Going for Walks

Yes, I take Elsa for walks. Yes, it has caused a few jokes thrown my way. No, I don't care. (They were sort of funny.)

Taking a horse for a walk is a great exercise. Just, make sure you can trust your horse and that you can handle it if it gets spooked. You certainly don't want a loose spooked horse.

There are just some things you can't teach your horse on your property. Plus, going for walks really builds that good relationship of you leading your horse, not too unlike when you take your dogs for walks. The walks also let you know ahead of time how your horse might behave on a trail ride, and honestly, I can't find any reason to not take my horses for walks.

If you're going to take your horses for walks (or even runs) you need to make sure your horse knows how to lead. You also need to make sure that if your horse spooks, they know to spook away from you. Believe me, you don't want such a big animal jumping on top of you.

Your horse is most likely going to be on 1 of 2 extreme ends of the spectrum when it comes to leaving and going for a walk.They're either going to want nothing to do with leaving and want to go back to the barn/their buddies, or they're going to be excited about leaving and practically drag you down the road.If your horse is of the first type, turn around and go back home. Work on separation from what they're wanting to get back to. You really don't want to be out on the road with a horse that is fighting you and becoming more worked up the further you get from home.

However, if your horse is on the other end (which Elsa is), and isn't risking running off with you, go for a walk. Elsa gets excited for her walks. She wants to go quickly and see all the new things. She really doesn't want to take a slow pace in the beginning. You need to make sure to enforce good lead line skills on these walks. You cannot quickly control a horse, and you also risk loosing it, if it's on the end of its line ahead of you. The horse still needs to walk next to you respectfully.

Elsa's biggest issue the first couple times we went for a walk was that she wanted to hurry up and go somewhere. It bugged her when I didn't move fast enough for her. She also wanted freedom to move around and investigate things (such as the cows in the neighboring field). I'm all for a good investigation by a horse, but only if I've said it was ok first. It is not ok for her to rag me somewhere to investigate something just like it wouldn't be ok for her to run off with me on her back to go say hello to another horse. If don't say it's ok to go look at something, then she needs to walk on past it like it's not even there. She didn't agree so much the first walk. On the way home she wanted to go see the cows across the street, and when I wouldn't let her, she decided to nip at my arm. BIG MISTAKE. I chased her around in circles with the leadrope and yelled at her. (If your horse dares to bite or kick at you, kick up a lot of noise and chase them, make them think they're going to die so they'll never think about doing it again. This does not mean you need to beat them though) She hasn't ever nipped at me again or pushed me around, but she does want to go faster than I'm willing to, especially in the beginning. Since I'm uncompromising about speed, I won't let her drag me off, but this means she usually will try to walk ahead of me. I keep the line down to keep her slow and steady, but this started causing another issue where she would come over on me due to the one sided presser. Sometimes I can be a bit slow with coming up with a solution, so I didn't actually think of the correct solution to the issue until a couple walks later. First I tried taking a riding crop, and then a lung whip with me to use the blunt end to press against her shoulder to push her away from me. Neither of those really worked though. (drafts man). Turned out, I didn't need to carry anything else with me. All I needed to do, was take the extra lead rope and swing it up near her head/eye when she invaded my space. It was so simple and worked magically. Now she knows the difference better between slow down pressure and come this way pressure.

So yeah, I take my horse for walks. It shows me holes, it's good for training, and I just plain enjoy it. I'll write more on this subject later including some of the good things I've noticed, and some of the obstacles we've faced.

Until Next Time!