843492:

today, my mare did come to me.

Well, I'll ignore everything else you said. Please go back and read what Jayne-Admin and I said earlier.  However, I am happy that it worked and your horse came to you.

843492 WOW... you have issues:(

I'm very happy that you got your mare to come to you. I hope this happens more in the future. LOL! Knock on wood. When I work my horses in the round pen I let them go without anything. This way I have no way of accidently sending a wrong signal through the rope. Unwanted pressure mostly. When I want them to stop I show clear body language and they stop. They I tell them to come or show them I am ready for them. I also play tag with my horses. I run and they follow. I try to throw them off by darting to one side but they keep up. They pay very close attention to me. LOL. The other thing is to make sure your horse licks her lips, keeps her inner ear to you and drops her head when you stop her. These are signs of respecting you and giving in to you. I just started a 5 year old in the round pen and when I let him stop if he wasn't showing the signs I wanted he started trotting again. When he showed what I wanted I showed him what he wanted. Which was to know he made me happy. I'm sure you know a horses body language. If you watch that and watch your signals horses will do anything. Just making sure they understand is they key.

People on this forum, I am new to this site and so far I have seen many post that are on a personal level and not about horses. I love horses. I want to read about horses. Not degrating people. Can we please stop this? Does anyone else have a problem with their HORSE that I can possibly help or learn from? I have 20+ years experience and I am still learning. That is why I came on this forum. I want to know peoples knowledge and opinions. I know everyone has an opinion but make sure it is just your opinion and your not pushing it on people. Thats when they get on a defense and stop listening.

Welcome to the forum.  As a newbie, you are not yet aware that the beauty of ES is that we are allowed to speak of things other than horses.  Sharing personal stories & non-horse related issues is what makes us the close-knit group the OP despises.  If you want a board that speaks only of horse-related issues, may I suggest checking out Chronicle of the Horse.  Non-horse related threads are shut down within 1-2 posts unless it's off-topic day.

Nobody was degrading anyone until the OP came in shrieking like a stuck pig because some of us dared to question what she was doing.  I still cannot fathom what the reasoning was for punishing her mare for stopping, which was presumably the behavior she was looking for.  Yet I am the horrible person not just for asking, but for asking in a manner that the OP didn't state would be unacceptable.  Perhaps if the OP had shared her reasoning, I might have learned something myself.  Now?  Frankly my dear, my give-a-damn's busted.

Cowgirl_Chic:

make sure it is just your opinion and your not pushing it on people.

  I do not give a flying fig if the OP used my advice or not.  What worked for me may not work for anyone else.  I accept that & certainly won't lose any sleep over it.  Neither will OM or FH or any of the others the OP so rudely dismissed.

Cowgirl_Chic:

Thats when they get on a defense and stop listening.

  What we strongly object to is the OP's completely unprovoked, unwarranted over-the-top response to knowledgeable people genuinely trying to help her.  

This forum used to have an IGNORE feature.  They unwisely removed it when they changed us over to this "new & improved" format.  I once again beg of the techs: PLEASE BRING BACK IGNORE!!  

And I wish this format had the CLOSE THREAD function for moderators, like it used to.  Our only other other is to remove the thread entirely.

Hearing peoples thoughts and how its going wouldn't bother me if they weren't fighting. I just don't want to be reading Jerry Springer you know? I think it might be over now though. I HOPE! Thanks for the welcome.

Jerry Springer?  Hardly, LOL!!  Try the comments at http://fuglyhorseoftheday.blogspot.com/  for a real Jerry Springer/mob mentality (I read but refuse to post).   Maybe it's because I visit other boards where deep discussion is allowed & encouraged, but I don't see anyone truly fighting with the OP.  I see most posters, including myself, completely shocked at the extreme level of outrage in the OP's response.  That right hook just came out of nowhere

Cowgirl_Chic:

I think it might be over now though.

I sincerely doubt many of the posters here will make the mistake of attempting to help the OP again. 

I still do want to understand why the OP punished her mare for standing still to be caught.  My 10 year old nephew, who knows nothing of horses except that the weird aunt he sees once a year is crazy about them, couldn't figure that one out either (I thought maybe I was missing a message from Captain Obvious so I asked if it made sense to him). 

