Help needed!

huntseat_rider · 10-15-2009, 03:25 PM

My 5 month old has serious food aggression...has anyone ever had to deal with this and have suggestions on how to work with him on it?!?! He gets sooo excited that when i'm dumping his grain in his bucket he starts nickering. Last night I put his hay down and he pinned his ears so I used the lead rope to move him back in the stall and he bucked and was ears flat back and really wants at his food...Like I would feel safe if he had a back corner feeder and I had to walk in to dump his grain. Thoughts needed please

EMZNELLZ · 10-16-2009, 01:49 PM

i'm not sure if this advice will be much use to you but it was the only sort of thing I could think of when I read your post. I used to have the same issue when i bought a welsh D and he was extremely excitable when he was around food. It became such an issue that whenever he needed feeding I would get in and out as fast as I could and just drop his feed bucket on the floor or throw hay into his hayrack and then run out for fear of being caught out. It was only when I was training my young dog that I realised the more he was mucking about and being boisterous, the faster I was giving him his food; basically rewarding him for his bad behaviour! The naughtier he was, the faster I gave him his dinner, the happier he was! I started taking him out of his stable to feed him and standing (within safe distance) with his food. He would get excitable and fidget and do small rears and put his ears back, but until he gave up and stood still he would not get his food. You would not believe how quickly he began to realise that the sooner he stood still the sooner he would get his food (although for the first week or so we did have to wait around for quite a while until he gave up and stood properly for long enough). When he became good with his manners around food outside his stable we started feeding him inside again and the behaviour association had transferred....after about 6 weeks his behaviour had dramatically improved with only maybe a tiny bit of fidgeting before standing very quietly for and around his feed....

I know this may seem pointless to say this to you but I thought that maybe this might help you and your youngster with the way that his mind works? It might have been no use at all to you lol but I thought something might be better than nothing lol...maybe as soon as your youngster begins to show agression when you are carrying food around him you can take the food away again. Maybe he would begin to associate bad behaviour with the removal of his food?

I'm sorry if this is no use to you

All the best x

meljean · 10-17-2009, 01:20 AM

Agree with above. Every time you give in and let him act like a brat at recess, you are adding to the day when he will be big enough and bold enough to hurt you.

When I would work with owners who were letting the horse run the show, I would ask them to puff up, by this I mean to get bigger in their mind, and frame, stand squarer and bring shoulders and head back/up. Also to claim a bigger space around them, just by attitude. Watch the lead horse in pasture, our mare could clear all of pasture just by flaring nostrils one tiny time, and the other horses peeled off.

Secondly, have the mindset of who bought who here? You are the human, and he is not. When you first enter feed/paddock area, and he comes toward you, give him the eye, and swell up and give a ENNT sound with throat/voice. Don't know how that will come out, but sounds like powerboat stuck in fan kind of, don't get loud just firm, and fix him with evil eye, then keeping awareness of him, look away, and continue toward feed room. If he crowds you, tell him to back off, and step toward him in a puffed up attitude until he takes a step back.

If he doesn't get the point, and he still continues, take a small branch with lots of leaves on it, and shake at ground level, doing ennnt sound and telling him back off. And only do enough to get him to give ground, once he does, stop, but continue with your body language to make him move off of you/area. The less action you have to take to get a reaction the better.

Make him scoot away from the area, do not get high with branch, do not hit, do not go crazy with noise, just a purposeful walk toward him, making him give ground.

Also don't chatter to horse, one or two words, and don't praise, he has done nothing special so don't.

When go to put feed in stall, start in and then turn and make him back up, do this several times, and if he pins his ears, or shows you his heels, back him up with branch again. The reason I use the leafy branch, and only use one about 4 ft long with lots of leaves, is it has a lot of movement and sound and you can brush the ground with it, like a broom and that makes a scootch scootch sound that will back a horse off too. I just had a mental picture of people ripping out ten foot saplings and ending up in ER saying I read this training tip on HGS.

