Does Your Horse Dive for Grass?

Опубликовано: 07 Ноябрь 2023
на канале: Connection Training

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Does your horse dive to the grass all time? This can be a real challenge with some horses. In fact, it’s a challenging situation - have you ever seen a dog trainer work on a carpet of juicy meat?! Yet, this is what it’s like when we’re asking our horses to ignore lush, green grass and focus on us.

It doesn’t have to be a fight. There are 3 main elements to grass training:
A clear cue for when they CAN eat
A clear cue to lift their head and re-focus on you
Extra rewards for any time they tune into you and voluntarily leave the grass

Rachel is practising these with Heather, who used to dive for the grass and actually strike her front legs in frustration when asked to leave it!

BUT, first, you want to train it at home in a more controlled environment.

To do this, I use buckets, and I start with the horse on a rope. This means you can control the rewards your horse is getting as you teach the cues and impulse control and set your horse up for success.

Start with empty buckets and ask your horse to walk past it and stay with you instead. They will probably want to dive for the bucket, but it’s empty so if they do, they won’t get rewarded (unlike if you start on grass). Reward your horse for staying connected with you as you pass or leave the bucket. Practice until your horse ignores empty buckets.

Next, put a low value reward such as chopped hay into the bucket and repeat the exercise of walking past and ignoring the buckets. Make sure you have high value rewards, like carrots, on you so that it’s MUCH more rewarding for your horse to stay with you than go to the bucket.

You can also start giving your horse a cue to eat the hay and a cue to leave it and come back to you.

Gradually switch the rewards until they’re of equal value in the bucket and your treat bag, and then have your horse leave higher value rewards in the buckets for low value rewards from you.

Now, you’re ready to move to the grass. It usually goes very smoothly at this stage and your horse will be happy to work with you on grass.

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