Equine Vocalization 1: Whinny

whin•ny; /(h)win/

a loud, high-pitched neigh.

What it is: The vocalization of a whinny is a horse’s social call. In the wild, the whinny is how horses find one another. Each horse has a unique whinny that you (and other horses) can tell apart.

What it Means: This call means, “Where are my friends?” Or, “Who is willing to be my friend?” The horse is lonely and looking for a herd he knows or any horse that is willing to be a herd with him.

How to Respond: He’s feeling insecure, so don’t punish him. It’s common for horse handlers to feel embarrassed or frustrated when their horses are whinnying constantly. Resist your frustration and calmly ask the horse to work. Here’s how:

1. In the moment that your horse is whinnying, put him to work and engage him in an activity, so he has something to focus on. Keep his mind engaged in a positive and effective way. Don’t be harsh or rushed, but provide direction.

2. Ask your horse to turn right, turn left, back up. Provide kind and constant direction until he focuses his attention on you. Once he relaxes, allow him to rest. If he whinnies again, repeat.

3. If you can get your horse to feel the same sense of comfort he feels with the herd, then he won’t feel alone anymore. As you build your relationship over time, the horse will feel safe and no longer need to whinny when he is with you.

Vocalization 2: Nicker

nick•er; /nikr/
a soft, low, breathy whinny.

What it is: The soft purring sound your horse makes implies “Come to me.” It can also mean “Look at me” when a stallion is showing off to a mare.

What it Means: It’s most purposeful between a mare and foal; if the foal wanders off, the mare will nicker to the youngster to call him back. It’s also the sound you hear each day at feeding time which translates to “Come bring me the food.”

How to Respond: When a horse in a wild herd orders around another horse and takes away food, he is the dominant horse. If your horse nickers at you to ask for individual treats, he may think he’s dominant, and that can impact all aspects of your relationship. Here’s what to do:

1. Don’t let the nicker be a signal that you should go give your horse extra food or a treat.

2. If the nicker only happens when you’re feeding all the horses at a regular feeding time, that’s acceptable.

3. Don’t feed a horse in the moment that he is showing aggressive behavior. Wait for him to calm down and only feed when he is calm—even if it’s just for a moment.

Vocalization 3: Snort

snort; /snrt/

an explosive sound made by the sudden forcing of breath through the nose.

What it is: A horse’s snort is an alarm. If a horse does it and holds his head high, he has detected a threat.

What it Means:  When extremely alarmed, the horse may add a rattling sound to the snort, or he may just blow as a milder warning. The snort may also be used during play; when he wants to practice his flight response, he’ll often snort first, and then run. You may hear your horse snort on a trail ride if he detects a strange scent. Here, in the Rocky Mountains, the horses will often snort when we approach elk on the trail.

How to Respond: If you hear a horse snort, stop and make an assessment. It could be one of two things:

1. Look where the snorting horse is looking. There may be something in the distance that is a legitimate threat, or it could be that the horse is fearful of something benign.

2. The horse could be snorting at you if you’re doing new groundwork or establishing boundaries with a previously unhandled horse. The horse needs to have some deference for the handler (and he will come to trust you in time). However, remember that a snorting horse is feeling threatened and may be willing to act out.

(Editor’s Note: This abrupt type of alarm snort is different from the relaxed snorting that is associated with horses in a contented state. Read more about the meaning of horse snorts here.)

Equine Vocalization 4: Squeal

squeal; skwl

a long, high-pitched cry or noise.

What it is: Most often heard from mares, but any horse may squeal. When horses squeal, it is usually a warning of horse-on-horse violence.

What it Means: A mare will squeal to repel the advances of a stallion, but it may also indicate two horses meeting for the first time. They will sniff one another, then one will squeal as a threat of aggression. Often one horse will back down after a squeal, but if they both remain engaged, a strike or kick can come next. If a person is in the middle of horses as they become aggressive, it can be very dangerous.

