Understanding Why the Horse Spooks

Understanding the Horse that Spooks

The hardest question I had to ask myself was, "Was I causing my horse to spook sometimes?" Come to find out I was causing him to be spooky at times. I was anticipating he was going to spook at a rock , an open door way ... you name it, I was anticipating he was going to spook. He would spook. I started watching for signs that would tell me the second he was thinking about spooking. The ears are the first to tell you that he is not sure what he heard. Then, the head comes up and the neck muscles get tense, and the shoulder muscles get tense. Then comes the spook itself; Jump 3 feet to the side or, oh my its going to eat me, 360 spin around and let's get out of here! Now we know the basic signs to look for. Let's go back to the beginning. Back to the wild horse or a horse that is in a herd of 5 to 11. We have the lead mare or "Alpha" - she is the leader of the herd. Her responsibility is to tell the others when to eat, drink, or to run from danger. Then comes the "Beta" the second in command and then the "Omega" Riding a lead mare on the trail she is always on the look out for danger as is in riding the ''Beta". They tend to watch the trail, turning their heads all the time from side to side, always alert on the trail. They are also the the horses that spook the most. We can teach them that when we are in the saddle that their responsibility falls on to us and, in doing so, they turn over the look out to us to keep every one safe from danger. Now how do we teach this spooky horse to be calm when we are around whether it is in the pasture or out riding the trail or at a show? "Trust" is the key factor here with the spooking horse. Once the horse learns to trust that it is safe when with us, the spooky horse will stay calm when we are around. How do we establish this trust? While we are with it , we stay calm and the horse will stay calm. We stay relaxed, they stay relaxed.Sounds simple, doesn't it? It really is simple. All we have to do is to teach ourselves to be calm and relaxed and our horses will be calm and relaxed. When a baby cries, we rock it and hum to it. Sure enough, it calms down.. We can do the same thing with our horses. Well, we sure as day and night can't rock it but we can whistle a tune or hum to it or even sing to it in a sing song voice. We can even talk it out of spooking with a sing song voice. When you see the signs of a spook coming on, the alert ears are the first to let you know that something is going to happen. Immediatly start to whistle to your horse and once his head drops back down, hum to it . When you feel the tension go out of the head ,neck shoulders , tell it that it was a good horse and give it a rub. I even give my horse Poco a treat after he has calmed down. In fact when he has calmed down now we don't even stop walking I lean over and he will turn his head and I pop the treat in the side of his mouth with out losing a stride . Another good teaching aide is John Lyons', "Teaching Your Horse to Give to the Bit" and "Teaching the Calm Down Cue." This is great for some of us that just doesn't feel comfortable whistling or humming in a group of people. A horse that will drop his head with a tap of one rein will get his mind off of the scary object. Once you have passed the object and he has forgotten about it give that horse a treat whether it is a rub on the shoulder and a praise of good job or a treat. He will remember the next few times that if he listens to you when he gets scared he gets rewarded for a job well done. Another thing I do as I start to go on the ride is look around. Is the wind blowing, or is there a chance of rain that day? These all have the means of affecting how a horse will react on a trail ride. Is it rutting season? Then the deer will be on the move. Are there leaves on the trees? Why? Because they can't see as well with leaves on the side of the trail so their other senses kick in more; hearing and smell . When the leaves are off the trees they can see farther through the trees and might pick up on movement more up ahead or to the side of the trail. If the wind is blowing it will carry smells that you and I can't smell but a horse can. A lot of us will start singing funny songs and make them up as we go along. Like clip clop clip clop going up the trail clip clop listen to the birds and so on . We do this when there is a place on the trail that we have seen deer before . The horses love it and some of them will get in to the rhythm of the song. No matter if we sing or hum or talk soothingly ... teaching our horses to trust us and calm down to a cue or signal is one of the first things we need to teach our horses before getting into a saddle. It's elementary!

Helping the Horse That Spooks

Now that we understand the horse that spooks we can help him/her overcome the fright of every little thing. In doing this we can work on introducing the horse to working past the idea that every scary thing is a horse eating monster.

