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8/30/06: My horse is never hard to catch, or overly nervous, but he snorts; a sound I have NEVER heard from a gelding. We have all kinds of wildlife around the farm. Sometimes we ride in a group and he sounds off and gathers all riders' attention. What is he trying to say?

8/23/06: What are your views on the suitability of Miniature horses for guiding the blind?

8/16/06: I purchased your book last week and am pleased that I have already learned some of your good horse sense through trial and error myself. A very inspiring read for a horse lover. I grew up a farm kid in a beautiful part of Saskatchewan. There was, and still is, lots of unspoiled room to ride, and I had the good fortune to have a horse while growing up. However, there is a lot of wisdom for me to gain yet. I have always wondered about an animal's language as well. I knew there was one, but I couldn't translate much of it. Is there more?

8/09/06: My horse is very cinchy... she starts wiggling immediately when you bend down to get the cinch. When you tighten the cinch she rears up, and if the rope breaks she falls back. I am concerned she is going to hurt herself or me. I know it is from someone traumatizing her prior to me, but how do I fix it? I tried cinching from other side and that worked for only one day.

8/02/06: I am not able to send my horse off in lunging or round penning. When I ask him to start off with the rope or the whip pointed toward him he simply turns and ignores any thing I ask. He will turn and kick with both feet. He is not responsive to any stimuli at all. I would like to get your suggestions for a different approach to get this horse to move without kicking.

Answers to August 2006 Ask Monty Questions

Question: My horse is never hard to catch, or overly nervous, but he snorts; a sound I have NEVER heard from a gelding. We have all kinds of wildlife around the farm. Sometimes we ride in a group and he sounds off and gathers all riders' attention. What is he trying to say?

Monty's Answer: I have a very strong idea of what he is trying to say. I believe that I covered this subject in my textbook From My Hands To Yours. On the chance that you read that book finding that it was not included, I will answer it here.

Horses have essentially the same senses as we humans; sight, taste, touch, hearing and smell. The act of smelling is to literally inhale particles of a given substance. We pass those particles over what is known as the olfactory plate. These microscopic portions of the substance involved, strike the plate giving off the essence of the substance involved.

Once the particles come in contact with the olfactory plate, then our brain kicks in to determine what the substance actually is. We can certainly identify such pungent substances as lemon, vinegar, and many foods that we have come to know. Horses conduct the same test as human beings in this area of olfactory exploration.

Horses have an ability to smell many times greater than that of a human being. While they may be less sensitive than a blood hound it remains absolutely incredible how sensitive a horse’s sense of smell really is. We humans find it difficult to imagine the awesome abilities of certain animals to smell with sensitivity unimaginable in our world.

When a horse senses danger, there is a tendency for them to clear off the olfactory plate as it may be coated with several layers of smells. One of the processes of accomplishing this task is to blow air across the olfactory plate in such a way that it produces a snorting sound. Some horses are louder and more expressive in this tendency. Usually the wilder they are, the louder they are.

The aura of particles that are secreted from the biological realm of reproductive activity are sometimes met with the act of a horse curling the upper lip up and blowing through the nose, clearing out the olfactory system. While this is essentially for the same purpose, the fear of confronting a predator will usually get you the snort and not the lip curling.

It is probably fair to say that when a horse snorts he is saying “I need to get to know that smell better. I must learn who has produced that smell. It seems like a predator to me and I must investigate thoroughly before allowing this individual to get any closer.”

-Monty

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Question: What are your views on the suitability of Miniature horses for guiding the blind?

Monty's Answer: One must recognize that I am not a therapist in this area. One must understand that I do not work with guide dogs. I sit as an interested observer. I have worked with seizure alert dogs and found them to be incredibly effective. While I have used miniature horses in some of my Corporate Events and seen them being used as assistance animals, I am not fully aware of their value in terms of their value in guiding the blind. I am in favor of using horses wherever we can as therapy animals for many purposes. It is my recommendation to use the internet to discover doctors and other therapists that are fully educated in the area of guide horses for the blind.

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Question: I purchased your book last week and am pleased that I have already learned some of your good horse sense through trial and error myself. A very inspiring read for a horse lover. I grew up a farm kid in a beautiful part of Saskatchewan. There was, and still is, lots of unspoiled room to ride, and I had the good fortune to have a horse while growing up. However, there is a lot of wisdom for me to gain yet. I have always wondered about an animal's language as well. I knew there was one, but I couldn't translate much of it. Is there more?

Monty's Answer: I have comprehensively outlined the language Equus as I know it in my textbook From My Hands To Yours: Lessons From a Lifetime of Training Championship Horses. It is a long process for me to prove to myself and to be satisfied that when I identify a definition, that it is true and demonstrable. I am not fully satisfied that I have any further gesture identification to add to what is included in the book to date.

I applaud you for continuing to investigate the potential to identify further gestures and their appropriate meaning.

It is my hope that one day I would be able to witness your work and assess your findings. Please continue to explore. It is fun and who knows what you might discover.

-Monty

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Question: My horse is very cinchy... she starts wiggling immediately when you bend down to get the cinch. When you tighten the cinch she rears up, and if the rope breaks she falls back. I am concerned she is going to hurt herself or me. I know it is from someone traumatizing her prior to me, but how do I fix it? I tried cinching from other side and that worked for only one day.

