How To Teach a Horse to Stand Still While Being Mounted: Star Treatment

She would stand still for a minute until you got your foot in the stirrup and then she would take off. Never got her to stand still the whole time. Not what I was looking for. She's going to hurt both of us. Most people want to fix their behavioral problems from under saddle. I want to do it from the ground where I'm safe. I'm going to make that rear end hustle. Move those feet. If you want to move your feet, that's fine, but you're going to move them on my terms. Move that rear end. Well, that was interesting. He won't do that again. I'm Clinton Anderson and I have a method for training horses. Getting horses to behave is simple. It's training people that's the real trick. Join me as I tackle some of the most challenging situations with problem horses and with problem owners. To enjoy a horse, you've got to be able to get on it. But to do that, you better have a horse respectful. Otherwise, it can be pretty dangerous. She's a registered Tennessee Walker. She's eight years old. I got her because she was pretty and she was a gated horse. And at my age, I just want something that's a slow ride now. Don't want to do anything wild. When I was a kid, I had a horse at 13 and kept her till 30. And she was the only horse I've ever had. So this is like the second horse. But she is a little wild. She has little issues that we need to work through. Seems like everything is just like she's just a beginner, like a colt. I bought a round pin and I've been trying to work her on the round pin before I rode her and kind of calmed her down. I started by trying to tie her up and get on and off course that worked because she had nowhere to go. Tried putting her in the round pin and doing the whoa and pulling back on the reins when I was trying to get on. She would stand still for a minute until you got your foot in the stirrup and halfway up and then she would take off. Never got the end result. Never got her to stand still the whole time. Not what I was looking for. It scares me for her that she's going to hurt herself and it scares me for me that something's going to happen and she's going to hurt both of us. I just want us to both be safe really is what I'm looking for here. A horse that walks off when you go to get on him is just plain disrespectful and dangerous. You wouldn't go to get in your car would you mate if it was moving down the road you'd stop and put the handbrake on. I want to teach my horses to stand still be respectful when I go to get on him. It's a safety thing for me and the horse. Well if you remember on last week's show we had Melissa. Melissa good to have you on this show again mate and her horse Star and both of them had some problems. We worked through the trailer and didn't. My method is all about respect is getting control. Getting that horse to move his feet forwards backwards left and right and after we did that for about an hour she really changed her whole overall attitude. A little bit further. Okay well there's more issues here isn't there? There's more things that need some attention. When I try to get on her she wants to go before I'm in the saddle. How do you get on her? Does somebody hang on to her or what do you do? It's the rolling mount. Right you kind of mount on the go is that right? Okay you just show me exactly what you would normally do with her. I just want to see kind of how you interact with her how she interacts with you. Okay and so then how do you get on then? Show me how you get on. Be still. Quit that. Like that? Yes. Okay so she's walking off as you're trying to get on. Yeah. That's more of what she does there. Yes. Okay and every once in a while you'll get lucky and she'll stand there and let you get on. Okay mate why don't you hop down bring her over here and let me mess with her. Most people want to try to fix their horse's behavioral problems from under saddle. I want to fix it on the ground. Okay so let me get started here. Her not wanting to stand still is a combination of a couple different things. It's a combination of a lack of respect she's not respecting you. When you say whoa she's she's taking that for granted isn't she? The first step in fixing this problem is again going back to the source. The horse did not respect the human being and the horse did not know how to move his feet forwards backwards left and right. She's obviously using what the reactive side of her brain. She's wanting to fidget and get she gets nervous doesn't she? She gets nervous and wants to fidget and she doesn't want to stand still. The reason why that was happening is because the horse had no respect for his owner. So sometimes when training horses is you've got to go back to the source of the problem fix that and then what you originally thought the problem was will actually be disappeared. It'll be gone it won't even be there anymore. So basically what I want to do is before I actually ask to get on her I want to get her in the right frame of mind. So how would we get her to use the thinking side of her brain? Work her. But working her means what? Moving her feet. Okay so before I even try to get on her I'm going to spend