How to Respond:

1. Make sure to get any people away from horses that are squealing.

2. If horses are loose in a field and getting used to one another and you hear squealing, you don’t have to break it up, but it’s a good idea to supervise.

3. Evaluate the situation, use your best judgment, and make sure that all horses and people are safe.

Key Takeaways

In this article, you’ve learned about horse sounds and vocalizations, including the whinny, nicker, snort, and squeal, as well as what each sound is, what it means, and how to respond.

This article about equine vocalizations originally appeared in the July 2017 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

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Seeking the Release

This quick learning also applies when horses are under saddle. A horse feels the slightest rein and body cues from his rider, and knows if there’s a benefit to responding right away. Responding to a cue means that the horse should feel a release from bit or leg pressure. The cue is applied (as pressure) then must be immediately released (stopping pressure) when the horse does what was asked. Horses seek the release.

Sometimes, horses learn what we humans think is the wrong answer. If your horse is taking a long time to learn a new skill, pause and think through what he’s doing instead of what you want.

The way he’s acting is the way he feels safe and at ease; it’s what he’s motivated to do. Your horse may teach you that you need to try a new cue or improve your timing of the release.

If your horse has had long-term success doing what you deem the wrong behavior, it may take a new strategy and increased pressure (mental or physical) to motivate him to change his ways. For instance, if a horse has received a benefit from acting up or holding his head too high, he has been programmed over time to think that’s the right thing to do.

We have to be smart to figure out what we can do to teach the horse that the “right” answer is easiest to do.

High-Headed

Recently, a student was frustrated after working hard to teach her horse to ride with a low head position. No matter what she did, the horse had a high head carriage. The rider said she had been working on this skill for a long time, and nothing seemed to change.

The rider was working too hard to teach the horse to carry his head lower. The horse felt her constant rein cues to lower his head, but he was never rewarded when he started to lower his head or change his position.

Horses learn from the release of pressure. We call this kind of training “negative reinforcement.” It’s a confusing term because “negative” doesn’t mean pain or punishment like most people think. Instead, it refers to the absence of pressure—the release. Think of the term “negative space” in art. It simply means that there’s nothing there.

To train with negative reinforcement, you apply pressure in the form of a cue, wait for the horse’s response, then immediately release the pressure when the horse begins his response.

You must reward the horse for even the slightest effort. Many times riders get caught in a struggle because they wait for the horse to do a perfect movement before releasing pressure. But since the horse learns from the release, noticing and responding to the slightest try will help the horse learn more quickly.

Know When to Release

In the case of the rider who wanted to teach her horse to lower his head, she applied rein cues (squeezing gently with each stride of the horse’s trot) but never stopped cueing when the horse started to lower his head. Instead, he could only get away from her constant bit pressure when he raised his head up.

He felt a release from pressure by raising his head because it shortened the distance from the rider’s hands to the bit and gave him a place to feel relief. It wasn’t the right answer for the rider, but the horse had learned what felt best for him.

To change this behavior, the horse had to learn that there could be a release when his head was down. The release had to be dramatic and given at the moment his head lowered even an inch.

When the horse lowered his head, I stopped rein pressure and loosened the reins to show him what I thought the right answer should be. With good timing and an obvious release, the horse learned a new answer in about 15 minutes.

Timing is Everything

Not only does the horse need to feel a release to learn, he needs to feel the release at the exact moment he makes the move you want.

A high-headed horse may carry his nose in the air all the time. If he accidentally lowers his head (to cough or scratch an itch) and the rider’s timing is spot on to notice the head position and release rein pressure, the horse can quickly learn that there was a release at a new head-holding position. If he got the release immediately, he will try for a release in the new position again.

For horses to learn as fast as possible, the release of the cue (or the application of pressure, depending on what you’re teaching) must come within three seconds of the horse’s behavior. While you have a three-second window to teach your horse, the faster you can be within those three seconds will help the horse learn faster.