Continue this, and immediately react if horse shows any sign of trying to take control, reacting to this quickly is the key, and again, don't overreact and don't chatter, no emotion in voice, just a quiet get back, and keep awareness of where he is, make him give ground to you. Doing it this way will be very similar to how he is made to give ground in a herd situation, and keeping all of it low key, but still getting results will impress on him that you have this awesome power and are in charge.

huntseat_rider · 10-17-2009, 03:55 PM

just wanted to give a quick update...i've been tying him and putting the food in the stall and letting him get angery and such and as soon as he stops and calms down and quits acting like a fool I untie him and let him eat. . but that still doesnt solve the agression ....i've been asking him to move away from his food and standing my ground about it and man Ive never seen such an angry little horse...the ears go flat and he is just TI*cked off.....also been doing stuff like moving his butt over while he's eating hay and he pushed back and I do it until he stops and stays where i put him....except my brother was doing it today and he kicked him so then i got up on the gate of the round pen and moved him off with a rope and he's licking and chewing so he's taking it all in...I'm trying to get him out more but that's a challenge with having no one to put him out with..... and working...but he got out for a couple hours today and I will put him out when i get home from work tomorrow til dark...i'm sure that's some of the anger is not being able to be out all the time like a baby should.....

I know it hopefully will get better but it's so hard to see the light at the end

EMZNELLZ · 10-17-2009, 04:12 PM

It sounds like a very frustrating situation for you and I hope you find a way to resolve it soon! However, i do think that the raised levels of aggression from him are because you are challenging him and not giving him his food when he would usually expect it; this is a good sign! I'm sorry that your brother got hurt though...is there no way that you can take him and tie him up outside to feed him initially? This would allow people to stay far enough away if he does begin getting aggressive again?

Also maybe don't expect drastic results so quickly? These things take time with horses and even little steps in the right direction need to be reinforced with huge amounts of praise. I wish you all the best with this as I agree that your problem is best dealt with before he gets older!

All the best xxx

meljean · 10-17-2009, 05:15 PM

I sent you a PM, but wanted to post that this is not an issue that takes time, and praising him for doing what he is only supposed to be doing is counterproductive.

And too much talking to horses, can also be counterproductive. It's like the woman in Wally World with the obnoxious kid who is screaming, and all she can say over is over is "stop it, I'm going to tell your dad, stop it, I'm not telling you again, stop that, I'll call your dad, did you hear me tell you to stop it, why won't you stop when I tell you to?" Because he knows you won't make him stop lady, that's why. The kid just tunes her out. The less chatter in a situation like this the better.

The reason he is acting more aggressive is he wants his way, like a spoiled toddler, if he could throw himself down in Wally World and pound floor with fists and feet and hold breath until he turned blue, he would be doing that. He is a horse which means he uses ears, brute force, teeth and kicking.

Tying him up as I said in PM is only going to make this worse as puts you in position where you have to untie him, and puts you close to a horse that you are scared of. And if you aren't scared of him, you should be.

I fixed this problem in one session with friends horses, who, as I PMed you, had attacked her and her dog, the last time going through her to go after dog.
And didn't take over 30 minutes, never raised voice, never hit, never scared horse, just made him back off, and act like he had some sense. I just did what I said in my op, only with him didn't even use eennnt sound, Jeff Foxworthy does something similar in one of his routines, maybe a Southern thing???

And as I said, this horse is only going to get bigger, and meaner if you don't get this stopped, and the sad thing is he will pay the price, as if he hurts you or your brother, the next person he could kill, and he will end up going to Mexico for slaughter as no one wants a dangerous horse. There are too many decent ones to battle with ones like this.

And this is not an issue a trainer can fix for you, as if you don't have control of your space/surroundings and horse, the horse will behave for the trainer, but not for you.

Again, this is not something to agonize over, it is a small problem that you are allowing by not stopping it, you are not training him for the top levels, just training him with as they say in Alabama, "some good old fashioned home training."

