Lesson 1 - Teaching the Horse to "Face Up"

This is "Prince" the wild Australian Brumby.

In this article Georgia explains how to teach a wild horse or brumby to turn and face you.


If you are working with a young, unhandled or wild horse, you may have trouble getting close enough to the horse to begin clicker training.

For this reason, I first teach the horse to face me, then to walk to towards me, follow me and allow themsleves to be touched and rubbed.

So the first task is to teach the horse to turn to face you. First with their head and later with their whole body.

If you have the horse facing you, then you are not as likely to get kicked, so you are safer. You gain the horses full attention so that you can direct that attention into their training. We also develop the foundation of yielding the hindquarters through this process.

By teaching the horse to turn and face us, we will teach them not to run away from us. Instead they will face us and be easy to catch when the time comes to put a rope on them.

Some people are very handy with a lariat and can rope a horse in a quiet and gentle way.
If you can get a rope on the horse, then your first task will be to teach the horse to turn and face you. The rope can help to give the horse the idea.

However if you are like me, and would not be able to rope the horse without taking an eye out or giving the horse a fright, then it is just as easy to teach the horse to face up without the rope.

We can then teach the horse to come towards us, and then tolerate us first standing near them, and later rubbing them all over with our hand and then a rope.

This way, we will have a much easier job when we do get up to teaching us to face us from a feel on the rope.

The horse will already be turning to face us when we walk around to the side, so we will only need to use minimum pressure on the rope. We can classically condition the horse to the rope as a cue without having to actually use very much pressure on the rope.

Facilities

If you are going to be working with young, wild or unhandled horses. Then you will need to have somewhere safe to work with them.
A yard about 17 meters accross is ideal. The yard can be round or square. It should be made of strong materials such as steel or solid timber. Their should be no protruding sharp points or wire.
However it is possible to "make do" with what you have. You will obviously have to use very moderate pressure if working in a less secure yard.

Assistance

If you have never worked with a young, unhandled or wild horse, I suggest you ask for help by an experienced professional. Horses can be a very dangerous animal when frightened.
If you are going to do it yourself, be sure to read everything about it that you can find on the net. Also watch as many trainers as you can and work with a wide variety of different horses.

Timing

When working with wild, unhandled or young horses, you will need to have excellent timing.
The release of pressure tells the horse how to solve that pressure. They will repeat any behaviour that makes a pressure go away.
The pressure, in the case of a wild horse, is your presence. For you are a predator, and just by being there, focusing your eyes on the horse, you are causing them to be tense

You will need to be able to back off quickly away from the horse at the instant they attempt to look at you. Gradually you teach the horse how to make you back off.

Shaping the Behaviour

Make sure the horse is relaxed and successful at each stage before you progress. The horse should practice at least 5-7 times correctly at each stage before you increase the criteria.

The pressure you apply to the horse should only be enough to make the horse think about solving the problem. This could be just your posture and focus, or it could mean swing a rope, or even causing the horse to move their feet.

These are the steps I use to teach the wild horse to face up, come to me, and allow me to touch them.

- Back off when they turn towards you instead of away from you.
- Back off when they stand and look at you.
- Back off when they turn their head towards you as they stand and look at you.
- Back off when they will turn their whole body to face you.
- Back off when they take a step towards you with a front foot.
- Back off when they take a step towards you with both front feet.
- Back off when they take a few steps towards you.
- Back off when walk towards you and stop near you.
- Back off when they stand near you for a moment.
- Back off when they stand near you for longer.
- Back off when they sniff your hand.
- Back off when they allow you to touch them.
- Back off when they allow you to touch them more and in more places.
- Back off when they allow you to touch them while you move around.


Facing Up - Teaching the Wild Horse To Face You

Step 1.
Start the session by gently but persistently causing the horse to move their feet around the yard at the trot.

Stand tall, drive the horse by being a little behind them, focus on their girth area.

You may need to swing a rope if they stop moving.


Keep them going in the same direction for a few laps of the yard. Don't worry if they canter, but you want to keep them as quiet as possible.

Step 2. After a few laps cause the horse to change directions by stepping out into their line of travel.
You sort of block the horse and they will change directions by turning towards the fence.
Don't get too close to the horse's hindquarters as they make the change of direction they may kick out if you are too close.

Then go back into the middle of the yard. Relax for a while.


Step 3. Drive them around the yard in the new direction. Only swing the rope if they want to stop, keep them going in the same direction.

Let them do a few laps in that direction. Then step into their line of travel and change their direction again.

Do a few laps, then change their direction, repeat this a few times.

Step 4. Start to notice which way they turn to make the change of direction. If they turn towards the fence, gently swing your rope towards them to help them leave, then keep them going. If they turn towards you.... back away from the quickly to the other side of the yard.

After a few changes of direction the horse will start to notice that you back away when they turn towards you.

Step 5. At this point they will stop instead of changing directions. They will still be out near the fence, but they will look at you.

Back right away from them and allow them to stand for as long as they want.

Take your eye contact off them by lowering your eyes.

If the horse walks away, go back to driving them a few laps and then making a change of direction.

If the horse just stands there, then let them rest.

After 5 minutes or so of rest, walk to the middle of the yard and gently drive them forwards again.

Make another change of direction, the horse should now stop and look at you.

Back right off to the other side of the yard with soft posture when the horse stops and looks at you.

Step 6. Repeat this process a few times, driving the horse around for a few laps. Then stepping into their line of travel. Then backing off and letting them rest when they stop and look at you.

They will lick their lips and chew while they are standing there. They will also lower their head and sniff the ground.

This shows they have learned that if they stop and look at you, then you will back off and leave them alone.



Step 7. Drive them around again at the trot, make a few changes of directions.

If they turn towards you and slow or stop through the change of direction, then back away from them and rest.
They will begin to turn their whole body to face you when they stop.


Walk backwards away from them and leave them alone for a while when ever they stop facing you.

This technique is sometimes known as "round penning" or teaching the horse to "face up".
It is based on horse psychology and an understanding of how horses learn.
It uses the principle of "Negative Reinforcement" which means that the pressure is released or taken away when the horse gives the correct response.

The response we are looking for is for the horse to turn and face us instead of running away.

We create only mild pressure with a wild horse, your mere presence, focus and movement are enough to put quite a lot of pressure on the horse.

You can take this pressure away by backing away quickly with soft posture any time the horse turns towards you.

This also works with older horses that have learned to avoid being caught.

Caution: Aggressive Horses

If a horse is putting its ears back and threatening you as it turns towards you, then it is important that you take the pressure off by softening your body language but don't back away from the horse unless the ears are forwards.

Start off by rewarding any turns towards you by backing off.
But once the horse has the idea, then only back off if they turn and face you with ears forwards. Send the horse out and drive them around a little more if they put their ears back at you.