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Building A Better Relationship: Pawing

…a foot when you are around him or when you ask him to. Your horse should not be moving at all when you groom him and if he is, it is an indication that he has poor ground manners, is disobedient and does not think of you as his leader….

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To Buy Or Not To Buy

…from the pasture or stall. Red flag: When you drive up, the horse is already tacked up and sweaty; this can mean the handler has worked off the horse’s excess energy for a calmer ride.

Ground manners. Watch the horse as he’s caught, led, groomed, saddled, and bridled. Observe…

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Issues From The Ground: Why Won’t My Horse Listen To Me?

…you review my groundwork videos again—with your recently gained experience you may get more out of them now. It is a proven formula for success and I guarantee you it will work, if you do it right, for teaching your horse to respect your authority, to have good ground manners

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Building A Better Relationship: Training And Learning Natural Horsemanship

…ground will carry over to your riding as well. If you can only buy one of the groundwork dvds, Lead Line Leadership would be most beneficial for you, because it involves your routine, day-to-day handling of the horse and instilling good ground manners; Round Pen Reasoning is important too and…

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Issues From The Ground: Colt Kicks And Rears While Leading

…of info on my website on the subject of unruly colts and of teaching a horse good ground manners. However, you may need to get some expert help, so this bad behavior does not continue and so that no one gets hurt. Good luck and be careful!

JG

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Horse Behavior: Mutual Grooming

…I would prefer to put a halter and lead on my horse and either ground tie or hard tie her so that I can take control of her if needed, to remind her of her ground manners.

As an example, a friend of mine liked to go in his…

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Don’t Spoil Colts

…the child if they are ill-mannered and misbehaving—you always have to look to the parents. This filly had no ground manners only because no one had taken the time to teach them to her.

Using the techniques I detail on my Lead Line Leadership video, I showed Pamela some…

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Leadership And Authority

…that many “problems” with horses are actually caused by a lack of leadership and authority on the part of the owners. Herd-bound, barn-sour, spooking, disobedience, poor ground manners, bucking, rearing, balking, refusals are all faults we may attribute to the horse when in fact, they are more likely attributable to…

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The Great Escape

…nose slightly turned toward me, whether I was leading or longeing or doing anything else. Of course, going back and doing some groundwork with Cosmo and teaching him good ground manners would be a good start. Erika left the shoot with a copy of my video on ground manners, Lead…

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Integrating New Horses Into Lesson Programs: Q And A

…to assess the horse’s individual quirks, to learn its strengths and weaknesses and to make sure the horse is suitable for your program.

Consider the horse’s ground manners and work with the horse to make sure they are solid. Stands quietly, keeps its nose where it belongs (in front…

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Ponying With Confidence

Simply put, ponying means to lead a horse alongside the horse you’re riding. On the trail, the task comes in handy when you’re training a new horse and helping him get used to obstacles and familiarizing him with the trail. When a horse follows another horse, his natural herd

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Does The Lead Horse Participate In Mutual Grooming?

…has to be strictly reinforced. I would prefer to put a halter and lead on my horse and either ground tie or hard tie her so that I can take control of her if needed, to remind her of her ground manners.

As an example, a friend of mine…

April 2020 Horse Report

…front of the camera.

In order to mix it up a little and to produce some real-time training content, we’ve been using Woodrow for ground manners lessons. He’s a 3 year-old QH gelding that belongs to my barn manager and assistant trainer, Melissa. He’s quite a character, he’s very…

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A Smile In The Face Of Adversity

…over the weekend on topics including riding better, building confidence, horse behavior, ground manners, canter leads and even one about riding challenging and difficult horses. Needless to say, it was the latter topic that got interesting. Actually, it was a good clinic, with several horses and their riders that were…

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Talk About Tack: Rope Halter — Do’s And Dont’s

…Of course, the real benefit from rope halters is in the training techniques you use ot teach your horse obedience and ground manners. Once you invest in a good rope halter and training lead, use my video, Leadline Leadership, to learn specific training techniques and exercises to teach your horse…

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Issues From The Saddle: Parrot-Mouthed Bucker

…would look at the horse’s groundwork. Is he respectful and obedient with good ground manners? If not, you need to spend some time training him to be in that frame of mind. In my experience, when a horse is respectful and obedient on the ground, the saddle training is easy….

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Building A Better Relationship: My horse Is Distracted By Other Horses

…Horses must learn that when they are around humans, there are certain rules that must be followed, just like there are expected rules of behavior out in the herd.

There are many articles on my website about doing ground work with horses to teach ground manners, obedience, fundamental rules…

Helping Horses in Need—It Takes a Village

…my barn for foster training.

Once here, we will evaluate his training and temperament, then make plans to fill in the holes in his ground manners and start his under-saddle training. Once he is more manageable and rideable, he may go to a foster home as an intermediate step,…

Horse Master Memories

…show. Did you ever hear of a mule kick? You can see it in real-life action in this episode. It was supposed to be about bad ground manners, but this mule took one look at the cameras and the set, and suddenly she had perfect ground manners. Moving on to…

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Off To A Good Start

…of behavior (respect my space at all times, follow my lead, stop when I stop and stand still when I ask) and you correct him 100% of the time he makes an infraction, he will learn these important ground manners quickly. Also, any time any part of his body moves…

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Past Performance is No Guarantee of Future Success

Anyone who has ever invested in the stock market has seen this disclaimer: Past performance is no guarantee of future success. Yet when we invest our resources into a well-trained horse, we expect a guarantee that the way he is today, in his current reality, is the way he

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Horse Behavior: Quiz: Is Natural Horsemanship Right For Your Horse?

