What would you do with a "mouthy" horse?
By admin on Mar. 4, 2010.
The horse is a 3 yr old filly. She is very "mouthy", she like to grab things (ropes, things hanging on the fence) as well as your clothes, jewelry, hair, boots, skin. She is not really biting, only once in a while can I really feel her teeth. I am worried about other people, or if your not really paying attention.
This is a horse that I am working with and I haven’t really done anything to stop or change the behavior. But I have been told that different thing have been tried such as, a slap to the neck/shoulder, pinching of the lips, slap on the chest….blah blah blah.
So what can I try to get her to stop?
Thanks
Do not slap or pinch, Do what Piaffe said, and block the mouth with your elbow. That allows her to play with things on the fence or pick up brushes if she has the need but to learn that you and other humans are off limits. Most horses learn that this block (it includes a quick bump because they are moving and you have met them) isn’t fun and quit pretty soon. However, for the horse that doesn’t learn the lesson, step 2:
If after a few days of the elbow bump repeat, your horse still is grabbing you, go to the next level. With a halter and lead and no time schedule, groom your horse. The first instant she tries to mouth you, disengage her rear, back her up, or do a mini lunge forward. This puts her feet to work. When you stop you go back to your grooming. Repeat as many times a necessary. This teaches your horse that the mouthy behavior directed at you puts her to quick work and YOU direct those feet. This is pretty cool to watch how they sort through this lesson and rapidly learn that the mouthy behavior means work and they’d soon rather stand there. I have a very mouthy young mustang and I blocked with an elbow about 100 times one day. He didn’t care. The next day I disengaged the rear (he knew how to do this from prior groundwork) and put him to work with those feet. You could just see those wheels grinding away in his head after about 6 times of that. Do I go in with the mouth or not? His decision. To follow the Dorrance and Ray Hunt theory: Make the wrong thing difficult and the right thing easy.
Now I don’t care if he wants to play with a rubber grooming tool or an old cotton lead. He just can’t grab me. Your horse will figure this out if you do it right.
Category: horse jewelry