some time just moving her feet around and making standing still look what? Easy. Oh like the trailer. Like the trailer. Come on move your feet to the other side. I can't train a horse if there's no energy in the feet. I want her that as soon as I back her off I want her feeling safer on the trailer than what she does off the trailer. Does that make sense? Okay so let me get started here. So initially I might just do something simple here and I might just move her rear end around. Done. Just move her rear end around a little bit. Just use the stick and disengage your hind quarters. So the first thing I did is I started to yield the horse's hind quarters and basically move his feet. But the difference is now I'm the one calling the shots. I'm the one moving the feet. Just go chase a little bit. Move that rear end. If you want to move your feet I'm going to move them but it's going to be on my terms. She wants to move it around just go chase a little bit. Move that rear end. When the horse flipped over backwards I've never seen anything like that. I was shocked. Part of me didn't even know that they could do that. I didn't worry too much about it. Well first of all there's nothing I can do about it. It already happened. And second of all I'm not worried about the horse rearing up because it only reared up because it's reacting. If I gain control of the horse's feet and I get him to respect me he won't want to react and panic anymore. That might break that rearing up habit too because now she's scared that she might flip over every time she does that. So it might be a good thing that she taught herself a lesson. So then she reared over backwards just then. I just went and caught her. And what am I going to do now? Go back and move her feet again. I don't worry about that. That's her problem. If she's big enough and ugly enough to run over pull over backwards that's her problem. Move those feet. It looked a lot worse than it was. Horse fell over. Get him up and get back to business. Move those hindquarters. Move those feet. Then I just change and move her around this way. Move these feet. There. Now I'm just going to get in beside her here and make this look easy. I might act like I'm going to put my foot in the stirrup. You see that? Make standing still look easy. I might pull on the saddle a little bit here. Simulate as if I'm going to get on. Tighten up my girth a little bit. I might put my foot in the stirrup. Get ready. Now she wants to move around. I'm going to go move her around. Hey, you want to move? Come on now, let's move. Pretty soon it made standing still look easy. But I'm going to make you hustle. I'm going to make you work. I'm going to make it uncomfortable for you. Check out our latest catalog from Down Under Horsemanship. It's filled with beautiful imagery and in-depth information on all the products used in this show. Visit our website or call this number and we'll send it to your door free of charge. I want him to think standing still is a reward and moving his feet is hard work. Now she wants to walk off. I step down. I immediately move those feet around. Move those feet around. And I go back. Leave her alone. I want him to think standing still is a reward and moving his feet is hard work. Now I might try something different. I might back her up. Tap her on the chest. Back her back up. Horses are forwardaholics by general nature. They're always thinking forward. By backing him up, it got him to think about me and it also made him realize that man, standing still, that's a reward. I want her to think standing still is a lot easier than moving around. Back her up. So backing the horse up also counterbalanced the horse's desire to want to go forward. Go forward. Ah, good girl. Rubber. Now instead of getting on, I'm going to get off. She thinks every time somebody steps up on that saddle that she has to go somewhere. I'm going to say, hey, I might get off. You don't have to worry about trying to go somewhere. Okay, get back on. Now, would I walk off right now? What would I do? Get off. I might go ahead and get back on again. I want to show her that standing still is the best option. When I saw Clinton working with her and he said if she wanted to move her feet, well then she's going to move her feet. And it just clicked in my mind. Like she went to walk off, I'd step off. I'd yield her hindquarters. I'd disengage that rear end. I might back her up a little bit. Start it again. You want to keep moving, keep moving. And then you want to rest, well then you can rest and I'll get on and off. It's just like a common sense thing. But until somebody shows you that, it doesn't click in your brain. If you sent her to me, I would not ride her for a week. I do nothing but groundwork for a week. I prepare her so that when I start riding her a week from now, she won't want to walk off. Remember what I said? It's preparation, isn't it? I didn't make the horse stand still. I made it the easiest option for him to stand still. And then eventually he thought it was his idea. All right. I want you to come over here, Martin. Here, have a go. She got me a bit of a workout. Step up your horsemanship with the Clinton Anderson