# My horse keeps facing his bum to me!



## Miloismyboy

My horse actually does this as well... because he wants his bum scratched. It seems I do a better job than a random post or tree. He's never turned on me in an aggressive manner... just wants me to get an itch he cant reach  If I don't have time to take care of that for him I just give him a pat and he goes off and finds a tree or something. It is rather rude behavior I'll agree.. but I get where it's coming from so I pick and choose the times where it's acceptable... yes, my horse is spoiled rotten.


----------



## apachewhitesox

That is where I think this behavious may have originated. I was told one of his previous owners spoiled him A LOT. Not to sound like I'm aiming this at you.


----------



## mbender

I will say, my filly does this when she wants her butt scratched but you said he will turn his butt toward you when you go to catch him. That's disrespect and needs a good pop on the butt. Which it sounds like you have done. But catch him, make sure you have him under control and anytime he offers his rear, pop him and face him towards you. Every time he does it. Make him think twice before he offers you his butt. Not acceptable.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


----------



## apachewhitesox

Good so I am on the right track with how I respond.


----------



## kitten_Val

Miloismyboy said:


> My horse actually does this as well... because he wants his bum scratched.


Mine too. :wink: However ONLY when I allow her to do that.

OP, I'd just move his hind every time he makes a single attempt to swing it towards you. As long as he disengage the bum and move it away from you just relax and keep going with your stuff again.


----------



## Miloismyboy

There was one day he just wouldn't stop.. I would shoo him off and he would come right back and give his butt to me... holding his tail off to the side a bit. I finally gave in and took a look and sure enough... big fat tick under his tail that was driving him insane.


----------



## AngieLee

get him to move his hip over maybe? my horse very rarely turns his butt to me anymore because i did a VERY long lunging session with him. everytime i let him stop if he turned his butt to me i made him go, and i didnt let him stop until he turned and faced me.

but in my lessons right now we are doing alot of ground work, and one of the things we are working one is controling his hip and the direction he turns. My instructor told me that when your working with them on the ground with lunging etc when they turn, if they turn to the outside/away from you they are trying to get away so what you wants is for them to turn to the inside/towards you.

i'll try and explain the hip over exersize we were working on last lesson, but i'm horrible at explaining things so...bear with me please, and feel free to ask questions to clarify because.. well as i said i suck as explaining things (its why i didnt consider riding instructor as a career lol)

we were doing this in an arena, but she said it works better in a round ring sometimes.basicly she has me lung him on a small circle so i still had controle, but he had a nice bend. so i would lung him a few circles and then when he got just past the half way point of his circle i would back up towards the wall, so i was a horse lenth/half a horse length away from it. So my horse would have the option of either a) stoping and respecting my persinal space or b) charging through my space which is dispespectful. if he chose option b) you smack his butt (with a crop/whip) on his way by, sort of like how a horse would bite him if he had done that. now if he chose option a) he can either stop, or turn and go the other direction. My horse stoped and faced me. when he did that i had to pay attencion to his body. I wanted him in a direct line facing me. usually his hip was kinda cocked out/not a straight line. so it poiint the whip at it and he'd move it over. once he did that i'd "disengage" my whip as a reward. if needed you could tap them with the whip etc.

basicly what this exersize is doing is giving you complete controle over there movement/hip and also putting alot of stress that they have to respect you and your persinal space...

anyways i HOPE that made sence, but it probabaly didnt..... if, by chance you understand a word of what i was saying. hopefully it was some help and was relivent to your horses training/needs.

but you now understand why i will never be a riding instructor haha somewhere between my brain and my mouth my words get all jumbled up and confused


----------



## apachewhitesox

Thanks this sounds like something I could try with him. When you say back away do you mean walk backwards away from the horse continuing to face it if it keeps moving?

Otherwise the rest of it makes sense. I hope my question makes sense


----------



## AngieLee

apachewhitesox said:


> Thanks this sounds like something I could try with him. When you say back away do you mean walk backwards away from the horse continuing to face it if it keeps moving?
> 
> Otherwise the rest of it makes sense. I hope my question makes sense


wow, i'm amazed you actually understood all that! your my new hero haha.
but yes thats what i ment. keep facing your horse. when he gets halfway to 3/4 around the cricle start walking backwords towards the wall. leave enough space so if he desides to run through your space he can do so without actaully running you over and hurting you. but make sure he gets "bitten" on his way by. make sure you dont look hesitent when your backing up, like just back up at a normal pace ( that was my issue the first few times i tried it) and make sure he times to see what your doing and evaluate the situation. until you both become for confadent with the exercise you dont want to be suddenly jumping out infront of him.

