 |
[RC] Nipping/Biting Horse - Evelyn Allen"Everytime he feels it tightening he tries to bite. ... Can you =
suggest ways to get him to stop, I usually growl at him and sometimes = i'll slap him on the neck but its really not that effective." One of my horses seemed to have developed, previous to our owning him, a habit of wanting to "lick", which would then elevate to nibbling and if you let him, biting (although gentle biting, but biting nonetheless). I tried all the usual stuff, but nothing really seemed to work with any lasting effect. However, recently I was standing with him as the farrier was doing his trim, and was getting totally sick of trying to stop his usual licking tricks. I just started to scratch, rub and sort of massage his lips and muzzle, and he seemed to be really happy with this - I was amazed (mostly at the fact that I hadn't thought of this before) and plan to continue with the scratching and massaging to see if that continues to work with him with more lasting effect. He is an over-all incredibly loving, gentle horse, so this licking and nibbling thing was really weird to me. He was a twin at birth, so I suspect he got alot of attention (not necessarily the kind he should have gotten), and developed the mouthy stuff from an early age. In fact, when we first got him, it apppeared that the licking was his accepted means of showing affection towards you - he just didn't seemed to understand that it was not the cutest thing going. When I would stop him from licking and mouthing, he appeared totally perplexed; it truly looked as though he felt that you were rejecting him, and he didn't seem to understand that there were other means of showing affection. Anyway, I just kept at trying to teach him that rubbing his neck would be mutually pleasing, and he finally twigged into that. However, given his choice, he would lick you like a dog. So my point is,
for this particular horse, I don't believe for one minute that trying to slap or flick or physically do anything that would make him feel threatened would work with him in any way, shape or form. Now I am not a total push-over and am firm with horses, however, sometimes IMHO finding a solution that is more pleasing to the horse can work wonders.
|