The goal is to make the correction or release pressure within a half-second.

The goal is to make the correction or release pressure within a half-second. The horse will associate his behavior with your reaction and learn at the fastest rate if you are speedy with your release.

Master trainers have the half-second timing down. It can be tough to learn to respond that quickly, but it is possible. Your horse will still learn if your response is within the three-second window, it will just take more time.

The more you pay attention to what you’re teaching and when your horse is getting a release, the better teacher you will be—and you’ll quickly see just how fast-learning your horse can be.

This article originally appeared in the December 2017 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

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When you train a horse, it’s all about making him feel comfortable when he does the right thing and less so when he does the wrong thing.

That training philosophy is based on the horse’s motivation.

Horses aren’t motivated by food, but rather by the need for comfort and safety. They comfort each other with activities such as mutual grooming and swishing flies away from each other. Horses feel safe when they are together—there is safety in numbers for prey animals. No horse can be hypervigilant all the time, so being in a group means someone can always keep watch.

You want your horse to want to look to you for comfort and safety. When you have the skill to convert his desire to be part of the herd to instead be part of your herd, you can train him to do amazing things.

Motivation Frustration

How can a horse’s motivation cause training issues? Consider this scenario: A rider is fearful of cantering but desperately wants to ride the faster gait. She cues the horse to canter, then tenses up when she feels the horse’s back round beneath her. She’s worried that the horse is going to buck.

The horse often does hump his back and kick out or crow hop. The rider immediately stops the horse. She feels she needs to regroup before asking for the canter again. The horse gets to stop as she regroups. Then she asks the horse to move forward and cues for the canter again. He bucks. She stops.

This buck-then-stop pattern repeats and even gets worse, because the horse is motivated by comfort. He is more comfortable when he gets to stop (a great reward), so he’s found a behavior that allows him to get out of work.

Many problem behaviors that horses have begin because the horse gets to rest after doing what we humans consider to be bad behavior. This same cause and effect pattern occurs when a lazy horse is asked to canter. He’ll willingly step into the gait for five or six strides then slow down to a trot. In most instances, the rider simply cues the horse to canter once again—without a penalty or admonishment. He complies with the cue and the pattern continues. The horse is motivated to break gait because his reward is to get to slow down, even if just for a few strides.

While your horse may not be motivated to work hard, you want to accomplish your riding goals. So how do you motivate your horse to do the activities you’d like to do? By making him comfortable when he’s doing what you’d like and uncomfortable when he’s not.

That means there must be a penalty if he takes a break on his own. He must learn to keep doing what he was asked until he’s asked to do something different.

Fixing the Bucker

Do your best to align your horse’s motivation for comfort with something that you deem is right. If you want your horse to act a certain way, make him more comfortable doing that task than doing what he has learned will bring him rest.

In the case of the horse that bucks at the canter cue or breaks gait at the canter, the solution is the same: The horse needs to immediately be cued to move more forward.

A horse is not being obedient unless he moves forward at your request. In the case of the bucking horse, I don’t want to make the situation worse with an angry response. Instead, I’ll just drive the horse forward.

If he bucks or I feel a hump in his back, I’ll cue him on and gallop. I’ll only cue him to stop when I feel him relax his back and move freely forward. By making him work harder when he is resistant and rest when he is willing, it will motivate him to do as I’ve asked—and to know that a break is coming when he’s compliant, not when he bucks or tenses in preparation.

Retraining the Stopper

If the horse is lazy and doesn’t want to canter, he breaks into the trot and therefore benefits. Horses that do this are often well-trained, sweet and kind horses that have learned they can get away with this. They don’t know that they’re doing something wrong.

The horse only has to benefit for a second to perceive a reward. If the rider didn’t admonish him—even by verbally hissing or scolding him—he has no reason to change his ways.

