dali1111
Well-Known Member
My newest addition is proving to be a bit of a challenge. He is generally a sweet little guy but he responds to training techniques quite different from how my other horses have. I am trying to teach him to move away from the whip. He won't even be two until the spring so I'm not looking to lunge him on a line right now but he has a lot of pent up energy that needs to be used up before I can work with him. I would like to be able to get him to run around and play in his pen (basically free lunge him) for a few minutes before I take him out. The problem is that if I try to get him to move by shaking the whip or lightly tapping him with it he just stands there stares at me.
Sometimes I can get him to move a few feet but he always turns around and comes straight back to me. He is in no way afraid or wary of the whip, even when it is making noise. He pretty much just ignores it. If I move closer to him he just wants to sniff and bite and play with the end of the whip.
He doesn't seem to have any reaction to the whip, no matter what it is doing or where it is placed. With my other horses they instinctively ran away from the whip and all I had to do was teach them that it wasn't going to eat them. I would spend time rubbing the whip all over them and then stand back and wave the whip and they would move. After they ran for a bit I would squat down, still holding the whip but not raising it, and extend a hand with a treat and call them to come back to me. They quickly learned when I wanted them to move, when to come back to me, and when they could ignore the whip. This obviously doesn't work with the new guy. So my question is how do you teach a horse to move away from the whip? The only thing I could think of was to tie a bag to the end of the whip so it makes more noise and see if he responds but I don't want him to be afraid of bags. Any help would be great.