1. Understand that the horse thinks I am going to cause harm
2. Prove to him that he is wrong. Which means that I have to:
-Get close enough to be able to cause harm
-Stay close long enough to be able to cause harm
-Not cause harm long enough for him to be convinced that he was wrong on his original assumption
3. Teach this horse that there is a direct correlation between his actions and mine. This is extremely important because it tells the horse that I am not an unknown unpredictable variable. He learns that he has some control of my actions.
4. Show him that if he moves away, I will approach quickly, but if he stands still, I will approach very slowly, or not at all.
5. Teach him a specific cue that tells him to move his Hindquarters away. I do this by cocking my head to the side, looking at his hindquarters, and then slapping my side or making a noise with a flag to make him move. As soon as he moves his hindquarters so much as one step, I stop looking and stop making noise and step away from him. In this way, I can repeatedly tell him to move his hindquarters away so that he is always facing me. When he is facing me, it is harder for him to run away.
In the following crappy video of extremely poor quality, I show a tiny bit of how I look at a horse's hindquarters to get him to move them away. This is a wild mustang that does not allow anyone near him. In order to teach him to be caught, I remove all other distractions, and place him in an enclosure small enough to get close, but not so small that he feels trapped. I never trap a horse, nor do I ever place the horse in a position where he feels like he cannot escape. Remember that the greater the restraint, the greater the wreck. A restrained or trapped horse is a dangerous horse. I always want the horse to feel like he can leave. That way he never feels the need to hurt me or himself in his attempts to escape. Sorry about the video, I know it sucks, but a point and shoot camera that gives me about 4 minutes of video is all I can afford. I promise I will do more videos and present the subject more fully in the very near future.
In this next video below, I apply pressure to Jake's hindquarters by staring intently at them, by tilting my head slightly, and if needed, I may even wave a flag, (plastic bag tied to the end of a stick) at his hindquarters to make them move over. When he moves his hindquarters away, I immediately remove the pressure, give him a break, and then start putting pressure on his hindquarters on the other side. In this way, I can keep controling his hindquarters and make him keep facing me.
In this third video below, I further encourage Jake to keep facing me by stepping close to him everytime he looks away. Thus he learns that he can stop my forward motion by facing me. This makes it harder for him to run off since it is more difficult to leave me if he needs to keep facing me. If he does not look away from me, then I will occasionally take a small step in his direction. Usually this will make him look away at which point I will start taking larger steps in his direction until he looks back at me. When he does this, I will stop completely and not move for awhile thus showing him that he can stop or slow me down by looking at me. If he walks or runs off, I will place pressure on his hindquarters by staring intently at them until he moves them away from me and faces me again.
In this final video below, you can see me switching from one side of the horse to the other as he has learned to keep swinging his hindquarters away from me. You can also see that by doing this, I am essentially getting closer and closer to him while at the same time keeping him from turning away and leaving.
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