Immediately upon breaking gait, there must be a consequence. I’ll scold with my voice by saying, “Hey, come on!” or I’ll pick up the end of reins and threaten to spank him. I don’t usually need to touch a horse; often just the thought of a spanking is enough to remind him of what you are asking. I’m not talking about hitting or harming—just letting the horse know that you disapprove of breaking gait.

Horses want to be good; they want to please. However, they must know what the right thing is, otherwise they’ll seek out what is best for them and learn clever tricks to get out of work.

Think about what is motivating your horse when he is acting a way that you don’t like. When you figure out what his motivations are, you’ll be able to replace the way he is finding comfort with a way that you can provide comfort.

JULIE GOODNIGHT shares her lessons on her RFD-TV show, Horse Master (also online at tv.juliegoodnight.com), and through clinics and expos. HEIDI MELOCCO (www.whole-picture.com) is a lifelong horsewoman, equine journalist, and photographer.

This article originally appeared in the September 2017 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

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You’ve heard horses labeled herd bound, gate sour, herd sour or barn sour. These terms sound like afflictions. But when we see these behaviors, it is simply because horses are drawn to others.

Horses seek out other horses because of their gregarious nature. They want to be together and to be part of a herd. All horses are herd bound. It may be inconvenient to us as riders, but being drawn to the herd is a natural equine behavior.

Why the Herd?

Horses rely on the herd for safety. A horse can rely on others to keep watch so he can rest; they take turns resting and watching.

Horses also get comfort from the herd. Horses want to lie down in the sun with others and be taken care of and groomed. They want a strong leader. All of this comfort comes from being part of a larger group.

Horses believe that their own survival depends on being accepted into a herd. When you introduce a new horse into the herd, they will first send him away and be mean. The new horse will keep coming back because he feels as if he will die if he’s not part of the herd.

The horse is programmed to seek out acceptance from the herd. When you can get that same kind of seeking acceptance aimed toward you, you can have amazing, bonded relationships with horses.

Left Behind

When you separate two buddies, the horses can be worried and act out. Because they are programmed to be part of the herd, they believe they are in jeopardy if they are left behind. This panic can be worse if two bonded horses (who are used to being together all the time) are separated because you want to work with one and not the other.

Consider the herd dynamics. Keep in mind that within a large herd, there’s one horse in charge and one horse at the bottom of the pecking order. There are also sub-relationships between bonded horses.

If a herd is large, horses will have one or two buddies, technically called associates, that he hangs out with most often. If your horse is turned out in a large group at a boarding barn, you’ll easily see who your horse’s buddies are. He’ll only mutual-groom with another horse if they have a bonded relationship.

If you get one horse out to ride and leave the buddy horse at the barn, the horse left behind may run up and down the fenceline, whinny frequently, cause commotion and even injure himself. It’s most often the horse that is left behind who causes a problem, not the horse who you’ve chosen to work with first.

What to Do: If I’m trying to work with one horse while another horse is in such a panic, I’d want to secure that horse to lessen his panic and to keep him from distracting the horse I’m working with. If the horse left behind is a trained horse, I’ll take him from the pen and tie him up at a sturdy hitching post.

He may still be upset, but he can’t run up and down the fence (which increases his panic). In most instances when you tie the horse, he’ll eventually revert to what he knows how to do—stand quietly when tied.

If the horse is not trained to stand tied, he needs to learn the skill. Make sure to tie him safely in a strong halter and with a quick release knot or with a clip that is designed to release if the horse panics.

Have a friend stay near the tied horse so that there’s help if he pulls back or gets in trouble. A horse that is frantic may panic and pull back to get to his buddy. Put him in a safe and comfortable place to stand tied—don’t leave him in the hot sun or standing on concrete.

Horses should be trained to tie and should be tied regularly, so that they know how to stand tied when it’s required. Tying is a skill that must be trained to the horse, and for some horses it may require regular practice.