Please follow my instructions, and do it with steel in your eyes, and in your body language, the colt will notice difference, and respond accordingly to your "lead" status, this could be fixed in a day if you will just try what I said.

huntseat_rider · 10-19-2009, 11:46 AM

here are some pics from the last 2or so months!

finally outside! He's calmed down so I leave him out now whenever I'm home...!!!! Still might try to find somewhere to board him for awhile because I think he needs some friends til he can go back with his dam.

meljean · 10-19-2009, 08:20 PM

What a beautiful horse. I like his looks very very much.

huntseat_rider · 10-20-2009, 01:28 PM

thanks Meljean...I hope to do huntseat with him! knock on wood although I havent pushed it much he seems to be doing a little better with food/anger now that his turn out is getting longer! I'm going to try leaving him out from right now til 9 tonight and see how he does on his own in the dark....

huntseat_rider · 10-26-2009, 03:18 PM

UDATE: Oct. 26th.. Remmy has now spent the past two days outside straight through...he's been great...meljean, I basically did what you said and you could see it clicking...the first time I went in the anger was there when I asked him to back off and then did that and the second time there was less anger...so that's great and I've been working on the actual physical part of moving his rump over while he's eating (that when he kicked my brother) and he hasn't kicked out or anything so far...you can tell he's still a little "annoyed" but accepts it and moves over and stays where I asked him to move to! So we will keep working on it!!! I think he's happy to be outside! I just brought him in to dry off tonight while I eat supper! I'm leaving him out as long as the temp doesn't drop to freezing with the rain as he's in the round pen and doesn't have shelter! I put fresh straw down for him to lay in...lol and he likes to eat it too! silly horse.

10-15-2009, 03:25 PM	#1
huntseat_rider Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: WI Posts: 307 Images: 18	Help needed! My 5 month old has serious food aggression...has anyone ever had to deal with this and have suggestions on how to work with him on it?!?! He gets sooo excited that when i'm dumping his grain in his bucket he starts nickering. Last night I put his hay down and he pinned his ears so I used the lead rope to move him back in the stall and he bucked and was ears flat back and really wants at his food...Like I would feel safe if he had a back corner feeder and I had to walk in to dump his grain. Thoughts needed please

10-17-2009, 01:20 AM	#3
meljean Senior Member+ Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: NW MO Posts: 1,017	Agree with above. Every time you give in and let him act like a brat at recess, you are adding to the day when he will be big enough and bold enough to hurt you. When I would work with owners who were letting the horse run the show, I would ask them to puff up, by this I mean to get bigger in their mind, and frame, stand squarer and bring shoulders and head back/up. Also to claim a bigger space around them, just by attitude. Watch the lead horse in pasture, our mare could clear all of pasture just by flaring nostrils one tiny time, and the other horses peeled off. Secondly, have the mindset of who bought who here? You are the human, and he is not. When you first enter feed/paddock area, and he comes toward you, give him the eye, and swell up and give a ENNT sound with throat/voice. Don't know how that will come out, but sounds like powerboat stuck in fan kind of, don't get loud just firm, and fix him with evil eye, then keeping awareness of him, look away, and continue toward feed room. If he crowds you, tell him to back off, and step toward him in a puffed up attitude until he takes a step back. If he doesn't get the point, and he still continues, take a small branch with lots of leaves on it, and shake at ground level, doing ennnt sound and telling him back off. And only do enough to get him to give ground, once he does, stop, but continue with your body language to make him move off of you/area. The less action you have to take to get a reaction the better. Make him scoot away from the area, do not get high with branch, do not hit, do not go crazy with noise, just a purposeful walk toward him, making him give ground. Also don't chatter to horse, one or two words, and don't praise, he has done nothing special so don't. When go to put feed in stall, start in and then turn and make him back up, do this several times, and if he pins his ears, or shows you his heels, back him up with branch again. The reason I use the leafy branch, and only use one about 4 ft long with lots of leaves, is it has a lot of movement and sound and you can brush the ground with it, like a broom and that makes a scootch scootch sound that will back a horse off too. I just had a mental picture of people ripping out ten foot saplings and ending up in ER saying I read this training tip on HGS. Continue this, and immediately react if horse shows any sign of trying to take control, reacting to this quickly is the key, and again, don't overreact and don't chatter, no emotion in voice, just a quiet get back, and keep awareness of where he is, make him give ground to you. Doing it this way will be very similar to how he is made to give ground in a herd situation, and keeping all of it low key, but still getting results will impress on him that you have this awesome power and are in charge. __________________ "If you listen to the horse, the horse will tell you what it wants to be." Dale Pugh "You can undo in five seconds, the training it took you five years to accomplish." Wyman E. Bennett Last edited by meljean; 10-17-2009 at 01:23 AM. Reason: info

