The Biting Horse

What should you do when your horse bites you?

  

Horses bite for lots of reasons but it basically comes back to him reading your body language as either submissive or offensive.  It's important to recognize what your body language is saying to a horse so you can try not to miscommunicate.  It is confusing to the horse if our reactions are inappropriate based on our previous body language and this can really tick a horse off.  It's like a person greeting you with a smile then whacking you. Confusing. At the very least they have to choose whether to ignore the first thing we said or the last thing.  We don't really want our horse to ignore anything we say and that's why learning what we are saying is important. 

 Biting is never appropriate, however, discipline often turns it in to a game of "I can bite you before you can whack me." Blocking is appropriate and if the horse thinks he ran in to your block it can be effective. That said, what I would suggest is that you be aware. If you think he's going to bite you, get his feet busy.  Move him forward, backward, move the hips, move the shoulders.  This will show him you are not submissive and will hopefully change your body language to assertive not offensive.  You can also use this as a correction after he bites but a proactive response builds more respect in the horse who sees you as a higher ranking member of the herd, not to be pushed around by him.

 The other thing to remember is be consistent.  If you correct him one time and ignore it the next time it will become a game to see if you're paying attention.  In this case better to correct too often, before he does it, then it's just training.  Consistency builds trust.  Do you want to fly with a pilot that lands safely 7 out of 10 times. If you're not sure you can trust your pilot you're likely to keep testing (biting) him.  The more consistent you are, the less your horse will test you.

Even though you may be hurting try and remember that being assertive does not include anger, so take a deep breath, tell yourself it's a training opportunity, put your horse to work and work on your own awareness.

 I do have demos and clinics coming up.  Remember there are a lot of fine subtle details of body position that a horse reads and it is easy to accidentally be rude to them.

  

Good luck, hope you find this helpful.