If he isn’t accustomed to standing tied, make sure that he is in a confined area without any sharp edges, protrusions or areas where he could get caught or hit his head if he rears.

The Distracted Horse

If the buddy horse that you’re riding is pulling to the gate and toward his friend at the barn, correct him. That is disobedient behavior and you should acknowledge it as such.

Just steering him away and acting as if nothing ever happened makes him think you didn’t notice his disobedience, so he does it again and again. Your horse should not be allowed to look out at his friends or slow down at the gate.

What to Do: Over time, if you allow a horse to glance at the barn, look at his buddies, or pull toward the gate, the behaviors will escalate. Soon, you’ll have a horse that stops at the gate and won’t move. Or you’ll have a horse that won’t walk a straight line, but instead pulls away from the direction you’re riding. Soon, he’ll be the one deciding where to go and how fast to get there—perhaps galloping back to the barn.

If you correct these little behaviors—even a slight glance away—by scolding your horse or lightly bumping with your outside leg and inside rein and pushing him forward, he’ll soon learn that he must focus on his work and not his buddy.

Build in some time to make sure that you separate buddy horses on purpose. Let them know that they may not always be together, and if they are separated they will still be safe.

Put one horse in another pen as practice before you need to separate the horses for the farrier or veterinarian visit. If you have a plan and practice, your horses will trust that they are safe—even when separated.

JULIE GOODNIGHT shares her lessons on her RFD-TV show, Horse Master (also online at tv.juliegoodnight.com), and through clinics and expos. HEIDI MELOCCO (www.whole-picture.com) is a lifelong horsewoman, equine journalist, and photographer.

This article originally appeared in the August 2017 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

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Q: I’d like to work my new gelding in the round pen and have him focused on me. Instead, when I turn him loose, he begins trotting or cantering around quickly before I even give a command. Why does he do this and how can I help him slow down and tune in?

A: When it comes to horses that are speedy or downright out of control in the round pen, there are two common reasons for the behavior. The first is that the horse doesn’t want to be there and is herd bound: he looks outside, kicks out and carries on to show you that he really wants to get back to his herd.

The other possible explanation is that before you got this horse, someone inadvertently trained him to run. Some people think round pen work is simply a time to run a horse around in circles—to wear him out before riding. But the truth is, there is a lot more to round pen work than that. In the second scenario, the horse may learn to run around in circles as soon as he’s turned loose. He thinks that’s what he’s supposed to do.

Either way, you have a horse that is not paying attention to you and probably has no regard for you. In the round pen, the first thing I want is to control the horse’s direction and speed. To control the horse’s movements, you need to understand the horse’s driveline. Imagine a plumb line down from the horse’s withers. If you look or step in front of that vertical line, you cue the horse to stop and/or turn around because you are blocking his path. If you aim your eyes or body behind that line, you’re pushing the horse forward. You use your position to either drive the horse forward or cut off his direction.

Use caution, as the round pen can be a pressure cooker for the horse. You have him confined, but you’re chasing him as if he was out in the open. That can cause a horse to be emotional, to kick out, to try to jump out of the pen, or to simply feel uncomfortable until he understands what you’re asking for and accepts your authority. Be careful; it’s easy get kicked or run over in a round pen.

Waving the Flag

Any time you’re in the round pen, make sure to have a flag or stick with you to help enhance your cues and defend your space. If you’re working a horse in the round pen, it’s probably because you need to get his attention and establish that you are in charge. The flag will help you get your horse’s attention, and if he disagrees with your leadership, it’s possible he could charge you; make sure you have a tool to defend your space if needed.

I like a flag so that I can wave it and I have a way to signal the horse visually without touching him. If the horse were to become aggressive, having the attached stick helps me defend my space. You can’t predict how a horse will react when he is learning to follow your round pen cues. Kicking and charging are normal horse behaviors and you need to be prepared.

This article originally appeared in the February 2016 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

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