10-17-2009, 05:15 PM	#6
meljean Senior Member+ Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: NW MO Posts: 1,017	I sent you a PM, but wanted to post that this is not an issue that takes time, and praising him for doing what he is only supposed to be doing is counterproductive. And too much talking to horses, can also be counterproductive. It's like the woman in Wally World with the obnoxious kid who is screaming, and all she can say over is over is "stop it, I'm going to tell your dad, stop it, I'm not telling you again, stop that, I'll call your dad, did you hear me tell you to stop it, why won't you stop when I tell you to?" Because he knows you won't make him stop lady, that's why. The kid just tunes her out. The less chatter in a situation like this the better. The reason he is acting more aggressive is he wants his way, like a spoiled toddler, if he could throw himself down in Wally World and pound floor with fists and feet and hold breath until he turned blue, he would be doing that. He is a horse which means he uses ears, brute force, teeth and kicking. Tying him up as I said in PM is only going to make this worse as puts you in position where you have to untie him, and puts you close to a horse that you are scared of. And if you aren't scared of him, you should be. I fixed this problem in one session with friends horses, who, as I PMed you, had attacked her and her dog, the last time going through her to go after dog. And didn't take over 30 minutes, never raised voice, never hit, never scared horse, just made him back off, and act like he had some sense. I just did what I said in my op, only with him didn't even use eennnt sound, Jeff Foxworthy does something similar in one of his routines, maybe a Southern thing??? And as I said, this horse is only going to get bigger, and meaner if you don't get this stopped, and the sad thing is he will pay the price, as if he hurts you or your brother, the next person he could kill, and he will end up going to Mexico for slaughter as no one wants a dangerous horse. There are too many decent ones to battle with ones like this. And this is not an issue a trainer can fix for you, as if you don't have control of your space/surroundings and horse, the horse will behave for the trainer, but not for you. Again, this is not something to agonize over, it is a small problem that you are allowing by not stopping it, you are not training him for the top levels, just training him with as they say in Alabama, "some good old fashioned home training." Please follow my instructions, and do it with steel in your eyes, and in your body language, the colt will notice difference, and respond accordingly to your "lead" status, this could be fixed in a day if you will just try what I said. __________________ "If you listen to the horse, the horse will tell you what it wants to be." Dale Pugh "You can undo in five seconds, the training it took you five years to accomplish." Wyman E. Bennett Last edited by meljean; 10-17-2009 at 05:17 PM. Reason: sp/punc

10-19-2009, 08:20 PM	#8
meljean Senior Member+ Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: NW MO Posts: 1,017	What a beautiful horse. I like his looks very very much. __________________ "If you listen to the horse, the horse will tell you what it wants to be." Dale Pugh "You can undo in five seconds, the training it took you five years to accomplish." Wyman E. Bennett

