Teaching a Horse Ground Manners

Horsecity.com - Full Article

by Randy Byers
randybyershorsemanship.com
Posted: Tuesday, April 12, 2011

I was asked by an owner training a 2-year old mare ... 'What do I do and how do I teach her good ground manners?' There are two reasons why you want ground manners:

1. You want to be an effective leader and gain respect from your horse.

2. You want to use this stage to develop transitional cues to help with your introduction to saddle work in the near future.

In order to gain respect, you need to gain control of your horse's feet. That is the short answer to the 'what do I do?' question. If you get control of her feet, you automatically establish yourself as the leader and achieve respect from your horse.

In answer to 'how do I teach her good ground manners?' you will need to learn and execute techniques on how to gain control of your horse's feet. There are a variety of detailed exercises and maneuvers you can use to achieve this. You also will need to know how she thinks and you will need to think like her.

It is critical that you define your view of what acceptable ground manners are ...

Read more here:
http://horsecity.com/stories/041211/tra_manners.shtml