Method. Fundamentals starts you on your journey to ultimate control. As you learn to communicate with your horse, earn his trust and respect, and gain control of his body. Intermediate opens the door to ultimate performance. As you build on your knowledge to create a safe, willing, and supple partner, you control with a feather light touch. And now, all new, advanced delivers ultimate inspiration to fine tune your application of the method and reach the highest level of horsemanship. Clinton Anderson offers you the ultimate collection of his wildly popular training method kits at a packaged price. Hold your stick like that. And just go ahead and bend ahead and yield to hindquarters. Bend ahead around like I was. Bend ahead towards the saddle. Shorten up the rein. Shorten it up. Bend it towards the saddle. Like that. Good girl. Run in there. Run, run, run, run, run, run, run. You yourself. Run. That's it. Bend ahead towards the saddle. That's it. Disengage that rear end. There. Now stop. Well, when Clinton does it, it looks really easy. But when you do it, there's a lot of things that you have to keep under control at one time. Now, if she wants to move, what are you going to do? Move her feet. Come on, move her feet. Bend ahead. Move those feet. Now do it the other direction. Bend ahead the other way. Quickly. Get in there. Because we'd moved the horse's feet and done a lot of change of direction, he had given us the leadership in the relationship. He'd given us the control. We're number one. He was number two. Now, go to get on her. Go to get halfway on her. Okay. And if she goes to move, you immediately step down. Okay. There you go. Now hop down. When a horse gives you a leadership role, he becomes submissive. He becomes a willing partner. Get on. There you go. Rub on her neck. That's it. If she goes to walk off, what are you going to do? Hop off and do it again. Step off and move her feet again. I wanted that horse to stand still and relax even if he wasn't tired because he knew that standing still was what was the expected behavior that he had to perform. She's breathing a little bit heavy, but she ain't tired. You might be tired. Okay. She ain't tired. She is standing still because she's using the thinking side of her brain. You've gained her respect by what? Moving her feet. Remember in the trailering? Once we gained her respect, she got quiet, didn't she? Is she quiet now? Yes. So getting her tired has got nothing to do with this. And the other reason she's standing still is because we made standing still look like what? The best option. Yes. We said, if you want to move, let's move. We used a little reverse psychology, didn't we? Yes. And then we said, would you like to stand still? And she said, thank God, I'd love to stand still. I've been dreaming about standing still when you get on me all day. Her not standing still was a symptom of a cause. Her not getting on the trailer was a symptom of a cause. All horses' problems come from a lack of respect or fear. And that's one thing that I try to get across to everybody. Whatever you think your problem is, is not your problem. It's a symptom of a cause. Horses either lack of respect or fear. If you're unlucky, your horse has both. The problem with her not standing still was probably me. But again, I didn't know how to correct it. That's it. Get a little bend. You notice now she's not throwing her head in the air, is she? Remember when I first took a hold of the bit, she'd throw her head up in the air? That's why she flipped over backwards because she was real stiff. Do you feel how she's bending now? She's got it now. Now, stop and get on her. Drop the stick. Just get on her. You don't even have a hold of the reins now. Look how confident you are now. Good girl. Look at the difference. Amazing. Once again, Clinton Anderson has fixed the problem. A lot of people just get on their horse and immediately go somewhere, and they cause half these problems. Horses are creatures of habit. If you just get on and go, she thinks, okay, I'm supposed to go. Get on and off a few times for a few days and just teach her that just because you get on, doesn't mean the car's going anywhere. Look at her licking her lips. She's quiet. Your horse wants to be good. She just needs an effective leader. I'm excited to get home and start working on it. Look at that, mate. Standing there like a statue. Rub on her. That's a good job. Are you happy with that? Yes. Congratulations. Thank you so much. Well, mate, I hope you've enjoyed that. Yet again, we proved to you again, if you follow the method, it doesn't matter what problem your horse has, you can fix it. Okay? Remember, your horse's behavior will change when you change the way that you interact with them. Gain your horse's respect, get them using the thinking side of their brain, and all your problems will disappear. Until next week, mate, take care of yourself. Keep up following the method, and we look forward to seeing you again. I'm very proud of you, mate. If you'd like more information, mate, on any of the products you've seen on today's show, click on our website at downunderhorsemanship.com, and we'll send you a free catalog, mate.