…showing him his boundaries, your horse will learn and accept many important ground manners and will learn to follow your every action and movement. You’ll learn to control the horse’s entire body: his feet, his nose, his shoulder, and his hip. In the third article in this series, I’ll explain…

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Establishing Dominance

…interested in improving your leadership to the horse, with the added bonus of teaching your horse good ground manners, to respect you and want to please you, you must learn to set boundaries and enforce good behavior. There are articles on my website about doing this kind of ground work…

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Burned Out

…time in my NARHA presentation just teaching simple ground manners to the horses (and teaching the handlers what to do and what not to do). A horse doesn’t automatically respect you, trust you or accept your authority over all things unless you earn it. And if everyone knew how to…

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The Great Escape

…and although Cosmo was very naughty—terrible ground manners and would jerk the rope out of your hands and run off when he didn’t want to do something—he definitely did not have the look of a “bad” tempered horse.

The other interesting part of this particular horse puzzle was that…

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Burn Out In Therapy Horses

…your horse and he respects your leadership; otherwise, when you step back or loosen up, he just does whatever he wants. I have written a lot about this subject—it’s all over my Training Library—and I spent a lot of time in my NARHA presentation just teaching simple ground manners to…

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Home From The Oregon Horse Master Shoot

…the path of least resistance, they take it.

I showed Clare how to correct his ground manners and develop a larger perimeter of space around her so that the big Lug, uh, Lux isn’t walking all over her. Clare turned out to be an exceptional student and absorbed what…

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When To Geld My Colt

…begin his training for ground manners.

No matter when I gelded him, I would want my young colt to be out with other horses for the socialization that will take place—there is an article in my Training Library about this, http://juliegoodnight.com/questionsNew.php?id=37. Even if you left him a stallion,…

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Issues From The Saddle: Good On Trail, Bad In The Arena

Question Category: Issues from the Saddle

Question: Dear Julie,

I recently purchased my second horse, a twelve-year-old gelding. He has impeccable ground manners and is a pleasure to ride on trails but as soon as you get him in an arena it’s a disaster. He is unmanageable

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Trailering Issues

…a disrespectful ground manners issue that was separate from the loading problem, but it made loading difficult and nearly impossible. I had to escalate my training cues and the mental pressure the horse felt. With some groundwork training done first, it was a short time before the horse was walking…

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Starting Over With A Fractious Horse

…horses figure out the path of least resistance, they take it.

I showed Clare how to correct his ground manners and develop a larger perimeter of space around her so that the big Lug, uh, Lux isn’t walking all over her. Clare turned out to be an exceptional student…

Ride On with Julie Goodnight: Enjoy the Ride.

Ride On with Julie Goodnight

About Ride On with Julie Goodnight

In every episode, I’ll share insight on training topics from ground manners to lead changes, horse behavior or riding tips. 

Listen anytime as you ride, or on your

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Cantering Help: Training Young Horses To Lope

…the road). I do have an arena that I can ride in. My question is what steps do you take when training a young horse. He’s such a good-natured horse; I plan on keeping him as long as he lives. But I want him to have ground manners and good…

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How Do Rope Halters Work?

…from rope halters is in the training techniques you use to teach your horse obedience and ground manners. Once you invest in a good rope halter and training lead, use my video, Leadline Leadership, to learn specific training techniques and exercises to teach your horse to stand quietly, walk and…

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Are Mules More Difficult Than Horses?

…cues for mules as I did for horses. But I learned with mules to avoid repetition and keep the work sessions purposeful. Because mules may learn a little faster than some horses, you must be very careful that bad habits do not develop in his ground manners and over-all obedience….

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Catching Your Horse From Pen Or Pasture

…with his halter. Keep repeating the process. It will work.

If your horse has been difficult to catch, he may be exhibiting other disrespectful behaviors, too. To learn how to teach your horse other important ground manners, check out the DVD, Lead Line Leadership and other training tools at…

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Jealous Colt

…consistent discipline. My DVD called Lead Line Leadership will show you how to take a horse, young or old, through a systematic process that teaches him good ground manners and to respect your space and authority. Good luck with your colt! JG

Until next time,

Julie Goodnight www.juliegoodnight.com

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When To Geld Colt

…them and we’ll generally follow-up the surgery with lots of groundwork and exercise to help in the healing and begin his training for ground manners.

No matter when I gelded him, I would want my young colt to be out with other horses for the socialization that will…

Horse Master with Julie Goodnight, The Final Chapter

…common challenges horse owners face:

32 were on advancing riding skills—improve the rider so the horse can do his job 24 on were leadership (human) and ground manners (horse) 21 featured spoiled, tantrum throwing horses (always the fault of humans) 21 about riding the canter 18 were about spooky horses…

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Building A Better Relationship: My horse Takes Advantage Of Me

ground manners, does he stand quietly and obediently and lead well and move out of your space or does he bump into you and rub his head on you, etc.? These are all symptoms that the horse has not truly accepted you as his leader.

So you need to…