i can't lunge my horse!he runs me over!

[quote=AllieBaba]

I'm all for respecting space, but why are you lunging this  horse after 5  years? What's the point?

I guess I'm just not a fan of lunging a horse repetitively if they're broke to ride and otherwise okay. If he has a problem with lunging, and he's okay otherwise, why lunge  him? Am I missing something?

I guess I've seen too many people who would rather run their horses in a circle when the horse is beyond that. If you  need to teach him something that he can learn from lunging that's one thing. But I can teach horses to respect my space without lunging them. I think it's just asking for trouble to continue to lunge a horse after it's broke and ready to go. It's boring and repetitive for them, and why court trouble? Unless of course there's something you are looking to improve with the lunging.

But again, I've seen too many people who just want to take their horses out and run them in circles for too long and for no purpose other than running them in circles. It leads to aggressive and challenging behavior. It's fine when you're in teaching mode, teaching them to respect the rope or get used to the saddle...but once they've learned it, move on.

Also, if you have an agressive horse, almost impossible to deal with a challenging horse outside of a round pen, because if they can't get out of it by charging you, they quickly learn just to jerk away from the rope, unless you have a lariat around their throat, which most people aren't up to, and in most cases isn't warranted, anyway.

So look at why you're in a power struggle over lunging. If it's for no purpose other than to make the horse go forever in circles until you call it off, is it really a fight worth having with a riding horse? If it's not, I'd opt for some other form of warming him up. Previous poster was right, perhaps getting rid of the lunge line is t
he way, and just move him around without it.

 
Her horse seems to show her a lack of respect and does not treat her like she's the one in charge.  A horse that is afraid or lacks respect for the person, makes for a dangerous situation.  She needs to do this to create a safe working environment with her horse.  When a horse has forgotten who's boss or never learned respect, its best to go back to basic ground work in a round pen if possible.  If she follows C. Anderson's method that is very close to several other well known horse people, it will involve much more than just running the horse in a circle.

[quote=CrookedPostQH]

[quote=AllieBaba]

I'm all for respecting space, but why are you lunging this  horse after 5  years? What's the point?

I guess I'm just not a fan of lunging a horse repetitively if they're broke to ride and otherwise okay. If he has a problem with lunging, and he's okay otherwise, why lunge  him? Am I missing something?

I guess I've seen too many people who would rather run their horses in a circle when the horse is beyond that. If you  need to teach him something that he can learn from lunging that's one thing. But I can teach horses to respect my space without lunging them. I think it's just asking for trouble to continue to lunge a horse after it's broke and ready to go. It's boring and repetitive for them, and why court trouble? Unless of course there's something you are looking to improve with the lunging.

But again, I've seen too many people who just want to take their horses out and run them in circles for too long and for no purpose other than running them in circles. It leads to aggressive and challenging behavior. It's fine when you're in teaching mode, teaching them to respect the rope or get used to the saddle...but once they've learned it, move on.

Also, if you have an agressive horse, almost impossible to deal with a challenging horse outside of a round pen, because if they can't get out of it by charging you, they quickly learn just to jerk away from the rope, unless you have a lariat around their throat, which most people aren't up to, and in most cases isn't warranted, anyway.

So look at why you're in a power struggle over lunging. If it's for no purpose other than to make the horse go forever in circles until you call it off, is it really a fight worth having with a riding horse? If it's not, I'd opt for some other form of warming him up. Previous poster was right, perhaps getting rid of the lunge line is t
he way, and just move him around without it.


Her horse seems to show her a lack of respect and does not treat her like she's the one in charge.  A horse that is afraid or lacks respect for the person, makes for a dangerous situation.  She needs to do this to create a safe working environment with her horse.  When a horse has forgotten who's boss or never learned respect, its best to go back to basic ground work in a round pen if possible.  If she follows C. Anderson's method that is very close to several other well known horse people, it will involve much more than just running the horse in a circle.


I agree with that. I've seen more horses become overly agressive from over-lunging than I have seen overly aggressive horses become docile from lunging.
 
Horses can learn a lot about respect working loose in a round pen, and just from day-to-day work with them, again, loose. I halter my horses and pen them up for vetting them, trimming their feet, worming them...and that's about it. When it comes to grooming them, checking their gaits, just running my hands over them to check for whatever, I do it almost exclusively without any sort of restraint, and I think it breeds respect. They do at times refuse to stand for me...for example, I don't go out there and start messing with them if it's blowing and their waiting for their chow, and I don't necessarily expect them to stand stock still for me even when I'm grooming them, if I don't have a halter or rope on them.
 
But they don't crowd me, they seem to like me, they have beautiful manners for the vet & farrier, and while being ridden. They respect me and I doubt either of them has been lounged to amount to anything in their entire lives. And if one were to start to get aggressive with me, it wouldn't occur to me to put her on a rope and start fighting that fight. I'd either just use a halter and lead rope, or we'd work in a round pen, re-learning what is acceptable and what is not when it comes to me and them.

