Spooking

First you have to understand why a horse spooks. They have great sence of smell and hearing . Horses are fight and flight anamils in some cases they will fight for survival if needs arise and in some cases they will take flight to get away at something they do not understand like if they smell somthing on the wind or on the trail they want to get out of there fast. The first thing to know in helping your horse over come his spooking is he spooking at an object or something he smells or hears. In helping your horse it is great to learn their body language abserve a horse that spooks learn what his reaction to deferent things are Objects, sounds, smells . The Object of this is to teach your horse he can spook but not move his feet and with practice you can achieve this its going to take time remember when you were learning to tie your shoe you didn't learn it right away you had to practice for a while at learning to tie bows it is the same with teaching them not to spook it takes time and peasants he is not going to learn in one day mabe not even a week you have to work at helping face his fears and not move his feet.

Objects: how to help your horse not be afarad of deferent things it would help if the horse is in a round pen and free to run but if you don't have a round pen thats ok it's a little harder to work with your horse if you have to have a halter and rope on him. This what you can do before you go and get your horse lets start with what ever you have whether it is a old coat or a piece of plastic, now we are going to put it on the ground in plane sight so your horse can see it. Ok Lets go get your horse, we are going to lead him toward the obgect the second he reacts whether it is to stop and get real big and stand there, we are going to turn around and walk the other way and make a big circle and come back to the Object on the ground if he stops tell him it's ok give him a rub on the neck don't pat( the reason i say not to pat your horse is because he is all ready scared and if you go to give a pat you might scare him more and he could jump into you and we don't want that)so rub his neck and tell him hes a good boy/girl if you want give him a treat to renforce your words. Work on this untill you can walk up to the object from both sides of the horse and the horse dosn't have a reaction to it any more. Now if your horse after say 2 days can walk up to the object try something new like a moving object laundry flaping in the wind and old dish towel waving in the wind use your imaginaition a childs toy or stuffed animal what ever when your horse will walk up to what ever you put out then it is time to move on to the next step.

SOUNDS::: This is the fun part I love if you got your horse to stand still with the objects then that is half the battle. Now we're going to have fun making diferent sounds , a dog barking and growling, a child screaming. a cat meowing , trash can lids hiting together,a car horn, a door slaming you name it do it. When you can get to the point of when ever you do a sound and your horse looks at you as if to say man not this again and egnores you with each sound then its time to move on.

SMELLING::. By the time you get to this one your home free. I guess the only way to do this one is to use your imagination again boy by this time we should have a good imagination shouldn't we. Any way some horse spook at smoke or deferent animal smells .I'll tell you about the time we we're on a trail ride and all of a sudden Poco my Horse put his nose to the ground like a blood hound and then he tryed taking a giant step over some thing on the trail, I thought to my self what the why is he doing that then i looked back and all the other horse that were with us did the same thing we could not for the life of us think what was on the trail for them to act like this. We went on riding and sure enough he did it again only this time he stoped dead in his tracks put his nose to the ground and smelled all around this pile of horse dung there on the trail I looked down and there was the tall tell sing of a lillle hoof print and then I knew what had him acting this way some friends of ours has a little mule and they had used the trail before us, Well our horses had never seen a mule before let alone smell one. that was so funny to think the horses was acting like this over a mule. Didn't know mules smelled any deferent than a horse but they must cause our horses told us so. If you make a game of this it will help you and your horse.

The one thing out of all of this that was the hardest thing was I had to admit to my self was I was somtimes causing my horse to spook. I knew he would sometimes spook and I was anticipating he was going to spook and sure enough he would. So I would watch his ears and when they came aleart I would start whistling to him some tune to calm my self down and it worked he would not spook and he calmed down also. So think realy hard at when your horse spooks are you kinda jumpy at the time. I also found that when I get this way I start talking to him telling him he has been such a good horse so far and rub his neck where I can reach it from the saddle.