Teaching tricks

x.Moomoo.x

x.Moomoo.x

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Apr 28, 2009
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Has anyone here ever taught their horse to do any tricks such as lifting their leg up for a treat?
I taught my old pony that trick and it was the sweetest :)

Also what other tricks do you know of and how do you (or someone you know) teach them?
 
Every trick I taught my pony, I have regreted lol
I taught her to lift right leg when I stood in front of her and held up my left hand and visa versa for other leg.
So you could ask her questions like -
Who is your best friend? Left leg means rocky and she lift up her left leg on my command, and right leg means Rosie and shed lift up right leg and then I would say who is you faveorate and lift up both hands and then she would lift up whatever leg she fancied, answering the question (sort of)! lol
I also taught her to bow. but that was a mistake becasue for about 6 months after if you said 'good girl' when riding she would bow! :O
 
chestnut mare said:
Every trick I taught my pony, I have regreted lol
I taught her to lift right leg when I stood in front of her and held up my left hand and visa versa for other leg.
So you could ask her questions like -
Who is your best friend? Left leg means rocky and she lift up her left leg on my command, and right leg means Rosie and shed lift up right leg and then I would say who is you faveorate and lift up both hands and then she would lift up whatever leg she fancied, answering the question (sort of)! lol
I also taught her to bow. but that was a mistake becasue for about 6 months after if you said 'good girl' when riding she would bow! :O
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Haha bless her! Yeah my pony would lift her leg really high and not let it down until you gave her something :o and being only human i just couldn't resist! :rolleyes:
 
We've taught jambette, spanish walk, curtsey, bow, kiss, smile, cross legs, cross-uncross-cross legs, stay and recall, 'go to' (with a cone) & stand and copy. We've taught her with clicker so she's learned early on not to mug for treats and any attempt at doing tricks to score treats is completely ignored, they soon figure out that it's not worth their while :)
 
If you teach them properly they should never become a vice, if anything it can help with vices if done properly.

Many tricks are actually not just tricks in themselves but are exercises for strengthening and stretching. It depends how you do them though.
 
ameliet1971 said:
I can't understand why anyone would want to teach their horse tricks, especially one's that could become serious vices. :confused:
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I agree.

One of my ex-sharers spent a long time (without my knowledge, I have to add) teaching my horse to do what she called "leg leg."

When she finally taught him how to do it, I was pretty horrified.

As a result, for a long time, anyone who went near him with anything in their hand, be it a mint, a carrot, or a body brush, were rewarded with him throwing his right fore nearly into their face.:mad:

Not his fault in the slightest - but I did tell my sharer that I wasn't really impressed....
 
Bay Mare said:
If you teach them properly they should never become a vice, if anything it can help with vices if done properly.

Many tricks are actually not just tricks in themselves but are exercises for strengthening and stretching. It depends how you do them though.
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I can understand how certain movements could become helpful for developing and strengthening muscles, ie: carrot stretches but if these are taught correctly and for the purpose of exercise, the procedure wouldn't need to develop into a complete bow.

I'd also like to know what type of tricks can be taught to help with different vices please. I'm a very open minded person and if you could provide some reliable information and advice it could be useful for me in the future. :)
 
My lad does carrot stretches but I have developed it into a semi bow. He doesnt go down on his knees and i dont do it lots, but it was interesting to see how quickly he caught on.
 
Please define a 'trick' before you condemn its training.

What is a 'trick', other than something taught to a horse, of which those who place themselves in judgment on such things, do no approve?

It is surely a 'trick' to teach them to accept - even apparently welcome! - tight bindings around their head and their belly. It is surely a 'trick' to teach a horse to tolerate one of its most dangerous predators to sit upon its back, or to tolerate being attached to a noisy contrivance which chases the horse wherever it goes.

Not even man's best friend, the dog, will allow us to insert things into its mouth and fasten them there so it cannot get them out ...

Looked at in this context, teaching a horse to bow, cross its legs, say please, do Spanish Walk, etc etc etc pales into insignificance and seems positively benign.

The problem with ANY training of the horse is not WHAT you train but HOW you train it and - often forgotten - the cues you use.

There are many, many useful tricks that can be trained, for the convenience of the owner, for entertainment or assist the horse in its physical wellness, development or recovery from illness/injury. In addition, trick-training can be a very useful way to keep a horse busy and occupied if it is on enforced box-rest for some reason, or merely cannot be turned out with company for some reason. If the body cannot be active, then let the mind, at least, be exercised.
 
old_woman said:
Please define a 'trick' before you condemn its training.
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I define a trick as anything that is taught to purely amuse the human at the risk of it developing into a vice.

I do not understand why anyone would want to teach a horse to rear, count or bow purely for entertainment reasons. If a trick could be beneficial for the well being of the horse and especially helpful in eradicating a vice, I would be very interested to learn more about them.

