Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Skate - The Welcoming Committee Chairpony

Its nice to have such a friendly horse...but a pain when he feels the need to befriend the new mare in the neighboring field. Skate turned into a loudmouth last night when he saw his new BFF being taken away. Luckily, all his dreams were fulfilled when they rode in the indoor with us!

I figured, after hearing the "miss you!" screams in my ear while tacking up, that Skate would be a horrid pain to ride...but he was a very good boy. I don't know if things would have gone so well if the new BFF wasn't IN the arena with us!

How do you get a horse to shut the hell up? I feel like there's no need to punish, as long as he's behaving. He does this at shows, too...screams for anyone and everyone, yet behaves just fine. He can get tense, but still does what I ask. What do you do? Ignore?

5 comments:

Double A Training said...

He IS misbehaving if he is hollering. He is ignoring you and being dis-respectful.

I would make him move his feet and work really hard EVERYTIME he hollered. His attention needs to be on you and not on what his girlfriend is doing.

Andrea said...

I've got plenty of experience with hollering horses and no ideas what-so-ever on how to deal with them. Growing up our horses were at our house and we had to stop taking more than one at a time to the show because they'd be screaming at each other the entire time.

DinkDunk said...

Hmm - interesting you say that Alex. I should schedule some time with you to bring Skate to your barn and we can figure out his "quiet" button!

Kate said...

I hate hollering horses...they always manage to scream right in my ear. I would agree with Alex, in that his attention is not on you when he's yelling, so it needs to get refocused on YOU! :)

ChristieNCritters said...

Skate loves his friends... ;) Hope things are getting better!