The Biting Horse

The Biting Horse

Written By: Bonnie Marlewski-Probert

During the course of any given year, I receive at least a dozen letters from readers who own a horse that is a carnivore! Although all the books indicate that horses are grain and grass eaters, occasionally you will encounter one that enjoys the taste of clothing and skin!

The good news is that solving the biting problem is easier than you think, but it is one of the "debugging" areas in the horse world that absolutely requires you to have a plan, think ahead of the horse at all times, or pay the piper.

The first thing I would recommend to anyone who has a biter is to NEVER hand feed their horse. So often people come to the barn with an apple and hand feed it to their horse as a gesture of good will. The problem is that the smell of the apple remains on your hands long after the apple has been consumed. As a result, the next time you bring your hand anywhere near your horse?s mouth, don?t be surprised if he connects. The better solution in this instance is to bring the apples, pre-cut in a zip-loc bag and after you have finished your ride, empty the bag (turn it upside down) into the horse?s grain box. This eliminates any chance of YOU smelling like the apple and avoids your horse making an unfortunate mistake.

The second thing I would recommend to anyone who has a biter is to avoid giving your horse an excuse to be bad. By this I mean, don?t leave lead lines, halters and blankets on the stall door, within reach of your horse?s mouth. As importantly, don?t put this horse in a stall that has an open window onto the aisle where you know he is going to take a chunk out of anything that walks by.

So, after we have cleaned up our act, how do we eliminate the biting problem permanently? In my book, "Debugging Your Horse," I devote an entire chapter to this topic, but I will give you the highlights in this column. First, the quickest way to change behavior is to always catch the horse when he is doing the bad behavior, discipline him for doing it and then praise him when he demonstrates that he doesn?t want to do the bad behavior again. Of course, this is all but impossible to do if you wait until the next time he bites you. The secret to solving the problem is to establish a controlled environment in which you knowingly provide him with an opportunity to bite you. You know that you set up the controlled environment, but he has no idea.  Before he ever has a chance to bite you, you are waiting for him with a plan of action which includes a verbal reprimand, a physical discipline (should the verbal not get the job done) and a back up, just in case one and two fail you.

Here is what I mean: let?s say you have a horse that tries to take a chunk out of you every time you brush his neck. In our controlled environment, we will place the horse on a lead line with a chain over his nose. Make sure the aisle is empty of any obstacles or distractions (tractors, kids running loose, etc). We want the horse to really focus on the exercise in order to get the most bang for our buck.

Using the soft brush (don?t give him an excuse to be bad by using a stiff, rough brush), start brushing near his shoulder, always keeping your eye on his eye closest to you. Remember that a horse doesn?t go from being perfect to being really bad in one move. All horses, like all kids, ask you a few times, "do you mind if I?..". The absence of an answer from you is an answer to the horse or the child. In our example, long before the horse bites you, the horse will first start to slowly turn his head in your direction. You will know this is happening when you start to see more of his eye than you did when he was looking straight ahead. At this point, he is asking you whether or not you care if he has a snack. When we finish this exercise, you will simply have to say "quit" or "no" or whatever word you choose to use to reprimand the horse and the problem will stop there. However, if you don?t give him an answer to his question, he will assume the answer is "no, I don?t mind if you take the sleeve off of my shirt!"

During the "preparation to bite" period, not only will the horse start to turn his head in your direction, you will also see his body start to lean in your direction. This is step two and again, the horse is asking you, "do you care if?.." As I said earlier, the absence of an answer from you, is an answer and it isn?t the answer you meant to send. The third most obvious step with biters are the ears. When a horse is preparing to take a chunk out of you, he is generally mad and his ears will give him away as surely as the tan mark on the ring finger of a married man will. By the time your horse has pinned his ears, he is pretty certain that you are about to become dinner.

Here is the plan: 1. With the aisle empty, horse on a lead line with a chain over his nose, I want you to start grooming him at his left shoulder, with the brush in your right hand. The point of this is simple; horses are most accustomed to being handled on this side. For this exercise, you will carry the brush in your right hand (hand closest to his back end) for a simple reason; your other hand (hand closest to his head) is going to handle the discipline, should it be necessary. Are you noticing yet that the solution to most problems is all in the planning and organization? We are starting at the shoulder so that you have a bigger pad of space between you and his mouth, giving you more time to react.

Step two is to begin brushing with the right hand, while all of your attention is focused on his left eye. The second you start to see his head turn at all in your direction, I want you to say "quit" or "no" or whatever your reprimand word of choice is. This should be used in a firm, low tone (say it like you mean it!). If you see his head turn back where it should be, praise him and make a fuss over him. If he doesn?t return to the original position, use the reprimand word again and this time, back it up with either a tap on the left side of the neck with your left hand or with a tug on the lead line (straight down so that you can engage the chain). If you choose to use the tap with the hand, the next step if he still doesn?t respond is to engage the chain. None of these measures is going to hurt the horse, but they will send a loud message that you are no longer asleep at the wheel, that you are paying attention and that biting is no longer an acceptable behavior. The second you see his head moving away from you, again, make a big fuss over him and praise him. Also remember that during any part of the exercise, if he moves his head away from you in response to your voice, he is beginning to understand what you want and that must be reinforced with strong, positive praise.

The secret to the success of this exercise is that I want you to do it over and over and over again in the span of 10 minutes on the first day (work your brush on both sides of the horse's neck), 10 minutes on the second day (again, be sure to balance out the exercise on both sides of the horse's neck), etc. I guarantee you that if you do this properly and watch carefully for the early warning signs, by the end of the first session the problem will be solved with only your voice.

As he continues to be good on the left side, move to the right so that he has a chance to be bad again and you have a chance to get it over with and resolve the problem. Remember that when you are debugging the biter, you must always carry the brush in the hand closest to his backside and hold the lead line with the hand closest to his head. Also, always begin brushing at the shoulder to give yourself a cushion of space. Another secret to successful debugging is to always leave a debugging session on a good note. If you are eight minutes into the session and you can see that he was about to spin around to bite, but stopped when you said "quit," pet him, praise him and leave it on that note. The biggest mistake made by trainers is getting sucked into thinking, gosh, we are doing so well, let?s keep going. This usually results in an angry trainer and a frustrated, over tired horse and I guarantee when that happens, there is never going to be a good note to leave the session on.

If your horse bites at people who are passing him in the aisle, again, set up a controlled environment, use a helper, put the horse on a lead line, stand on the side of the horse opposite from the passer and watch his head. As the passer calls "coming by", watch your horse?s head. If he is thinking about biting, you will see his head start to turn, he will lean in that direction and you will see his ears go back. Don?t wait until he demonstrates even the second behavior, catch it on the first one, use your reprimand voice and back it up with the lead line, should that be necessary. Note, I want you to stand on the side away from the passer for an obvious reason; we don?t want to give your horse two targets and if he really tries to take a bite, all you have to do is jerk on the lead line in your direction and his head will not be able to get around for the bite.

You should note that this awareness of exactly what your horse is doing at all times is the normal attitude of any good trainer. That is why trainers make training look so simple. They possess the same secret gifts that Sherlock Holmes possessed, observation and deduction. I observe that my horse?s head is beginning to move in my direction and from that I should be able to deduce that if I don?t intercede, I will be out buying a new shirt tomorrow!

Control the environment, have a plan, rely on repetition and be as abundant with your praise as you are with the discipline while you debug and you will find that problems are much easier to solve.

I want to hear from you! If you have any questions, comments or suggestions that you would like to share with the rest of us, drop me a line at:

Bonnie Marlewski-Probert

P.O. Box 548   

Yellville, AR  72687

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