Fastarab's (?) response to me didn't make much sense in the context of the OP's words, as in "mare was stopped, so I punished her by making her move away from me."  I understand the reasoning behind what Fastarab was saying:  "she kept moving away so I continued to make her move till I wanted her to stop." I don't agree, but I understand the theory & if it works, who am I to argue?! 

The OP didn't phrase her sentance like that & it makes no sense to anyone I've asked.  It's just too bad she couldn't be bothered to take the time to clarify or explain.

WiMorabs:

I still do want to understand why the OP punished her mare for standing still to be caught.

Here's how I read that context, WiMorabs:

The OP wasn't trying to catch the horse. She wanted the mare to COME to her. But instead, the horse would just stand and ignore her call. So the OP decided (by assuming the horse KNEW what she wanted and was being intentionally disobedient) the mare needed a reprimand of work; thus she sent her away. As someone else said, there's NO WAY a horse can process such abstract intent. That response can only be accomplished by a strong bond, lots of repetitive training and sufficient reward. That's why I said she was only teaching the horse not to stand still and be caught using that technique under those conditions.

Does that help? ~FH

Your "stand vs. come" explanation does help to clear up what the OP was doing (but what was she thinking...nice, now Dirks Bentley is in my head, LOL!)  Everything else made sense to me because that's how I was taught. 

Thanks

 

During the months, no years,  I was trying to catch Star, I was just happy if she wasn't moving the other way.  I could care less if she came to me, all I wanted her to do was stop and let me catch her.

For months we did the little dance with me approaching, retreating, approaching etc. until finally I could get within touching distance.  Even now there are days when all I see is her backside as she keeps maddenly out of reach until eventually I get her to stop and look at me. Usually I can catch her now though, but she's still wary of anyone else and likes to keep her distance. Except, for some reason, she walked right up to my friend Kathy this weekend and rested her face again her chest. Then she walked over to me for a hug. Go figure.

To be honest, I use whether or not Odhinn comes to me as a barometer of how he views our current relationship, and how much I am giving back to HIM. If he is not coming for a few days, than I step back and think about if he is getting a fair deal in his mind. It lets me know if I need to spend more time scratching before riding, or grazing after. When he comes enthusiastically running up, then I know I am on track in his mind.

 That's a really good point, OM.  I've done the same thing.  If my horses come when called, I know it's because I've been consistently working with them. Though that theory was blown out of the water when I had to leave them behind in WI for 4 months while I got settled in VA.  I pulled in with the trailer, called, they came running & we were wrapped and loaded within 15 minutes.

All I can say is I loff my horses

All I know is that if I ride everytime I halter, or I show up frustrated with life, fat girl finds her legs and I get an hour long tour of the pasture on foot...lol WImorabs is my new hero ... rofl

 

 

 

 LOL!  Gee thanks Tricia!  I don't know about you, but I've had a certain Gretchen Wilson song in my head all day

843492:

 As I have said all through my postings, this forum is supposed to be for sharing different viewpoints and for suggestions to other people who need help in certain training aspects.  It is not for judging or putting people down.  Having said that, my previous post sharing quotes that had been made to me were not instigated by me.  Especially my post to FH.  He was rude and insulting to me with no justificaiton (yoohoo....it's spelled....justification....just because you pointed out someone else's misspelled words)  The fact that he may be a top trainer has no bearing whatsoever and does not give him the right to do so. If you want to be upset with someone then be upset with the people in here that abuse this site.

 

Man, I am 4 pages too late seeing the commotion going on in here. Well, better late than never.

You would be damn lucky if you could get advice from someone with the knowledge and know how like FH. He happens very kind man with more horse sense in his pinkie than you have in your all your 12 or 14 years of "horse experience". He is the type of person that actually goes out of his way to help someone needing and looking for advice. But he is also the type that will shut the door in your face if you are not mature enough to handle a difference of opinion because no one needs to waste their time on in-maturity. So when you can handle yourself with some type of decency, come on over because we are more than happy to help.

 And if you could just get your head out of the clouds long enough to see clearly, you would see that many people here have offered different ideas not only for you, but for anyone else that happens to be having this type of problem.

Happy trails all.