Catching Horses

This post is as much about horse behavior as it is on how to catch that horse of yours.

Here are a few ways you can catch your horse

You can chase him around. This does work. What happens is your horse realizes that it's less work to let you catch them. This is the make the wrong thing hard and the right thing easy. Basically just make them run around until you think that he will let you come up to him to be haltered. The moment he moves away you chase him around again. A tip for this is that when you finally do catch your horse, put his halter on and just stand there petting him and letting him relax. This will make being with you a positive experience. This does take a lot running to accomplish though. Especially if you are in a pasture.

Food. Food is a powerful motivator. Your horse will more than likely come to you if he knows you have his favorite treat. Through try to get him haltered and then give him his treat. This will be a problem if you have more than one horse.

Retreat. Horses aren't afraid of something that's retreating. Instead they become curious. So you walk out to the pasture to catch your horse and he starts walking away from you. Right when he takes that first step you retreat. Watch his reaction. What most horses will do is instead of walking away they will step towards you. I keep experimenting with this one because it has so many aspects. But I did it with catching a horse. I walked up to one of the fillies and tossed my rope over her neck. She started walking away. I turned around and walked away with the body language of are you sure you want to leave? She took a step towards me. After that it was a piece of cake to get her haltered.
Another aspect of the retreat is to work your way towards your horse in arks. So that most of the time you're not facing him head on. When you do reach him you'll let him smell your hand and then retreat. And repeat. In stages you'll go from letting him smell your hand to petting his head, then neck, and eventually haltering.

You'll have to decide which way works best for your horse. Cause chasing your horse around would not be good for a horse that's been abused. What would work for that type of horse is retreat or possibly food. I wouldn't suggest using food on a pushy, dominate horse. Chasing him around would work.
Sometimes a horse will see your halter and hightail it out of there. To fix that bring your halter to the pasture and go around and say hello, but don't catch your horse. Also what will help is if you don't always work with your horse after you catch him. Catch him and let him go. That way he won't associate haltering with working.


Say hello to your equine for me,
Lydia Johnson