Ground manners! help? (20 characters)?

This will get me thumbs downs, but I have never ever used cross ties in 40 plus years of owning horses. I do not see a purpose to them. Teach your horse to stand, period. Ground tie. I can groom any of our herd of 15 loose in the pasture without a halter. We never tie up a horse to trim feet either. Just hold on to the lead if necessary. Some of ours are done just standing around while we all chat. This takes you just doing it this way so they get acclimated to it. So simple. Horses need to learn to stand tied and there are ways to do that, but for grooming, picking feet, putting on fly masks or spray...I just walk out into a pasture with my bucket of stuff and do it. We have had 3 horses off of the track and I did them the same way. If they don't stand still to start with, halter on, lead rope in motion, disengage hips, shoulders over, move feet. Pretty soon standing still to get groomed is just fine. Same with picking up feet.

He just needs to learn Pulling back won't get him his way! It also may feak him out when he pulls & there is no give When a horse realizes he is tied solid and feels trapped, he panics. His fight-or-flight instinct kicks in and he tries to get away and pulls back. there is tie ring designed to help http://www.horsetackreview.com/article-display/1365.html

All the answers on here have good advice. I had the same problem with my OTTB, He would bite, snap and fidget constantly in the cross ties, refused to stand still for baths, and when we first got him he would paw and kick out. The longer my trainer and I worked with him the better he got. Now he's still a little mouthy, but he stands quietly and is generally alot easier to handle. Because yours figured out that pulling back gets him out, then you should start by tieing him to a post or a tree (the tree of knowlege was a good idea and an example of how to do it safetly) When he begins to stand quitly start grooming him out there. Work your way to cross ties. It'll be slow, but building him up like this should work. And if he manages to bite you hard, or kick you, don't be afraid to smack him. I'm aware that the horse world is fairly devided on that type of correction, but my OTTB wasn't responding to me using any kind of natural horsemanship either, and my trainer got alot farther with one or two well placed smacks and a stern (not angry, stern.) voice than I did. (As with any kind of aid or punishment like this, its good to point out that you smack hard ONCE, only after everything else has failed. The saying in many of the barns I've been to is to Ask politely, ask again, demand, and then use an aid, smack, or whatever else is needed in the situation.) Hope this helps : )

Plenty of turnout 24/7 if possible, lots of exercise, Groom him in his stall with a haynet. You need to be the 1 who works with him as you need him to work with you. Try a Monty Robert's DVD, I have yet to see a horse that doesn't respond to join up. Try to be more patient and willing to try other ways if what you're doing doesn't work. And don't hit him. I agree with Peabee. We do what she does. We don't have cross ties in England anyway. If a horse can't get away it will panic simple. If it is eating in it's stall it will be relaxed so will be much easier to groom it. The horse isn't "being difficult" it is acting on instinct.

Maybe you need to resort to using chains as the cross ties so he cant get loose. They cause the risk of the horse getting hurt, BUT if the horse is smart enough, he'll relise that he can no longer get loose. But i think he will probably pull the nail out of the wall before he flips or gets hurts. I use chains and ive never had any problems. He just has to learn patience.

try using a rope halter with a rope lead rope tied on (no clips as they break) and tie your horse to the sturdiest thing you can find (post or tree) he will pull back a few times but eventually will realize he cant get away and will give to the pressure. once he gets this you can work on the cross tying again

Your horse needs what we call a date with the "tree of knowledge" We do this with all of our horses especially our foals when they are being trained after weaning. Find a nice straight tree that has no branches or nobs in it for quite a distance up. By some chain that will fit around the tree but has some slack that will allow a lead rope through it and secure it about a meter higher then where your horses head would come on the tree. Wrap the tree up in rugs and secure with tape so that your horse can not hurt himself. Tie your horse to the tree on a very very short lead and leave him. You want him short so he can not rear as this is dangerous. He may get down on his front legs. Use a whip to prop him up. He should give up fighting after 10 minutes but leave him there for half an hour and then repeat this a couple of time over the next month. He will learn to stand still and not pull. A horse should be taught to ground tie young and this will do it. It may sound a little unpleasent but all my horses come out of this training method very well and are happy to work with you rather then fight you all of the time. Trust me, some of the biggest well known studs do this method as well.

First off you should make sure the horse is getting exercised often so he isn't so high strung all the time and/or maybe even trying a diet change. If you are able to try tieing him somewhere safe other than the crossties where he can see things around him and if he starts freaking out and pulling he will get over it within a few minutes once he realizes he isn't going anywhere. Make sure when he is behaving that he is getting rewarded with praise or treats. You can slowly start introducing him to the crossties by just having him stand in there not tied for however long he needs until he is comfortable in there then start with one tie and eventually the other. You could try distracting him with treats while he stands in the crossties. Bribes aren't always a bad thing =) Good luck!

***before doing this make sure the cross ties are safe enough so that your horse wont get caught or hurt in anyway *** #1: walk him around the paddock and show him there is now crazy kids running around #2:tie him up at the cross ties and leave him there until he realizes that thrashing around isn't gunna do anything. Walk away and leave him there until he stops,#3: then go (when he stops) and praise him and continue with your normal routine.#4: If he starts to do it again leave him again until her stops. Just me, but you should probably see if he has any skin problems since he doesn't like brushes. If not you should probably train him to accept normal brushes.