I don't have any real training input here as I'm really not a trainer.  I know Zag will get very bored with stuff once he has it down - and he "gets it" really quickly.  Repetition just pisses him off!  (like John Lyons says "do this about 200 times" No, I don't think so, not with Zag.)  He's not a big fan of lunging either but I like the rule "3 complete circles".  If he can give me 3 circles he can stop.
A BIG help when dealing with getting horses out of your space when things get hairy.....  Besides all the great advice I've read so far, make yourself big: up on toes, lean forward, raise your arms and (most important) ROAR!  Not scream!  But the kind of yell they aren't expecting from you as you grow before their very eyes and you're kicking them with that stinging little stick.  Normally they are prey, not preditors.  It's easy to intimidate them. []  That's for when you're in danger...  Be sure you are very vocal!

Groundwork is very useful for a LOT of situations, regardless of how well broke or how green a horse is.
 
For example - my gelding can be cold backed and when he is, lunging him gets rid of his attitude FAST.  Would you rather ride a bucking horse or get off and lunge them? 
 
Another example, it enables me to see how my horses are moving, are they stoved up, sore, tender footed whatever. 
 
Example 3 - do you ALWAYS have time to ride?  I don't.  Sometimes it is too dark to ride but I can still lunge.
 
Manners?  My gelding is always respectful on the ground.  Its under saddle that he forgets sometimes.  He respects my space, doesn't crowd the gate, won't eat unless I say its ok, yet he is the one that is occassionaly, once or twice a year, cold backed.  Sometimes he has a reason such as saddle fit, other times I have no clue.  I think with him, sometimes it helps to tighten the saddle gradually, especially in the winter when he has a really long coat.

[quote=Summer]

Groundwork is very useful for a LOT of situations, regardless of how well broke or how green a horse is.

For example - my gelding can be cold backed and when he is, lunging him gets rid of his attitude FAST.  Would you rather ride a bucking horse or get off and lunge them? 

Another example, it enables me to see how my horses are moving, are they stoved up, sore, tender footed whatever. 

Example 3 - do you ALWAYS have time to ride?  I don't.  Sometimes it is too dark to ride but I can still lunge.

Manners?  My gelding is always respectful on the ground.  Its under saddle that he forgets sometimes.  He respects my space, doesn't crowd the gate, won't eat unless I say its ok, yet he is the one that is occassionaly, once or twice a year, cold backed.  Sometimes he has a reason such as saddle fit, other times I have no clue.  I think with him, sometimes it helps to tighten the saddle gradually, especially in the winter when he has a really long coat.

Those are good enough reasons...I'll lunge a horse I haven't ridden, who is cold backed, or is young, with the saddle & bridle on on, to warm them up and see how they're going to react.
 
For my broke horses, I'll just use  a halter. I saddle them, turn them in a couple of very tight circles, check the cinch, maybe tie them up while I'm saddling other horses, tighten them up again if they need it, circle them again, then up I go.
 
Personally I don't think a crop is terribly effective for teaching a horse to respect space, nor do I think lunging necessarily is. A training whip is is. By the time they're close enough to use the crop, they're already too close. A training whip will keep them out there at the edge of the circle where they belong.

I have to agree with AllieBaba! Hey AllieBaba will you pm me! I'd like to chat with you!

I sent you a pm and my e-mail...sorry, I'm intermittent in my posting, them spasmodic. It's just me.

I have a question in the same line. I have a six year old Arabian gelding with a big ego. In my pasture this gelding is the boss and in his eyes I'm the alpha mare and not the other mares.
He's mine for half a year now, his former owner was scared of him and didn't dare to enter the pasture. I had to train the gelding all over again. The first day he tried to run me over and stole my mares away from me. So the training started direct from that moment.
I spend a lot of time desensitizing him and work him daily. When i don't work him for three days... I have to work him in the round pen first before i can ride him. Within these three days I will see his behavior become more and more active. The third day he will be on the lookout 24 hours a day like there's a herd of coyotes behind every bush in the pasture. He won't take time to eat. Looks up, runs around, etc...
It has nothing to do with disrespect. I think he's overactive. His attention will be all over the place except with me. After just a short groundwork session he's okay again and I can ride him. But the first minutes in the round pen, he will go crazy. Is this common behavior for Arabs?
He loves to work and he's really a joy to have around. There's no bad bone in this horse and after the first run me over attempt he never did it again.
 
I don't have any experience with overactive horses and could use helpful tips! Especially when it comes to traps, roads i might be tempted to try but should not go...
I am wondering if my horse will get less active overtime. So please, share your experience with me!

