Horse Treat Debate.
Those of you who know us know how much we love our horses. We probably bore you to tears talking about them individually and their personalities. We know just what each horse likes best, Moon loves his peppermint treats, (that's peppermint, not spearmint, mind you!) Lady hates carrots, but loves most sweet treats, Maverick eats anything, Pharaoh likes carrtos and apples, Tigger loves Mrs. Patures horse cookies.
But you know all that. The question today is how best to give out the horse treats. As we all know, every minute spent with your horse is training, and that goes for treats as well. For the most part, we feed the horses treats right from our hands, (unless they each get a bucket with some grain.)
We have two trainers who are divided on this issue. One trainer insists that we should never feed treats from our hands--reasoning that the horses won't respect us if we don't use buckets. Another says it's just fine to hand out treats. We really like both of these trainers, and find that they agree on most other issues.
We should probably note that all of our horses have very nice ground manners. They're polite, don't try to push us around or run over anybody. When they're in the pasture we walk right up to them and catch them, with no grain. So, we're asking the question....what's the best way to give out treats?
Shelly (mom)
10 Comments
Reader Comments (10)
In my opinion there are a ton of "horse people" and "trainers" out there that know very little about the true nature of the horse. In fact, I know champion riders who know a lot about jumping, barrel racing, you name it - but they don't know squat about horse psychology.
A true horseman knows about horse psychology - and I have yet to meet a true horse psychology knowing horseman who says never hand feed your horse. This is because they understand the real issue is respect - not nipping for treats.
I would bet Transylvanian Horseman's conjecture on litigation is pretty right on too...
Of the two horses I've owned, one is fine with hand-feeding, the other you were likely to lose a finger or be trampled. As a rescue horse, anything food related was pretty intense.
But I can see a trainer's point of view if it's based on in owners that "spoil" horses. By "spoil" I mean allow them to be pushy, It's hard enough to fix that pushy horse with the owner in the picture without the owner adding treats to the mix. But that's about the only reason I can think of why an owner shouldn't be allowed to feed a horse treats.
Our first mustang was horribly oral. She'd come from a home that knew nothing about horses and they'd feed her from their hand. She began taking anything they had from them, whenever they were near, and biting if they didn't have anything to offer. She was definitely not a horse you'd want to hand feed.
I've got two other mustangs right now; one has a tendencey to be oral and a bit feed aggressive. Hand feeding is a no-no for her. The other is not aggressive in the least, and hand feeding is the only method of gentling her, so she gets treats whenever she's brave enough to take them =)