The Art of Natural Dressage

Welcome, Julia! Nice that you want to help us and I hope we can help you too if you feel that you need to learn something, or just need a few different opinions and experiences on a certain topic. Looking forward to reading more about you and your horses!

Best wishes,
Romy

Nice you have joined us Julia! Hope you find this place as inspirational as I do, learning and sharing.

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"Ride reverently, as if each step is the axis on which the earth revolves"

Welcome Julia from a Canadian friend. Thanks for offering your help and guidance.

first of all I would love to know what is "open team chasing"? I'm not an expert in the horse world (I started being passionate about horses about 7 years ago) and I don't ride (or hardly). My love for horses is on the ground, and just playing and teaching them different things.

I do have a boarder who's horse loves to bite (rather nip). I've been teaching him gradually that biting is not what I'm asking for. He doesn't try to bite as much but occasionally he'll turn his neck around to bite the back of my leg.

Have you ever had this kind of horse? He's not a mean horse but I'm just questioning "why does he do it?"

Would love your feedback.

Also, would love to know where you are from (maybe you're my neighbour

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Jocelyne
[Hug your animals everyday. You never know!

Thank you very much for the kind words.

Horsefever, open team chasing is where you do a hunter trial course for about 2.5 miles at speed, all the fences are natural fences e.g walls, water, steps and a lot of hedges! For open I would say fences are a minimum of 3' 6 with drops of a minimum of 4'6. Team chasing is incredible, and if you ever have the opportunity to do it, make sure you do! To team chase you have to be VERY competent and have an amazing bond with your horse!

I have encountered quite a few horses like this, they're is a range of different possibilities that could be the cause of this! Whatever your doing is obviously working to show him not to bite, I would need to know a bit more before I could give you any help, like when he tries to bite you what are you doing? Are you facing him? Is it in the stable, field or when he is tied up? Just basic info like that and I will do my best to help you!

That sounds like fun for those who love to ride! Maybe in my next life

As for Dreamer biting, I think he just developed this habit because no one told him it was wrong (they smacked him instead).
Dreamer is always at liberty. I feed them in their shelter (converted barn) (two horses together). This morning I was standing at his side facing the same direction as him, and he tried many times to bite the lower part of my leg (with an open mouth I might add). He didn't succeed. I noticed that he seemed to enjoy it when I moved my leg away. So at one point, I started lifting my leg as if I was asking for a leg up. And he lifted his leg. I clicked and treated. So now instead of biting, he would lift his leg.
But will it last???
What I can say is he has never bit me so I'm not sure he really wants to. He is a horse that always has to have something in his mouth so if he's bored and we're close to his mouth, we are the target.
Anyways, I'll keep working at it. If you do have suggestions, they would be greatly appreciated.
Have a nice day!!

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Jocelyne
[Hug your animals everyday. You never know!

Once you have finished the course you get the biggest feeling of satisfaction, because not many people would have a good enough bond with their horses to do it!

If you keep repeating this activity with him, and rewarding him, I would say it will last, horses love it when you treat them..(they're just like humans)! You could give him a chew toy hanging in his shelter, or a mineral lick? It obviously isn't a sign of aggression because if it was you would of already had a few chunks taken out of your leg, I would say it's from not having the correct start, so, you should continue educating him and make sure he has something to play with in his shelter and field (sometimes another horse is not always enough!)

I still haven't got to grips with this forum so I'm not sure if I'am allowed to say this but...You as an owner and a rider have to think like a horse, it may help if you watch yours in the field for a few minutes...or watch some videos? I currently have 13 horses, 5 of which are under the age of 3, I have educated them to know that I'm the boss (I was not harsh or heavy handed in any way.) In the wild if a horse bites another horse, they will more than likely get a nip back, so that's what you should do (not necessarily nip them, because I'm sure you will end up with hair in your mouth and that's not pleasant) but maybe give them a tap on the shoulder whilst saying 'NO'. If it's not a nip, but he opens his mouth and acts like he is going to, you have to square up to him and say 'NO'. Just like when lunging a horse you should never really be infront of their shoulder, and some horses may see that as a sign of aggression so make sure your not infront of his shoulder!

All my horses go out for a hack around my fields with me, I ride my old show jump mare (in a headcollar and rug) and the rest follow us, I'm the leader and they know that being evasive or aggressive with me will not be tolerated and therefore with all of my own horses I can do quite literally anything, I have a broken four year old (she's only been under saddle for the past 4 months) and we are already jumping 3' fillers bitless, and I can take her on any road bitless, no one else could do that with her...You need to gain a horses trust.

I hope this is useful, it's quite hard to gage without seeing everything with my own eyes, maybe you could upload a video or something similar! E-mail me if you have any other queries!

First, Julia, if you do a little reading around the forum (and not even all that much ) you'll see what we're about. I'm surmising that you were invited here? If so, I'm very happy that you accepted the invitation. Glad that you are here!



I agree with this 100%. I think a very key point here is that Jocelyn has said that he seems to enjoy making people move (or enjoyed it when she did move her leg away)...so in response to an attempt to nip, I too would ask the horse to move in some fashion. Often, people will say that if the horse is doing something you don't want, then ask them to do something else and reward for that "something else". In this case though, asking something that causes the horse to move his feet (even if it's only one) has a much deeper meaning to the horse in a very non-confrontational way, and that is the premise that the one that moves his feet last, wins. Horses learn quickly when they can make a human move their feet...so using the same rules to fix the problem only makes sense.

Jocelyn, watch his ears (don't stare at them...just make sure you can seem them clearly in peripheral vision) and see if they act before the nip comes? I'm interested to know!

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"Ride reverently, as if each step is the axis on which the earth revolves"

Welcome Julia!

Nice that you found your way here. I'd be interested to know a little bit more about yourself, if you want to share. How did you come to horses? How did you come to this forum? Maybe some photos of you and your horses? Everyone loves photos here I think

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Volker

The horse owes us nothing.

Thank you Houyhnhnm

Yes, I'd love to share everything with you, so questions are more than welcome! I've always loved horses since I was a baby, I don't know where I got it from because neither of my parents liked horses, luckily for me at the age of 2 we moved and my next door neighbours had horses, that's when I started riding! I found this forum because I was looking up about the peewee bit, I'm thinking of using it on one of my new showjumpers, and so I saw this forum and thought it would be a nice place to share my thoughts! I would love to put photos up, but I haven't quite worked out how to upload them?!?! So, I would appreciate some help from that point of you!

Thank you x

In order to post a picture, you have to upload it to some image hosting service (Flickr, photobucket, ...) and then link it here via the "Img" button in the message editor.
But here's a thread of How to post a picture. It has all the details you need...

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Volker

The horse owes us nothing.