Im having problems tying my horse up for grooming. He is in general a good natured boy although at times a bit spooky. Sometimes he will stand perfectly still without incident, but on other occasions he seems to get spooked and then throws his head in the air and pulls until he either breaks his headcollar or the clip on the lead rope or the rope itself. Can anyone suggest any soulutions to my problem?

What does he do once the twine is broken?

Flight or stand?

Do you get him checked (poll etc) when he has broken away, from what I've seen it can cause quite large pressures on the poll area.

Alexis

Haven't seen you on here before - welcome to the board!

Please could you give us a little more information. Do you use clicker training or positive reinforcement or some other sort of training method? Or just "normal"? Why do you think the horse is pulling away? Is there always some sort of "scary" trigger or does it appear random? Was he ever actually "taught" to stand tied to the wall? Are you (or anyone else) making "unreasonable" requests (eg leaving him tied up for ages)?

I used to bring my horse in from the field, tie him up outside the stable, make him a feed and then turn him out again. Sometimes if I'd made the feed up before catching him then I wouldn't even bother to tie him up (this was a busy working dairy farm and livery yard with lots of other horses) since he knew he was getting his feed. Gradually I could leave him standing outside untied for longer periods - long enough to make up the feed or to go off and chat to someone! Sometimes it was just for short periods so as not to be too demanding of him. So although I wasn't deliberately trying to train him to stand untied outside his stable, this is kind of what happened. He was essentially being rewarded for standing quietly for increasingly longer periods - in behavioural terms this is a variable schedule of reinforcement, although I didn't know it at the time!

(One thing I found interesting was that if something spooked him he would spin round to look at it and maybe even move a couple of steps. But the fact that he was not constrained in any way seemed to help diffuse the situation and it had to be a really major scary thing to make him peg it. Even when I tie him up, I would never tie him up short)

Depending on why your horse pulls away, this may be an option for you. Reward standing nicely close to the wall (without tying him up whenever possible). If he is pulling away repeatedly then he may be associating standing near the wall with the pain of pulling away (I know that may sound illogical but not impossible). So you could build up a nice association by rewarding short periods of standing nicely.

In the meantime, while he is learning to stand nicely you may have to adjust your routime so as to give him time to learn. For example groom him loose in the field or stable - try to avoid all possible opportunities for him to pull back.

Catherine

My friend's horse used to be terrible for this as a youngster and then I had a horse on loan who did the same. The initial spook was normally quite small, but the ensuing 'panic' caused a bigger movement and breaking of the rope (and a gate in my case!). I started by buying one of the long leadropes (or you could use a lunge/long line) and not tying it at all. I simply threaded it through the ring, so my horse stood still as usual. However when he spooked, the rope simply slid through the ring. Because of its length, it never reached the end. I was generally around to take hold of the rope (on the head side of the ring!!) and calm him down and he did get better as he realised that he wasn't trapped.

Hi,

Are you tied to the tie up ring direct, or are you using a small loop of string/baler twine to tie to that is tied through the ring?

I think you should always have a "easily breakable" link when tying up (one less expensive than rope clips or head collars!) cos horses always have the potentioal to spook at something (even well trained ones!) and they have been known to break their necks in extreme circumstances.

LucyD