Enforcing Bad Behaviour: Are You Doing It?
Published by GHC • Oct 10th, 2008 • Category: Junior Blogger Archives, Riding Adviceby ponygalmaddy, age 13
SHOUTING! Has that ever gotten you anywhere? With your parents? Your friends? No. So why do people think it will with their horse? I have seen, often times at a show or at a friend’s stables/yard, people bellowing at their horse for doing something wrong. Now that is wrong.
Riders often focus on the bad and ignore the good, which in return, makes a horse naughty, nappy, nasty and sometimes dangerous; because they know that this gets them attention. I have always been taught to ignore the bad and focus on the good, which then makes you and your horse ten times better and happier. I can give real life examples of both.
ENFORCING BAD BEHAVIOUR, IGNORING GOOD BEHAVIOR. A girl is riding a cheeky spotty cob. Whenever the girl asks for canter, he either goes on the wrong leg, or just runs. At this she loses it and starts shouting, smacking, and kicking the poor pony. Then when he does something right, like stretches down and accepts the bit. The girl ignores it. Now the spotty cob is up for sale and it bucks, kicks, rears, and bites.
IGNORING BAD BEHAVIOUR, ENFORCING GOOD BEHAVIOR. A difficult cob mare is in the school and hates going on the right rein. On the circle, she’ll dance as she heads for the centre. The rider just ignores it, but when she stretches down and accepts the bit the rider praises her with a kind word and a wither scratch. The next time she does it without too much fuss.
These are true. Now can you see how bad it is?
Wow it does really make a difference! Nice blog, these things are so true. One of the horses at my barn that I am starting to ride is still learning to “be a horse” and wasn’t raised around horses before the barn got him. This girl started riding him, and we claimed him to be dangerous then. The girl would give him the wrong signals, turning him into a bad horse. She woudl pull back on the horse’s mouth and actually jerk him but kick as hard as you could. Then this girl stopped riding (was actually banned from riding him) and this othere girl started riding him. She did very well with him, and now even beginners ride him! I am starting to ride him although I am almost an Intermediate, and we have to reward him a lot since he is still in training. Thanks for posting this, you surely will change someone’s perspective about how they treat horses!
So true! Unfortunatelly, one of my favorite horses has an inexperienced rider and I’m afraid she’s going to spoil him. His ground manners are awful but he’s really sweet and he could be a great horse if only his owner knew what she was doing!
I’ll just starting to learn horses behaviour and thinksand you just opened my eyes! Next time I ride I’ll be a lot more careful, Thanks! I love you’re blogs
now my friend Carolynn owns 13 horses and 3 of them are hers. the oldest one is a Quarter horse named Guilty, the next is an Appaloosa named Dumbo, and third is an Arabian named Nasty Candy. I asked why she named three beautiful good natured horses like that. All she said all stuckup is because the stupid horses. When we rode we were jumping and i rode Guilty and she rode Nasty Candy and the way she treated that poor thing i said something and she listened and said i guess i was just trying to impress you. I said why would that impress me? She said because thats how my friend was trying to impress me. I said oh, So what are the horses real names? She said well Guilty is actually Blue Bonnet, Dumbo is actually Blondie and Nasty Candy is actually Sweetie. Then i came over almost every day but i started riding my horse there si could ride her!
Good Job, ponygalmaddy!
Its hard to believe some people, I mean come on how is being horrid to your horse make him better?!
You did a wonderful job explaning this ponygalmaddy! Keep up the good work!:)
*claps* it’s sooooo true! why would u be rough?? It’s just gonna make it worse!! I know people who yell at horses. There nice and all but the horses don’t listen. The trick is, reward good behavior, don’t punish or reward bad behavior.
Really good blog well done!
I ride this pony called Ziggy who is the best!!!! He can be quite lazy and nappy sometimes though, but shouting at him just makes him worse. The best thing to do is walk back to the track in the menage and try again!
I know this girl who rides and all she does is smack and shout at the horses, they just get angry and buck…