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bones21
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Apr 1, 2007, 8:47 AM

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help	Can't Post

dose anyone know of a good way to break a young 20mon. old from biting? I have tried everything. He is full of him self all the time. I go after him when he bites, he thinks it is a game but it is the kind of bite that you see the horses do in the field when they are running around an horse playing .

boboren
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May 8, 2007, 4:37 PM

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Re: [bones21] help [In reply to]	Can't Post

Bones,

Don't know if this will be helpful or not. When we had a problem with biting, I would get in the position where biting might occur and be ready to immediately apply a bump to the bottom of the jaw. If more than 3 seconds elapses, I am told the horse does not know what any correction would be for.

By bumping on the bottom of the jaw, after a few times, the biting very rarely occurred. We were told by some horsemen, (horsewomen), that when a horse bites, they should be completely terrified of the reaction they get. We were told to make them think they were really in deep trouble. They said by taking this approach, they would not continue the biting. We fortunately got ours to stop the biting by bumping the jaw.

I would be interested in what others have tried and what successful methods worked. Biting is a serious problem.

Bob Oren
Semper Fi

Mark4510
Silver Member

Jun 13, 2007, 8:33 PM

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Re: [boboren] help [In reply to]	Can't Post

Hello Bones,
Bob is right in his approach. Having said that there are some things to keep in mind. Generally this is a dominance thing. Remember horses dont think like we do and especially when they are young they try to find where in the pecking order they belong. They will try to challenge you all the time but less so when they get older.

Dominant horses have pretty strong reactions when challenged and they generally respond in kind. BUT....they never hold a grudge or get mad. They just respond and forget it. I think it was either Ray Hunt or Tom Dorrance that said a true horseman said "be fair enough to be firm" or something close.

I was told that the best way to think about establishing yourself as the dominant animal is to be 'swift, severe and certain'. As Bob says its important to correct at that moment and as he also says make it mean something (dont punish only correct) and it must ALWAYS happen. The last baby we had I used a spray bottle. I would hang it off my back pocket when I was around the baby and when it would nip I would give it a quick spray towards the nose and keep at it with some dramatic arm movements until it stepped away. One of the keys to getting a correction to mean something is to get the horse to move away. In the wild horses that are corrected by the dominant mare (not the stallion) is that they are kicked out of the herd. This scares a horse more than anything since they are herd animals and generally dont survive alone well in the wilds.

If you can ever take a clinic with Ray Hunt or Bryan Nuebert this would be a great question to ask them. They are a couple of the best.
Mark

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