For the moment however, I fail to see what the benefit could be in teaching a horse or pony a potentially dangerous manouvre just because it looks cute.
 
ameliet1971 said:
I fail to see what the benefit could be in teaching a horse or pony a potentially dangerous manouvre just because it looks cute.
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I expect, then, that you oppose show-jumping, for jumping is certainly a potentially dangerous - to both horse and rider - manoeuvre.

There is no 'benefit' in most things we teach our horses, or which we do with them. Horses in our world are animals used for entertainment and leisure - our own, or that of others - and so there is no absolute difference between, say, teaching a horse to jump, so that we may enjoy the sensation, or perhaps earn prize-money or even represent our country at major sporting events, and teaching a horse to shake hands, count or pull off its own numnah.

Jumping or 'tricks', any of them can be taught well, so that the chance of danger to the horse or its handler/rider is minimised, or taught badly in that such risks are not taken into account.

All my horses do tricks. So does my pet sheep, and the dogs. I trained the horses and the sheep, my husband trained the dogs. The ferrets do tricks, too - but they trained themselves!

What's the point? The same point as in training any 'pet' animal anything else - because it amuses us to do so.

Just to add: teaching a horse (or any animal) a trick that has the potential to become a 'vice' (rearing is one that springs to mind) is unwise only if the trainer is unclear about what they are doing and how to do it. Indeed, if an animal has already developed a behavioural problem/habit such as rearing, or in the case of a dog, excessive barking, then teaching them to perform this action on command is a well-recognised way of - eventually - eliminating the problem. If a horse is taught to rear, or a dog to bark, ONLY as a response to a specific cue, then you will reach a stage when the animal only rears or barks when given the cue. If you then phase out giving the cue, if the training has been done correctly and the problem was merely a behavioural issue, the unwanted behaviour will fade along with the cue-giving.
 
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we used to have a clydie (big feet) who used to say "please" by lifting his near fore and throwing his leg out.... he did this once to a male rider - luckilly for him, he was wearing long boots.. - he offered a polo to him, I intervened and asked him to stand at the side, he got huffy and didnt, so ended up having this plate sizes hoof, crashing down his leg...
 
When I was riding in Canada the lady told me they had someone come to the yard to see if they would take in a colt that was causing some problems. Turns out that when the colt was new born, the owner had taught it to stand on its hind legs, put its front hooves on his shoulders and take titbits out of his shirt pocket, like a big dog. Now, you don't need much imagination to guess what happened when the colt grew a wee bit bigger....
 
ameliet1971 said:
I define a trick as anything that is taught to purely amuse the human at the risk of it developing into a vice.

I do not understand why anyone would want to teach a horse to rear, count or bow purely for entertainment reasons. If a trick could be beneficial for the well being of the horse and especially helpful in eradicating a vice, I would be very interested to learn more about them.

For the moment however, I fail to see what the benefit could be in teaching a horse or pony a potentially dangerous manouvre just because it looks cute.
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every thing that is taught to the horse is for the amusement of you humans and if you dont agree dont involve your sell and let your hoses go back to the wild
 
team shane said:
every thing that is taught to the horse is for the amusement of you humans and if you dont agree dont involve your sell and let your hoses go back to the wild
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Precisely. Anything we teach a horse could be classified as a 'trick'. The only difference between a 'trick' and 'schooling' or 'manners' is the handler's or onlooker's perception of what the horse is doing.

i am sure the Ethiopian ladies whose donkeys keep them and their children alive by bringing fresh clean water to the village, would view dressage riders and highly-trained carriage horses to be performing 'tricks'. Yet how many of these horses could perform the 'trick' taught to the donkeys - of going down the mountainside alone, waiting until all the water containers they carry are filled up, then jogging back up the mountainside alone and each going to its own owner's hut with the water containers safely on board and filled?

The driving pony which backs itself into position between the shafts is never
thought of as performing a 'trick', yet a circus pony backing towards a hilariously-terrified looking clown is.

Makes no sense to me at all.
 
Julz said:
we used to have a clydie (big feet) who used to say "please" by lifting his near fore and throwing his leg out.... he did this once to a male rider - luckilly for him, he was wearing long boots.. - he offered a polo to him, I intervened and asked him to stand at the side, he got huffy and didnt, so ended up having this plate sizes hoof, crashing down his leg...
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If a horse is taught to throw its leg out whenever it wants something - and to make things worse, is offered a reward for doing so - that is an entirely different matter to a horse being taught to throw its leg out in response to a specific cue. Poor choice of cues is also a huge problem.

'Safe' trick training is more about having a well-educated trainer than it is about the tricks that are trained.
 
I don't see the real 'risk' in teaching your horses tricks. And it's not just done so we think they look cute, it also stimulates their brains into doing some particularly hard tasks in which they have to think about, and get a reward afterwards!
It also creates a stronger bond between a horse and rider.
 
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