The end result is that you want to beable to stand by the wall have him go around, , weild the hip, turn around do his half circle in the other direction, get to the wall, weild hip, turn,back in the other direction again and keep doing it. its basicly like a dance.

Its a Chris irwin technique so if it works for you guys maybe look up more of his exercises.


----------



## riccil0ve

If you want to scratch your horse's bum, I think you should walk from his shoulder to his butt for scratches. My horses are not allowed to show me their butts EVER. My little one is pretty bad about it, so I've smacked her good and hard on the rump on several occasions with a dressage whip. She's coming around. The level of aggression she displays will affect the level of reprimand. If she just doesn't want to be caught, I chase her off. If she turns her butt and makes a face, she gets a wallop. She's never tried to kick yet, but I don't want to risk it. I think you're doing right by giving him a smack. Hopefully he catches on quickly.


----------



## apachewhitesox

Thanks that was my thoughts.


----------



## tinyliny

apachewhitesox said:


> Ok so as the title says Sammy keeps facing his bum to me. I see this as disrespectful, neither of my other horses do it only Sam.
> 
> He has done this from the moment I got him. The only time he has done it in a real aggressive way was when I was lunging and he turned it towards me and starting backing up. When he did that I brought his head around to face me though I don't think I hit him on the bum. Normally he just does it out in the paddock like when he goes to walk away from you. I get that his back will be to me to an extent if he walks away. What annoys me *is he will do it right in front of you and if you don't move sometimes his bum would just knock you out of the way*.
> 
> _This is definitely not acceptable and the thing to do is to not let him get that far (to the point where he is pushing you off balance) You are responsible to not crowd his shoulder or his head, something people do to horses and they really dislike, but the instant he starts the swing of his body over, you stop it. If you stop it very early in the movement, it takes very little pressure from you to get him to step away from you. When he does , you do NOTHING._
> 
> He will also sometimes just simply turn his bum to you and stand there. He hasn't actually tried to kick when doing it he simply faces his bum to you. I don't want him to think this is acceptable and maybe someone gets kicked one day. If I am in a position where I can't be kicked and I have something like a whip with me I normally hit him on the bum. He normally reacts by running away a short distance. He also does it when you try to catch him he will turn his bum to you and walk off (sometimes).
> 
> _There are two ways to get a horse to turn and face you: push on his bum or attract his thought, there for his face will come around to you._
> 
> _You can put a switch or a lead on his butt if he does this in a rude way, for sure, but if he is just not giving you the attention you want, then make yourself interesting and he will pay attention to you._
> _move off to his side and catch his eye with some sort of movement. When he looks at you, stop the action , maybe even back up and see if you can DRAW him to you._
> _there is both driving and drawing in ground work. Work on both of these._
> _Driving uses pressure, and drawing works on removing pressure the instant the horse's thought goes onto you. _
> 
> When he tried this a couple of days ago I had my lunging rope with me and I hit him on the bum when he turned away and he took off and stopped a small distance away from me. He was facing me and stayed facing me and didn't try to run off again. I'm not sure if I'm just making the situation worse or if I need to make my point clearer. It just doesn't seem to be getting through to him.* If he faces me I make a fuss over him and when he faces his bum to me I hit him on the bum. *
> 
> _Next time he faces you, don't make a fuss over him. For a horse, this is still pressure. Do nothing. So, he feels the change. He must feel the difference; face away from human = feel pressure. Face toward human = pressure all gone. Peace! I like that. Maybe that human is peaceful when I hang with her. hm m m maybe I'll go over and check her out. . . . _
> _Naw, I m out of here (face turns away and human makes noise or hits the ground with whip, as little as necessary to get attention and make horse go thruough that whole thinking process again)_
> _Horse is startled , looks at human, human goes peaceful , instantly and waits and waits for horse to decide what to do. No response? human walks slowly toward horse, peacefully but not "creeping" or "sneaking" , just walking hum di dum ._
> _Get the idea?_
> 
> _I do groundwork with him. He really seems to have no idea when you do stuff on the ground with him. When I first got him he went backwards, forwards and stopped. He seemed to have_ no clue about moving only his hindquarters or anything. He only just seems to be getting the hang of if I put pressure here you are supposed to move that and only that.
> 
> If anyone made it through this and it acually made sense any tips would be appreciated. I'm not sure if I have the complete wrong idea or what. Thanks


 
_I add this to some of the other things that other posters said about ground work. Just wanted to add the idea of drawing a hrose as as valuable as driving a horse._


----------



## apachewhitesox

Thanks Tinyliny I hadn't really thought about the fussing like that. I will definitely work on the drawing with him a bit more. I have down it a bit with him and he seems to respond to it. Oh and when I said he knocked me he has only actually done it once and he got into big trouble for it. I am working on his responsiveness on the ground. You tend to have to put a lot of pressure on him for him to actually respond or he just leans against it.