Horses eye sight consist of both binocular and monocular vision. Binocular vision is the same type of vision as humans have -focusing on one thing with both eyes at the same time. We cannot see two different views at the same time, we can only focus on one thing at a time. When we are working in a round pen or a familiar area the horse will use the monocular vision ,which means that each eye sees a separate view at the same time. Monocular vision is why the horse cannot see directly in front of him or directly in back of him. They can't even see their own feet let alone yours or mine. This is why our horse are so comfortable in the round pen or a familiar area where we work him every day . It is almost like the effect of blinders on a horse and then we have problems with him spooking at the same things on the trail that he didn't spook at in the arena. This is in a sense a cause and effect type of thing. In the arena he sees that he is surrounded by a fence or wall at all times .walls or fences don't move all of a sudden out of the blue. Out in the open the same bag or object we use in the arena could all of a sudden blow up under the horses legs or flap in the unexpected wind that kicked up causing a start of reaction to it flapping and the leaves moving at the same time or even the grass or weeds along the trail moving. Now we know why our horse doesn't spook at home but spooks out on the trail , so we start working with him like we did in the arena out on the trail and in doing this we help him understand that the same bag or object isn't going to eat him just like it didn't eat him at home. I like to work my horse in the arena and when he is exposed to different things and has built confidence within himself that it isn't going to hurt him then I take him out in the open and work with him out side where he can see every thing going on around him . If we teach the horse to keep his attention on us at all times and we teach our selves to be calm in sticky situations or when the need arises our horse will first look to us to see if we are calm and if we didn't tense up then the horse will stay calm. Horses can also feel us tense up and if we stay calm then the horse will stay calm,. He might keep one eye and ear on the thing that has him worried as we pass it by but he will listen to us and walk past it , when this happens give him words of praise or even a treat for a job well done . I don't like to stop and let the horse look at the object that has him worried. Why because if I make a issue of it then there is something really wrong and the horse will think well maybe I should spook at it and get out of here.

1. The first and for most thing is to teach the horse a calm down cue and work on the calm down cue when you have the horse to the place of if he gets up set and all you have to do is say its ok ,or a rub on the neck with the verbal command of Its ok in a sing song voice, (I use a command of walk on this way if I'm on the trail and he gets up set all I have to do is say in a deep voice Walk On) then and only then proceed to the next step.

2. The best thing is to first teach the horse in a controlled area say a arena/round pen .

3. The next thing is what dose your horse usually spook at and go from there . Lets take a plastic bag ,Put it in the arena and work your horse like it wasn't there . Put the bag were you can walk around it coming from both directions. Remember horses can only see with one eye at a time so we have to work on both sides at all time so he can see it with each eye and you have to ignore the object at all times so you have to also teach your self to ignore things , the best thing I have found is always look ahead of me to see what is coming up and if I see a bag,rock,limb on the side of the trail I make my self ignore it other wise I can make my horse spook if I think he will spook .

4. Dogs barking , as I'm working my horse at a walk I will all of a sudden bark like a dog watch your horses signs. Ears come up first - head follows. You have to do this in a millisecond when you see the signs give him the command of Walk ON. Use your imagination at deferent sounds . I keep a tape recorder and have dogs barking ,horns blaring . Kids yelling, you name it record it.

5. I take a rope that is 20 feet long and tie a plastic tarp to the end and take the other end and loop it around the saddle horn (don't tie it to the saddle horn)You want to be able to let it go if need be. I start out at a walk dragging the tarp . Horses reaction to it ,Head and ear and eye on that side will tilt toward the tarp. When this happens give the command walk on pause Walk on Walk on until he takes his head and looks forward again. Now if by chance which this should not happen if we worked on and got the calm down cues down pat and the horse responded 200 times, is if he should spook drop the rope go and give the command to walk on only this time we are going to say it in a deep mean voice ,why I say mean is it drops our voice to a deeper octave and gets the horses attention back on us quicker. When you can pull the tarp with no reaction from the horse take up some slack keep doing this until you can drag the tarp right beside you , When you can do this go back to the first step and work on the other side of the horse, Dragging the tarp will help the horse in realizing that if something comes up or blows across in back of him it isn't going to eat him and it also helps with a horse that when you walk behind him to get him not to kick out at every thing.

Article by Connie Beckner of Lafayette, IN