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Teaching Cue Response to Your Horse
by Michelle Labriolla
Horses respond to cues. Horses teach each other. Your horse's mama or other herd member taught him to back away when ever
another horse with nose sticking out and a set of ears pinned approached him. Perhaps at first the youngster ignored or challenged by
attempting to bite back or turn and kick. The dominant horse quickly put things in perspective and taught a "move out of my
space…NOW!" cue. A cue is something that the horse responds to 100% percent of the time….no matter what. Day, night, wind, rain,
feeding time even breeding time. Watch a herd of horses and you'll start to see how it all works.
So how does our role in the equines life play a part in this "Cue Response" means of communication? When we lead our horse we
expect that when we put a halter and lead line on him that he'll follow. We walk him, lets say, to the pasture and he's to walk, safely
with us stand and allow us to take his halter off and turn him loose. Then we're not too concerned if he takes off at a run, rears, bucks
and acts like the high spirited horse that we love to watch in the field. However when we go to catch him later, we expect him to turn off
and act once again calm and safe. We want him to stand still so that we can catch him, halter him and lead him, we want him to allow us
to groom, saddle, mount up and ride off with out a rear, buck, gallop or any of the other things that he did naturally before…right? This
is all wonderful and great, but where does he learn it from. I've never seen a mare teach her foal to stand still, get caught, tied and touched, yet horses do it for us all day long.
Once we take the time to really educate ourselves it's almost impossible to not laugh at what we expect our horses to do for us. Take
trailer loading. I travel to barns all the time to teach horses to trailer load. The lesson is based on teaching the horse a solid "Go
Forward….no matter what…Cue" It takes any where from 3-5 hours to teach the horse, then I have to teach the handler. I break it
down to a process away from the scary trailer in an area where the horse feels safe and relaxed. Using tools that don't ever hurt the
horse, I wait for the moment he takes his first "cue-response " step and then reward him with praise, petting, and the opportunity to do
nothing but stand still and enjoy the moment. So he learns a go-forward cue and begins to understand that there's praise associated with
this teaching process. I start all my horses with a 100%, and then it's MY job to help him keep that grade. If a horse fails a lesson (any
lesson) it is the responsibility of the teacher to teach the lesson better, not the student to learn better. We blame our horse's gender,
breed, age, even the whites of his eyes for misbehaving. We'll blame the farm he came from, the wind the fact that it's feeding time or his friends have left for his actions.
What we need to simply understand is if we teach him a cue, and teach with praise and reward, not pain and punishment every horse
will improve and we will establish a means of asking, and the horses responding with the correct answer because his reward is always
praise and release of pressure. Try this simple lesson with this horse to see if you can train your horse yourself. Put a halter with a cotton
lead on him, in an area where he's safe and comfortable like his stall or paddock. Once it's on stand there a moment and just rub his
neck, no pressure on the lead line. Gently take hold of the lead line about 2" under his chin and apply slight pressure, now wait….look
at his nose and when he drops it down, even the slightest bit release the lead line and praise him in a soothing voice and rub his neck.
Do it again, hold pressure on the lead and when he lowers his head reward him. If he raises his head don't add pressure but don't
release, if he doesn't do anything, and just stands there add pressure and wait. What you should see with 10 minutes (time-it) is that
your horse responds to this pressure on his poll and drops his head easily.
So why do we use gimmicks and gadgets to prevent him from putting his head up when we ride him? Or better yet…why is he putting
his head up when we ride him to begin with? Is something else causing him to travel that way? Education is very important to truly have
a relationship with your horse. Once you understand the hows and why's you'll begin to see a whole other side to owning and enjoying
horses. Teaching Cue's establishes a means of communication, it takes time to teach but remember this little thing that has helped me
along the way "once a horse learns a lesson, he'll retain the lesson for aprox. 18 months, even if never taught or used again" imagine if we teach and then practice our cues on a regular basis!
Michelle Labriola is a John Lyons Certified Professional Trainer of Natural Horsemanship, she offers clinics and demonstrations through out the year and is based in Becket Mass at Sunny Banks Ranch.
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