You are training when feeding

Photo: I teach all my youngsters to turn their head away to wait for a treat or their feed to be delivered. Fiera on the left is doing this nicely and waiting, while little Aria is being rewarded for a step in the right direction.

When dealing with bad behaviour its probably safer to stay on the other side of the fence at first and wait for a ‘pretty face’ or standing quietly away from you before you give them the bucket.

If you want to develop the good behaviour faster while in this individual space, then deliver the food one handful at a time into another feed tub, then wait for the good behaviour to occur again.

If you haven’t got the patience to wait for the horse to offer the behaviour (free shaping), then you can do something to instigate it such as waving a flag on a stick to indicate mving away, or put your ears up etc. This will mean you need to carry the flag with you whenever you feed, but that’s a good idea if you’re dealing with an agressive horse anyway.

When the behaviour becomes established you can change the cue (flag) to something more subtle such as your fingers clicking. by adding the new cue in just prior to the old one.

For well behaved horses learning something new the process is the same, although you will probably need to have some sort of cue to tell them what you want.

For backing you might wave your finger flap your arm up and down. Once the horse understands, you can add in a voice cue as well and gradually drop the visual cue.

If your horse gets ‘grabby’ and rushes in to take the food when it is delivered, just remove the food and wait for patient behaviour again. The same goes for feeding by hand – if your horse is too enthusiastic in the way they take the food, close and even remove your hand, and offer it again when the horse shows gentle behaviour.

Feeding your horse can be a fun and rewarding experience for both of you if you take the time to establish some boundaries and be patient enough to stick with them consistently.