----------



## starlightgrace

I'm not sure how or where my mare learned this but if she turns away from me at all, I turn my back on her. She then gets to decide whether to come back in and pay attention to me or to run. I think she learned it because when my trainer taught me to do groundwork she made me stand with my back to her every time I disengaged.


----------



## ButtInTheDirt

If it is one thing my horse knows, it is to keep that pretty spotted rump of his away! The start of this training of respect happened the first week of his overall training. We had him going in circles at a trot or lope, and we would make him turn. (He would turn by us cutting him off against the wall.) If he turned towards the wall facing his butt towards us we would make him go right away with a tap on the rump. If he turned towards us we would let him to his own devices as long as he stuck to the wall. Sooner or later this turning in towards us meant he could stop or walk. This evolved to lunging on a lead where he would, when I point to his butt, stop and move his butt away so he faced me head-on.

But that definately is an issue of respect. I have a horse that when we first got her, she'd run right over you and would not even let you get near her with the intentions of catching her. If my other horse would nip at her she would have no problem with smashing her head into mine. I am not that big of a horse rider, but I am really strict when it comes to how my horses act on the ground. (That really is almost all I care about.) I worked on that old mare practically every day since the moment we got her. I've brushed up on most of her skills, but now I've started doing the same training to disingage her hindquarters that my trainer and I did when we started with my gelding, Moe.

With Moe the training only took two days. First day he was dripping with sweat and huffing. The second day he was hardly breathing differently than normal. I was lucky to get a very intellegent horse. Sadie, the mare, she is a different story. I've done the circling quite a few times and she isn't quite understanding it. (She has made notable progress, however.) Whenever I try moving her but without this game she will walk forward or backward, never really moving her butt the way I want her to.

But the main thing is to just keep on with the training. Sooner or later things should get better. If your horse turns the butt to you in the pasture and it is a smallish space, then just make them run for a while. Give them a few oppertunities to stop and turn, pretty much the same game. ^^

I wish you good luck, and I appologize for the novel. I'm not good at cutting to the chase. Dx


----------



## apachewhitesox

Thanks.

After finding pepper with a big bloody bite mark on her neck yesterday I separated Sammy from her as I am 99% sure it was him. When I went to catch him he turned his bum to me and walked off up the alley part of the paddock. So i flicked him pretty hard with the leadrope on the bum and he trotted off snorting. Since he was coming to a dead end on he started to slow but still not face me and I was close enough so I hit on the bum again he got to the end and turned around and came running back and pushed past me so I hit him on the bum as he ran past. To this he trotted a short distance then stopped and stood facing me snorting. I walked to him slowly and he looked at me so I walked backwards a bit and he stepped towards me then looked away. I stepped towards him which got his attention and I stepped back a bit which he stepped towards me again. This repeated for a bit then when I felt he wasn't going to run off I walked straight up to his shoulder and patted him then caught him. He didnt try to move at all when I walked up to him. After taking him into the separate paddock I thought I would work on his groundwork a bit. I also had crop with me so I thought I would use it. Normally I don't have it with me and I use the end of the rope if he isn't listening to the pressure from my hand. First I just touched his hindquarters with the end of the crop and he ignored it so I pressed harder and he still did nothing. I then gave him a sharp tap on the hindquarters and he moved over making a big deal out of it, like I had just about murdered him. I then worked with him on both sides doing that for awhile, a couple of times I had to give him a reminder but by the end I mostly just had to point at his bum and he would move it. I then got him to lunge at a walk with the crop and the leadrope (didn't bring actual lunging equipment). He was good about it but he definitely seemed weary about the crop so if he tried to come in I simply pointed it at his shoulder and he stayed out doing as he was told. I was going to work with him this afternoon but its been raining nonstop so hopefully tomorrow.


----------



## ledge

Mine will give you the butt in a scratch please, never had one give one in defense or offense they know better, also they only do it when they are at liberty in the pasture. 

If you don't trust this behavior you can change it put pressure on them to always give you two eyes. 

Most important thing is keep the leader/trust roles straight


----------

