HOW TO PLAY WITH A HORSE

Hey everyone! So our video today is going to be about ways you can play with your horse. So I've had many people ask me how do you play with the horse. Sometimes it can be hard to tell because it can be hard to kind of pick up on your horse's behaviors and emotions. So what I thought I'd do today is share with you guys some of the ways that I play with my horses that is not only fun to us but is also great for training purposes as well. So the first way that I like to play with my horses may seem a little too simple but believe it or not this is how horses play. So if you've ever watched horses out in the field you may have seen them like nibbling each other on each other's necks and grooming one another. So what this game does is it kind of mimics that behavior. So all I'm going to really do is be scratching my horse and find those spots where my horse wants to be scratched. And this is great because number one it feels good to them. So if you have a horse that maybe is unsure of touch this is a great way to get them confident with humans touching them. It's also a great way to bond with your horse. You're spending that quality time they're learning that your touch is good. Every horse may have a certain spot they like to be scratched but I just want to show you guys some of the common spots that they usually have itchies and scratchies. And the reason for this is if you know where to start it can be easy to kind of get connected with your horse on this level. So one place just about every horse likes to be scratched is the base of their neck. And the reason I find for this is that horses carry a lot of tension in their neck so being scratched right here can feel really good to them. So you can spend time just scratching around here and seeing what feels good. Oh there it goes and you can see that Tucker likes this scratch and I can use a harder pressure the more I go on. So that's one area. Another area is the horse's chest and even like in between there are two front legs they usually all like scratching under here. Oh yeah. Another place you can try that in the beginning your horse may be more sensitive to but in the end I find that a bunch of horses like this spot specifically is right under their belly where the girth would go. So I'm going to try this on Tucker. Oh oh there he goes. He's like that feels good mom. That feels good. Another spot you can try is around the horse's tail. So a lot of horses you'll see them rubbing their butt on the fence and stuff like that so I know that they usually like this. So you can just scratch all around the horse's tail and that usually feels really good to them. And he's playing with that cord which is usually a sign that he enjoys a scratch. Look how dirty my hand is now. So this may seem like a really weird way to play with your horse but it has some great benefits. I find that you can use this for rewarding your horse for something. So if Tucker does something good even if I'm under saddle I'll just scratch his neck and let him know that he was good and you know he'll make the funny face and stuff. Another thing that I found this to do is that it actually makes your horse more expressive in their emotions. So before Tucker just used to be kind of like stoic and he wouldn't show a lot of his emotions but once I started doing this a lot like initially he wouldn't let me know if something felt good to him but after a while he would start stretching and like his lips would be wiggling and stuff like that. So I think he felt more comfortable communicating with me and communicating that he'd like to be scratched. So another way you can play with your horse is having them follow you or come to you. If you ever watch horses play in the field it's never just one usually running around by itself. Usually they're all running around together and they're following one another as they go backing forth across the field. Another thing you'll see in the pasture is that your horse is always going to follow the alpha horse around. So when the alpha horse moves to graze usually all the other horses will too. If this horse goes to get water usually all the other horses will too. So this is a great opportunity to play with your horse in a way that's going to help them see you more as a leader. If you're also interested in doing liberty work this is a great place to start as it kind of starts getting that connection between you and your horse where your horse is going to be looking at you and wanting to come to you and keep an eye on you. If you have a horse that likes to run away from you in the pasture this game can actually be great for teaching them to actually come to you and follow you. So Tucker used to run away from me in the pasture and after playing with him this way after a while now he'll come right up to me. I'm going to show you guys exactly how you can play this way and how you can use it to train them into liberty work and following you. So a great place to start with this is I have Tucker on the lead just so I still have control of him in the beginning but I want him to start to learn to follow me especially with his eyes and his head so ideally if I move if I move he's going to move with me. One way I can do this is I'm going to just step out and kind of around next to him and I'm going to just kind of play with my body language to see what I need to do to get him to then step towards me and turn his head towards me. Good, good, good. Can I go this way? Good, good, good. Back up. I'm