This question was sent into me by Marie from Australia. It shows the way that I would use a rope to hold a horses leg up while teaching a horse to bow. In the DVD ‘Teaching Your Horse To Bow‘ which is an hour long and covers the process in detail I use the saddle to demonstrated. Also in that video I use four different horses to show how to begin with one that has never done it and progress.
The interesting part about this video to me is the theory that I talk about after he bows quickly the first time and I am waiting for him to figure it out the second time. Did you see how long I was willing to wait? I was confident that standing on three legs would eventually motivate him. Do you understand how allowing him that time to think will make the training stronger?
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I’ve just barely started working with my horse on this four days ago and have been using this method the past two days. At first I was using treats for the first two days and he would put his head down following the treat but I realized I didn’t want him nipping for his “reward”. Now with using the rope, he stands for a while and then starts to hop around and slightly panic. How should I go about this? Any help is greatly appreciated!
YOU ARE THE MOST AWESOME PERSON IN THE WORLD! SOMEDAY I WILL TRAVEL TO OHIO TO MEET YOU.
I can’t wait to hear all about Australia too. I have a training question for you but can wait for an answer till you get back. Ever since our clinic in Colorado I find myself saying, “What would Stacy do?” Have a safe trip and journey home. Thanks for the bowing help.
This was so helpful!!!! Louie and I have been stuck in the same place with our bow for about a week. …ive been working on it for almost 3 weeks on and off now. I didnt think about waiting on him! I tried it today and he bowed on his own after about 2 min! Then after that it only took about a min for him to decide to bow. 🙂 Hopefully it wont be long now until he is bowing without much encouragment from me. 🙂
Thanks Stac!!
So glad it helped! Emmie, you and Mike should see Australia-it is beautiful and the expo is ….a lot like the ones at home!
I can’t wait to see pictures and hear all about Australia!!! 🙂 I bet you guys are having a blast!! 🙂
Where can i find youre dvd? i live in Sweden, do i have to order it from USA then?
Yes, at this time ordering from the USA is the only option. http://www.stacywestfall.com
I’ve been wanting to teach my mare to bow. But I didn’t know exactly how to go about at doing it. And I tried looking up ways other people have done it but the only videos I seem to find are of horses that are ALREADY trained to do it. So they don’t show how to start out. This video was very helpful. And I like the idea of being patient and allowing the horse to make the decision to go down rather than “putting him into the bowing position.”
The ‘Teaching your horse to Bow’ DVD is an hour long and uses 4 horses. Shows even more! Glad this helped.
And its only $19.99! 🙂 Nifty!
I mare will bow on command but the problem I have is once she bows she gets right up again and doesn’t wait for my “get up” cluck. I don’t know how to keep her in the bow longer.
Most of mine bow naturally to get to the spilled grain under the feeder. I’ve not worked on getting them to bow on command yet because I still have a problem that when I’m trying to pick up their feet to clean or trim, they try to bow. I’m trying to get a way to differentiate when I just want a foot from when I want a bow.
Dennis