Lesson 8 – Game # 7 – The Squeeze Game
Purpose:
Help horses to overcome their claustrophobic tendencies. Develop confidence for trailer loading, jumping, crossing streams, loading into small spaces like roping boxes, wash racks, race barriers and gates, etc.
The Squeeze Game helps horses overcome claustrophobia and has numerous applications.
If you remember the section on equine psychology, you’ll remember that horses are naturally afraid of containment. Survival is based on ease of escape. Yet so much of what a horse has to adapt to in the humanised environment involves small spaces and restriction…and people wonder why horses are often so much trouble to load into trailers.
Horses are naturally afraid of containment. Trailer loading problems are related to this.
The Squeeze Game will help a horse enormously, if he can become confident in small spaces and learns it as a principle, you’ll be able to do so much more with him.
A good way to start is simply by sending your horse between you and a fence:
- stand next to a fence with your horse in front of you
- hold the lead rope half way down and with the hand closest to the fence
- carrot stick and string in the hand furthest from the fence
- start walking backwards and diagonally away from the fence so the space gets wider with every step
- direct your horse’s zone 1 into that space with a steady feel on the rope
- rhythmically slap the ground out to your side with the carrot stick and string until your horse looks into the space and heads toward it…then stop the slapping immediately.
- as the horse runs through he space, allow the rope to slide freely through your hand to the end and them you can turn and face your horse as he stops
- repeat this over and over until he become so confident he will pass through a space just 3 feet wide (maybe not on the first day!) and he’s not rushing in a panic.
Send your horse through an increasingly narrow space.
Direct then support by leading zone 1 and slapping the ground out to your side as you walk backwards.
Release the rope and let it slide as the horse runs by you. Do it until the horse is confident.
Once your horse can do this, get more creative:
See if you can send him between a barrel and the fence, two poles, tw0 chairs…use your imagination. Another form of the Squeeze Game is to send him over a small jump. Use exactly the same technique outlined above. You might set the jump up right next to a fence, starting with it at ground level at first and slowly heightening it.
Find all kinds of opportunities for sneezing your horse!
Quality Check:
Does your horse direct easily between you and a fence, or does he balk, turn away or dash through with fear? Can you offer him comfort on the other side of the small space then turn him and invite him back through? Are both sides equal? Does your horse see the purpose and head for the space as soon as you set it up? Can you get him through a small space and control it at the walk, trot or canter? These are all things to work toward.
Keep improving the quality. How willing and confident can your horse get?
Troubleshooting
Your Horse runs around you instead of through the space.
This is common, the last place he wants to go is into a narrow space! Keep your position, keep on walking backwards, keep the carrot stick and string flapping out to your side and start making the space dramatically bigger. Don’t turn around and don’t let the rope get longer unless he goes through the squeeze. Be prepared to make a 30 foot space if that’s what it takes. Little by little you’ll be able to make it smaller as your horse gains confidence.
Cause the wrong thing to be difficult and the right thing to be easy.
Give the horse as much space as he needs to get confident at the start.
He Seems to be taking a long time to get confident
According to the horse’s level of emotional fitness and spook factor (much higher in some than others!) it can seem to take a long time. You might also want to check that you are not causing it either:
- If you grab the rope as he goes through or turn him suddenly it will add to his panic factor. He has to find comfort on the other side of the hole so practice allowing the rope to slide freely through your hand.
- stop your stimulation with the carrot stick as soon as the horse looks like he’s going to try. He does not need to be pressured at that stage just allow it to happen and wait. If he quits trying you just set it up again. If you keep stimulating the horse will read it as unjust pressure.
The horse’s emotional fitness and spook factor will have an effect on how long it takes to become confident.
Success Tips:
- Master the art of positioning yourself so that you can direct your horse’s nose into the space with one hand, and swing the carrot stick or end of your rope with the other to create impulsion. You should ultimately get to where you don’t need to swing the rope and just the amount of pull on the halter will signal how quickly you want the horse to go through. This is phase 1 only.
- Make sure that you let the lead rope slide through your hand to the end to allow him to go through. This will hep the horse learn that he has a place to go to and give him incentive to get through.
Your position is important. Excellence is when all it takes is phase 1.
Allow the rope to slide through your hand so the horse feels freedom through and after the squeeze.
Pitfalls:
- Not letting the rope slide
- Not enough direction on the horse’s head to “lead” him into the space.
- Allowing the horse to pull backwards before going forwards. Check quality of Game # 4, Yo-Yo for this.
When your horse pulls backwards, check that Game #4 is excellent.
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