getting too close. So let's see if now I can do it from a standstill. I'll stand here and then I'll go tuck. Good, good. That's a good place to start. So once you've played with that a little now you can try off of the lead. So I'm going to just move the same and see if I can get him to kind of just follow me just by his movements. Tucker. Good, good boy. And then I can just start. Can I take a step and he come toward me? Can I go this way? So now that I have his attention like this now this is kind of where the playing starts. So I usually start this in the round pen and once I feel like I have pretty good you know connection with the horse then I go out into a larger area and when I'm in the larger area this is where I like to start playing with obstacles just because I want to keep their attention on me and focused on what we're doing rather than you know figuring out they can just gallop away even though that happens sometimes. Come on. You got an itchy nose? Come on buddy. Good bony. Good bony. So if you are finding it's hard to get your horse to want to come to you this is where scratching them comes in. So you're playing with them with scratching once again because if they learn that like being in your presence they get scratched and loved on then they're going to want to come to you. So in the beginning when you start getting your horse just to follow you a little bit. Come on. Then I can reward him by scratching him and letting him know that was good. Yeah. So the next thing I'm going to play with my horse is desensitizing. You may be laughing because usually with desensitizing you're trying to get your horse used to things they're scared of. So if you think well if you're playing with that isn't that going to scare them more? The idea behind it is that you don't want your horse to be afraid of an object. Instead you want them to be confident around it and accept it. So this is more about an atmosphere you create rather than playing with your horse. If you can create a fun atmosphere when it comes to desensitizing it can help the horse accept the object a lot quicker. You can make desensitizing a game by having the horse accept the object for a little bit and then take it away and have the go to the object and be curious like this and smell it. Instead of being so serious and like oh I'm going to desensitize you to this scary object and I'm going to touch you real slow so that you're afraid of it. I mean see did you see how he kind of moved away when I did that? Like and I'm being serious I'm just being boring compared to oh look be curious let's smell this. What is it? Oh let's bite it. No no. So here I just have a plastic bag filled with a water bottle with rocks in it just to make some scary noise and I'm just going to get Tucker used to this. I'm going to kind of demonstrate what I mean by making the atmosphere fun. So when it comes to horses in the wild the way a predator is going to sneak up on them is by sneaking up on them slowly and then it's going to pounce. So believe it or not but we almost do the same thing when it comes to showing our horse a new object. We'll bring it really slowly up to them and that mimics an animal getting ready to attack them. So instead what I'm going to do is I'm going to make it fun and nonchalant like this is my toy and I'm going to play with it. I'm just going to move around and at first he may be a little apprehensive about it but it doesn't have to be scary. Like I'm going to be confident in everything I do and see when I approach him with much more confidence and casuality then he's much more accepting of it. And same thing out here I can play with it, dance, wave it around. I myself can approach it, step on it, take it, then I can have him approach it. Because when a horse sees another horse do something they're going to feel more confident. So I'm mimicking that behavior where if I'm coming up to the bag and I can walk on it then he can come up to the bag and smell it. Oh you can do it. Come on just smell it. There you go. So one reason games are fun is for the reward at the end. So this is a huge part of playing with your horse especially when it comes to desensitizing is that I want there to be a reward for them. So what this looks like in this instance is once my horse has done good accepting the bag then I reward them by moving it and bringing it away. So that's the big reward that I'm talking about. Another way you can play with your horse is by teaching them tricks. When I started doing this with Tucker I realized that he loves doing this and he finds it so much fun. Teaching your horse tricks keeps them mentally stimulated and it also helps them focus on you and look to you to see what you're going to ask them to do next. Tricks are also great because you can do them when you don't feel like riding. Riding can become a little monotonous to your horse so giving them something else to focus on and stimulate them can be a great way to give them a break. So now I'm going to show you some of our tricks that we do. There you go. Good boy. Oh you want to roll? Oh oh did you see his face? Oh Tuck now you're all dirty. Come on. Good boy. Good boy. Good boy. Back up. Back up. Back up. Back up. Back up. Back up. Good boy. If you're looking for certain tricks you can train your horse I have a whole video on easy tricks so I'll put the link in the description down below. If you find this video helpful please give it a thumbs up so more people will see it and stay tuned for more weekly horse videos.