Herd Bound horse

[hayburneracres]

Hi everyone - any suggestions would be great on this subject. For those of you who don't know me I have ridden my entire life from herding cows, to barrel racing to exercising polo horses. I did not have horses for 10 years during my 20's and early 30's. I have had them now for 6 years and when I started back I had the chicken syndrome. Anyway history on my mare - she is 7 this year I have had her since she was a yearling. She did not get started until the end of her 4th year due to her size and my chickenness She went to a trainer for 30 days who was able to get on her the first day as I had done all necessary ground work. I only rode her 5 times over the next year. Last year we rode quite a bit - not every day but more then I have in a long time. This year I have not been horsey motivated and it is driving me nuts. Anyway on to the issue - I take full responsibility for never taking her out by herself frankly it scares the crap out of me to ride by myself now. But today I decided that I just needed to do it for myself as well as for her.

So this is what happened - she whinnied incessently at first I tried circles but it made her worse. I worked on zig and zagging and she did better. Once I got around to where I was headed home and she figured it out I started doing figure 8's every time she whinnied. Once that didn't work I would turn her around and head the other way for 2 to 4 strides every time she whinnied, by the time we got home when her buddy whinnied she didn't make a sound. My question is any other suggestions on how to work on this? Thanks for any input I know I haven't been active for awhile but trying to get back into it .

[highwayoflife]

Hi Tina!!

Buddy sour is very similar to Barn sour, when a horse wants to be at the barn or with his buddies, he may throw a fit, stop, rear up, turn around, run backwards, side pass, swish his tail, whiney for his buddies, all of these are signs of a horse that is either buddy sour or barn sour.

Basically what you want to do is use reverse psychology on your horse. Turn a negative into a positive. Instead of trying to make the horse leave his buddies, give the him a reason to want to leave his buddies. If he wants to be with his buddies, let him stay with his buddies but make his feet move: forward, backward, left and right. Trot circles around his buddies, stop and roll back, keep his feet moving and hustling, don’t let the horse be lazy or rest by his buddies, then take him away from his buddies 50 feet and let him relax and rest for 5 minutes. Then bring him back to his buddies and make his feet hustle again, trot and canter around for 10 minutes by his buddies, do some serpentine and figure eights, rollbacks, whatever will really keep his feet moving and hustling, then take him 100 feet away, rub him and let him rest for another 5 minutes. Bring him back to the barn, make his feet hustle again for 5-10 minutes, then take him away and let him rest 150 feet away for five minutes. Each time you take him away from his buddies, let him relax and rest a little further away each time.

The idea is the more he works by his buddies, and the more he rests away from his buddies, the more he’ll want to get away from his buddies, he’ll want to go rest. If given two options, horses will always take the easiest option. Which is to rest rather than work. If you are consistent for several days in a row, soon your horse will be happy to leave his buddies, because every time he leaves, he thinks he will get to rest.

Work him at the barn, take them away and let them rest. Consistency is your biggest key to solving this problem.
Hope this helps. Good luck!
- David

[outtrailriding]

It sounds to me like you need to work on your issues first. If you are afraid the horse will sense that and will be looking to get back to the safety of her buddy. You are not being the "leader" she needs. I sent my horse to a wonderful ranch in Montana last year (due to my being afraid) for 2 months. My horse was brave and bold. I got her home and had her afraid of everything in one ride. I did not think I could conquer my fears but I have done it and now my horse and I spend most of our time out alone, she is my best friend and companion. Email me privately if you want to talk about what I have done to make myself a better leader, better rider and better friend. Maybe some of it would work for you. Then you can work on your horse.
Susan

[RideHappy]

I do what you did, Tina--and I have to start out each spring like that if I don't keep up the riding in the winter. When we turn for home, Cowboy will start to jig--like, if he could, he'd book it back to the barn in a heartbeat. (We don't have this issue if we trailer away from home). So, I've always done the turning him around as soon as he starts the jig and ride him away from home. The problem is, we've ended up really far away from home sometimes. (I've only done this when I've had LOTS of time to finish correctly and it will usually take 2 hours).

So, I liked the suggestion above to work her hard at home and ride her just a little off and rest her. I think it's less dangerous and less time consuming. It was an excellent suggestion. And since it's less dangerous...it will help build up your confidence with her and your teamwork together.

[cowgurluponfox]

My horse is buddy sour too. What I do is ride him away from the other horses, when he's relaxed, then he gets to go back for a reward. I get a little further and further away each time. If you want to get your horse use to going out alone what I would do is saddle him up, lead him down the road aways, at some point get on him, and then ride him back home.

[Laura]

I feel that buddy sour or barn sour really boils down to a lack of confidence in the horse.

To elaborate a little on what Alexa said, we build our horses' confidence in baby steps. We first take our horses on lots of hand-walks to areas around our neighborhood where we usually would ride, just to get them used to the unfamiliar sights, cars, mailboxes, real estate signs, dogs, whatever. When these things are ho-hum, then we start riding the horses out alone, but we only continue going forward if the horse is confident and happily going. This takes some sensitivity and "feel" on our part to be able to feel that anxiety build up before any real outward signs -- because the key is to turn back to where he wants to go BEFORE it's his idea, meaning he still thinks he is obeying the rider. So, the first day we might only get 5 feet or so and then turn back, give a short, very short amount of time to be near the other horses, and also do some of David's ideas in that it's not really a restful time, but we'll do some disengaging of hindquarters, circling, etc., things that are physically more challenging than just walking forward. The second time out, we maybe get 25 feet before we can feel the anxiety building, and then we turn back. The third time maybe all the way to the end of the driveway...and so on and so on until we can go out safely down the road.

This builds the horse's confidence little by little by raising his emotional state a little, but bringing it back down before he's really stressed. John Lyons is a fan of this sort of emotional training for horses, and Mark Rashid uses similar techniques.

[hayburneracres]

Hi everyone - thanks for all the great feedback. David I will definitely work on this approach it sounds really great - Susan I have been working on the confidence and yesterday was a tremendous help with my issues, I will send you a pm - Laura, she is fine with cars, mailboxes, motorcycles, dogs almost anything but leaving her buddies by the time we got home she was completely calm didn't even respond to Autumn's whinnying. Again thanks for all the feedback!