Horse Trick - Teach your Horse to Smile

Yes you really can teach your horse to smile!

Left: Rumba shows us his best smile for the camera.






Horses will do this movement lip curl movement naturally. It is called "Flehmen".
Stallions do this when they smell a mare in season, other horses will do it when they smell something unusual or with a strong scent.

By curling their lip up and raising their head it allows the scent to stay in their nostrils for longer.

To start teaching your horse to smile, you will first need to introduce them to clicker training and teach them the basic exercises of "Look Away" and "Targeting".

Then all you have to do is tickle the horses top lip, (very lightly) and then click and treat when the horse raises its top lip.

At first they may only wriggle their top lip, click and treat for the tiniest movement of the top lip.

Be careful not to click for biting or nipping, only when the top lip wriggles.

Gradually, the horse will get the idea and will smile bigger and bigger, you can then only click for these bigger lip movements.

When the horse can smile really well, you can then start to introduce the cue.
Say "Smile" and point to the horses top lip. Then tickle the lip until the horse smiles, click and treat when the horse smiles!

Eventually you won't have to tickle the lip, you will be able to just point to the top lip and say "smile". Then you can work on the behaviour from further away. Or increase the duration of the smile. Just click for slightly longer smiles.

If you are having trouble getting the horse to smile, you may want to try getting the horse to smell a cut open onion. Or sun block, or mares pee!

Click and treat when the horse smiles!

Now you will really have a happy horse!

best of luck and happy horse training,

from Georgia