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10-16-2009, 01:49 PM	#2
EMZNELLZ Junior Member Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Cornwall, UK Posts: 8 Images: 3	i'm not sure if this advice will be much use to you but it was the only sort of thing I could think of when I read your post. I used to have the same issue when i bought a welsh D and he was extremely excitable when he was around food. It became such an issue that whenever he needed feeding I would get in and out as fast as I could and just drop his feed bucket on the floor or throw hay into his hayrack and then run out for fear of being caught out. It was only when I was training my young dog that I realised the more he was mucking about and being boisterous, the faster I was giving him his food; basically rewarding him for his bad behaviour! The naughtier he was, the faster I gave him his dinner, the happier he was! I started taking him out of his stable to feed him and standing (within safe distance) with his food. He would get excitable and fidget and do small rears and put his ears back, but until he gave up and stood still he would not get his food. You would not believe how quickly he began to realise that the sooner he stood still the sooner he would get his food (although for the first week or so we did have to wait around for quite a while until he gave up and stood properly for long enough). When he became good with his manners around food outside his stable we started feeding him inside again and the behaviour association had transferred....after about 6 weeks his behaviour had dramatically improved with only maybe a tiny bit of fidgeting before standing very quietly for and around his feed.... I know this may seem pointless to say this to you but I thought that maybe this might help you and your youngster with the way that his mind works? It might have been no use at all to you lol but I thought something might be better than nothing lol...maybe as soon as your youngster begins to show agression when you are carrying food around him you can take the food away again. Maybe he would begin to associate bad behaviour with the removal of his food? I'm sorry if this is no use to you All the best x

10-17-2009, 03:55 PM	#4
huntseat_rider Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: WI Posts: 307 Images: 18	just wanted to give a quick update...i've been tying him and putting the food in the stall and letting him get angery and such and as soon as he stops and calms down and quits acting like a fool I untie him and let him eat. . but that still doesnt solve the agression ....i've been asking him to move away from his food and standing my ground about it and man Ive never seen such an angry little horse...the ears go flat and he is just TI*cked off.....also been doing stuff like moving his butt over while he's eating hay and he pushed back and I do it until he stops and stays where i put him....except my brother was doing it today and he kicked him so then i got up on the gate of the round pen and moved him off with a rope and he's licking and chewing so he's taking it all in...I'm trying to get him out more but that's a challenge with having no one to put him out with..... and working...but he got out for a couple hours today and I will put him out when i get home from work tomorrow til dark...i'm sure that's some of the anger is not being able to be out all the time like a baby should..... I know it hopefully will get better but it's so hard to see the light at the end

10-17-2009, 04:12 PM	#5
EMZNELLZ Junior Member Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Cornwall, UK Posts: 8 Images: 3	It sounds like a very frustrating situation for you and I hope you find a way to resolve it soon! However, i do think that the raised levels of aggression from him are because you are challenging him and not giving him his food when he would usually expect it; this is a good sign! I'm sorry that your brother got hurt though...is there no way that you can take him and tie him up outside to feed him initially? This would allow people to stay far enough away if he does begin getting aggressive again? Also maybe don't expect drastic results so quickly? These things take time with horses and even little steps in the right direction need to be reinforced with huge amounts of praise. I wish you all the best with this as I agree that your problem is best dealt with before he gets older! All the best xxx

10-19-2009, 11:46 AM	#7
huntseat_rider Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: WI Posts: 307 Images: 18	here are some pics from the last 2or so months! finally outside! He's calmed down so I leave him out now whenever I'm home...!!!! Still might try to find somewhere to board him for awhile because I think he needs some friends til he can go back with his dam.

10-20-2009, 01:28 PM	#9
huntseat_rider Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: WI Posts: 307 Images: 18	thanks Meljean...I hope to do huntseat with him! knock on wood although I havent pushed it much he seems to be doing a little better with food/anger now that his turn out is getting longer! I'm going to try leaving him out from right now til 9 tonight and see how he does on his own in the dark....

10-26-2009, 03:18 PM	#10
huntseat_rider Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: WI Posts: 307 Images: 18	UDATE: Oct. 26th.. Remmy has now spent the past two days outside straight through...he's been great...meljean, I basically did what you said and you could see it clicking...the first time I went in the anger was there when I asked him to back off and then did that and the second time there was less anger...so that's great and I've been working on the actual physical part of moving his rump over while he's eating (that when he kicked my brother) and he hasn't kicked out or anything so far...you can tell he's still a little "annoyed" but accepts it and moves over and stays where I asked him to move to! So we will keep working on it!!! I think he's happy to be outside! I just brought him in to dry off tonight while I eat supper! I'm leaving him out as long as the temp doesn't drop to freezing with the rain as he's in the round pen and doesn't have shelter! I put fresh straw down for him to lay in...lol and he likes to eat it too! silly horse.