PRETTY boy, Jua!  Just guessing but you might see some changes with the very low non-structured carbohydrate feed.  ADM Alliance has a great site that talks about it but - you know how hyper kids are after birthday parties?  It's all the sugar.  That's the best way I can understand it.  (it's not from eating peanut butter so... the protein isn't the problem with hyper, imo)

Jua, it actually sounds like your guy is being protective of something.  Its an insecurity issue.  The stronger the insecurity, the more challenging the horse is of their potential leaders.  With most horses that I see this behavior with, it actually stems from some type of&nbsphysical imbalance, which may be unrecognizable at first glance, but is enough to harm their fight flight reaction to make it, as you said, overreactive.  These horses are unattentive to people without regular work or a ground work session to re-establish you as the herd leader.  In your absence, he takes the role because he doesn't trust anyone else to.  This doesn't make him a good leader.  The herd will take the behavior of the leader, and an overreactive leader often leads to a more nervous herd.  When turned out with other horses that are less than completely secure, they will immediately dominate everything.  They tend to be unnecessarily aggressive, sometimes only with horses, sometimes only with people, sometimes with both.  They show signs that are often seen as disrespectful of people and intimidate many people because that horse is literally watching out for his own skin rather than trusting the human's judgement.
 
I recently got a boarder in.  At her previous barn, she was not allowed out with other horses because she was the "dominant alpha mare".  I personally think that horses should have pasturemates.  So, knowing her reputation, I turned her out with my lead gelding and my laid back, confident pony mare.  My gelding and the pony stayed together, and the new mare came charging up, trying to kick the gelding.  The gelding remained completely calm, spun around and fired one good kick, and the new mare took off.  Here is the interesting thing that is often overlooked, the good leader and his mare could have cared less about that new horse in the pasture.  She was no threat to him and he didn't even acknowledge her unless she invaded his space.  She was not allowed into his herd until her behavior was appropriate.  He didn't chase her without reason or beat the crap out of her just for the sake of it.  Now, I have seen that horse take some chunks out of other horses if they didn't listen to his original threats, but as long as that mare moved out of his way, he was fine.  Out on her own, she was the one begging to come back in.  She realized that he could offer her the confidence and stability that she needed.  Now, the former "dominant horse" is at the bottom of my pecking order, even below my filly.  We are working through numerous physical issues that were completely overlooked by the former owner, and we are working on putting the mares mind at peace.  I know that it can be done, I have seen it many times before.
 
If you want to figure out this geldings source to his problem, there are many different issues to look at, ranging from eating habits, one side preferance under saddle, saddling issues, bridling issues, hoof condition, numerous things.  I can usually read a horse pretty well just being around it for a few minutes.  You just have to know what you are looking for, what caused the problem.  I have even known it to be caused by certain mineral difficiencies.  Ultimately, if you can prove to that horse that you are the leader, he will relax, since someone is looking out for him.  I always like to look for the reason why they were that dramatically defensive in the first place.
 
I have seen it in all breeds.  Some of the hotter breeds to tend to be more expressive, but herd mentality is the same throughout.  Good luck with him!

Thank you so much for that eye opening comment! Now I know what his behavior was all about, cause he's definitely insecure. He suits the picture perfectly.
I can even place the physical imbalance, after hurricane Ike the horse had a pasture in the size of a stable and that's where they kept him for a year. He was neglected because they were scared of him. (so no deworming, his hooves were in a bad shape with bad thrush in all of them etc...) He had no pasture buddies, was skinny and very frustrated.
I worked him before I bought him, didn't see any mean aggression just a horse that needed a leader and decided to give him a try cause it broke my heart to see a beautiful horse in a very bad shape.
They told me he was fine when they bought him but his behavior changed in three months. First he would not stand still while they brushed him, then they couldn't saddle him, etc etc. In the end he threw his owner off and that's when he got aggressive in the pasture as well. In my ears that sounded like they didn't read his signs and didn't react as a leader would.
 
The training went fine, the only thing I couldn't figure out is after I desensitize him completely with an object. The next day he would spook like it was the first time he saw it. And progress in this area would go very very slow. I thought there was something wrong with his short term memory or something. It didn't make sens because on all the other areas of the training he showed me he is a very fast learner. Now I see that it's insecurity and he didn't trust me. I have a lot of patience and know I have to be 100% strict with him, cause that will give him the trust he needs to relax.
 
Right now, he is starting to trust me, whenever we go trailriding and I feel he's getting nervous I will give him something to do so he doesn't have the space to fixate himself and when he does the right thing I will tell him "Good boy". I can feel him relax and sigh under me. Good boy are starting to be his magical words.
 
In the pasture I saw some differences as well last week. He's not as aggresive towards the mares anymore, he's more relaxt and the mares will walk away whenever he's acting nervous and overactive. So I guess they are not impressed by his leadership anymore.
 
So again, thanks a lot!!

My thoroughbred does the same thing!