Since moving to the country several years ago, I’ve been able to live out some of my youthful cowboy fantasies as the owner of a series of horses.  In the process, I’ve found that horses are a lot like children.  You get much further with kind, firm discipline than you do with strong-arm tactics.

I learned my first lesson from Ranger.  Ranger, AKA Bruiser, jumped out from under me the first day I took him out for a ride.  I had fallen, literally, for the belief that the best way to show him who was boss was to force him to do something he did not want to do.  When the stiffness went away, I began to reconsider my tough-guy approach with this somewhat “spooky” mount.

The most persistent problem I had with Ranger was getting him to take the bridle bit into his mouth.  He would clamp his jaws like a kid refusing to take bad-tasting medicine.  For months I used the tried and true method of sticking my thumb in the gap between his front teeth and his molars.  In this way, I could eventually force the bit in, but it was an unpleasant procedure. Once, he accidentally bit me during this ordeal, and neither one of us liked it very much.

To break the battle of wills, I began to place the bit in the palm of my hand on top of a pile of sweet feed, and Ranger would gobble it up, bit and all.  Then I would pet him and say, “That’s a good boy.”

After a few weeks of this, I started changing the order of things.  I’d put the bit in his mouth and then, reward him with the feed and more petting and praising.  Sometimes, he would revert to his old ways, and I would have to force the bit in before I could reward him.  On those days, I followed the old horse trainer’s adage, “Pet him like you like him,” even though I felt like smacking him on the neck.

In this way, I gained his trust and convinced him that I did not want to hurt him.  Now he takes the bit better than most and seldom argues with me about anything.  He goes where I ask, at the speed I want, and I tell him he’s a good boy.

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Read more from the Parents Panel:

• Why, South Carolina?
• Burning the candle at both ends
• The benefits of a built-in babysitter
• A spanking for the latest critics of corporal punishment
• Do you want fries with that?

Categories: *Horse Sense for Parents by Rob Baggett, All Articles, Parents Panel
Tags: features