How to teach a horse to bow/lay down?

Question

I am currently training this bull of a mare and wanted to try making her lay down to kinda make her respect me as Ive heard it works well. also it would be cool to have her and the other horses able to bow/lay down on cue. now on one post i read that for bowing you pick up one leg, put a treat of the ground in between her legs, the pul her leg when she went down to get it...i tried this and it didnt work, now maybe it will if i try it more, but i want to make sure before i do anything else with her...so any suggestions?

Answer 1

DO NOT EVER lay a horse down by force to make them respect you! when a horse is forced to the ground against his will, he slips into a primal state of mind that tells him that he is the prey of another animal. he shuts down and blocks out everything about whats going on around him. this is an instinct that protects wild horses from feeling pain after a predator brings them down. yes, horses that have been laid down are pleasant and agreeable afterward, but only because they are functioning in a hazy half-alive state. its an ingrained instinct that cannot be reversed. so please do not lay her down; you'd really regret it if you knew what it actually did to them.

and if you dont beleive me, look it up. i dont answer unless i know that i'm talking about.

Answer 2

Whoohoo! Another person trying to teach their horse to become their dog! Horses are NOT dogs - PLEASE understand this!

Want to know what's funny? Chances are, you'll never be able to safely ride your horse again. Why? Because one wrong thing and your horse might lay down with you on it! I've seen it happen. "My horse knows how to bow and lay down on que!" "... So you turned your horse into a dog?" "No, he just respects me!" "... like a dog?" "Watch! *horse bows / lays down*" "...nice." "*rider gets on, and rides around. Trainer makes a motion with her arms and horse lays down with rider on*" "..that's some respect!"

Answer 3

I'm not sure about using that as a method of getting her to respect you - horses that are taught to do lay down/bow are usually very compliant to begin with.

If you need to get her to have more respect for you, you need to introduce discipline into every interaction you have with her - I can't suggest exactly what to do because you haven't said what she does that is disrespectful. All I can suggest is that you try some Monty Roberts or Parelli techniques, as these can be very effective.

if you want to teach a horse to lie on command, here are some websites that might help;

http://www.curlyfarm.com/articles/teach_...

http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:3wb...

Hope this helps!

As for another answer that says that lying down can kill?!!!! This is absolute nonsense, horses lie down to sleep (they can stand to doze but cannot lock their legs in REM sleep), and also to roll. I believe they have confused this with spasmodic colic, where if the horse rolls it can cause the gut to twist.

Answer 4

A horse shouldn't lay down..

It severely disrupts their internal organs and if they stay down for too long, it will kill them.

How to teach them to do so on cue, I'm not sure.

Answer 5

forget it. Its a dumb trick and so not cool if its forced.

Answer 6

The only way that people do this is if the horse already has 100% trust & respect for them...when they are laying down they cant fight or flight...training her to do trick for respect is a stupid idea...cant you do some parelli or other ground exercises instead??