Monty's Answer: The following is my recommendation for dealing with the condition already in place. With your horse in a box stall of at least 12 by 12 feet (4 by 4 meters), put a substantial stable blanket on him, and fasten all of the belts and buckles. Over the blanket in the area of the heart-girth, place an elastic over-girth. I prefer the type with a breastcollar. These over-girths can be purchased at a good tack shop and are generally about 4 inches (10 cm) in width, and easily stretched by the human hand. Place the breastcollar appropriately, and buckle up the elastic over-girth so it is just touching the skin. Allow your horse a few minutes in the box stall to become accustomed to the over-girth, and then tighten a notch or two so it begins to stretch the elastic material.

This girth is easily expandable and the horse usually does not react to it as violently as he would a less forgiving cinch or girth. You should continue to tighten periodically until you have stretched the girth to snugly encircle the heart-girth area of the horse. It is appropriate to allow him to carry this apparatus around the box stall for up to three or four hours. Usually, within two or three days of this treatment, your horse will accept the elastic over-girth without a cinch-bound response. When your horse is comfortable, you can go to the next step in the process.

Once your horse can take the light, elastic girth relatively snug from the outset of the day, you can remove the blanket and allow the girth to come directly against his skin. Usually, this will not be of great concern to your horse. When this is accepted, initiate a pattern of putting the elastic girth on about one-half hour before the time you intend to saddle your horse. Most cinch-bound horses will then take the girth or cinch quite comfortably if you tighten gradually over a period of five to ten minutes. If your horse is more severely ­affected, simply extend the time of each of these procedures until your horse is comfortable. Most cinch-bound horses will be relatively free of this anxiety within a month or so if you are diligent about following these procedures to the letter.

Monty’s Points

• Cinch-bound might be genetically influenced.
• Sensitive skin might play a role in causing a cinch-bound syndrome.
• Cinch-bound horses are usually caused by people.
• Handlers should use clean, appropriate equipment.
• Being in a hurry is often the cause of cinch-bound.
• Use a light, elastic over-girth.
• Follow the corrective procedures to the letter.

Please do not tie up when you saddle your horse. For more help, see my chapter 9 in the From My Hands to Yours textbook for the Pull-Back horse recommendations and be sure to get my Fix-Up DVD.

Question: I am not able to send my horse off in lunging or round penning. When I ask him to start off with the rope or the whip pointed toward him he simply turns and ignores any thing I ask. He will turn and kick with both feet. He is not responsive to any stimuli at all. I would like to get your suggestions for a different approach to get this horse to move without kicking.

-Monty

(see more questions)

Monty's Answer: Obviously anytime a horse is kicking at you it is a dangerous scenario and never should be taken lightly. I have discovered over the years since my first book that many horses exhibit this tendency. It was and still is a surprise to me that this pattern of behavior exists in the numbers which are reported to me. I have worked with tens of thousands of horses in my career and I cannot remember one horse that wouldn’t go away from me until I began to accept remedial horses from the body of people who brought me horse for my demonstrations.

What they did to cause a horse to act in this way is obviously not clear to me in certain terms. Most horses exhibiting this behavior will tell me in some way that they have been whipped. In structuring your question you used the word whip. That opens the door for me to speculate that the horse has been struck with the whip. In the early days of creating trained horses for the movies it was common to utilize a phenomenon known as whip breaking. This, in a nutshell, means that when the horse goes away from you, you whip it. When it doesn’t go away you stop the whipping. They will soon learn to come back to you and into the whip rather than flee from it. While I am not suggesting to you that this is what happened where this horse is concerned, I am suggesting that this happens with regularity worldwide.

Once a horse has acquired the habit of refusing to go away and then kicking out at the handler it is virtually impossible to cause them to forget how to do this. It is critical, first of all, to remove all whips from the horse’s presence and cease administering pain of any sort in an attempt to overcome the problem. Let’s just suppose that the horse had never been trained with pain at any time but it still refused to go away. We would still be faced with the same behavior to deal with. The procedures to create a solution would be the same. I often recommend that horsemen dealing with this problem first learn to longeline with horses that are well trained and cooperative. Once a high level of proficiency has been achieved then one could place the longelines on the horse in question. With the longelines in place one can usually send the horse away affectively with the off line. I have even placed small plastic bags on the line about six feet behind the horse. I attach them with a rubber band so that they will come off if the horse goes ballistic.

One should take great care to reward the horse for forward motion by stopping the animal when the motion is free and working the animal twisting and turning when there is a low level of generosity. If a horse continues to refuse after utilizing these methods then I suggest that the horse be schooled to the Dually Halter for several days. Once he will come up off the Dually halter and lead forward without hesitation then the horseman can replace the longelines and put a horse and rider out in front of him. Using the techniques of the Dually halter, one would lead the horse forward at a walk, trot and canter while another handler is driving on the longelines. Once a horse has acquired these behavioral techniques and found success with them it is extremely difficult to ever achieve a willing and generous worker. These are however my recommendations and I have utilized them with success.

The concepts recommended in this answer are explained in full when you combine my textbook From My Hands To Yours with the Join-Up® DVD.

-Monty

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