting the wrong way round then I think its rather hard to acidently get the spot. You might get a bit of terrifing rein back or they might walk forward ;).
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Oh he does do a lovely rein back :p You're more likely to get a terrifying rein back by mistake than a rear :eek: :D
 
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