How to Teach Your Horse to Lie Down
Bring the required equipment with you., Wet your horse., Watch your horse for the required behaviour., Repeat the “wet and watch” process., Add a cue., Extend the time between the behaviour and the click., Provide gentle praise and encouragement...
Step-by-Step Guide
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Step 1: Bring the required equipment with you.
To train a horse using a clicker, you’ll need to (obviously) bring the horse and clicker with you, but you’ll also need your horse’s favourite treats.
Plus, for safety purposes, you should wear the proper equipment yourself so you don’t get hurt if the horse gets spooked.A helmet is always an excellent piece of safety equipment to have when around horses, especially for children.
Don’t begin a training session if you do not have the time and patience to follow through.
Training any type of animal takes time and repetition. -
Step 2: Wet your horse.
When a horse is wet, it naturally wants to lay down in order to roll around.
Wetting your horse will encourage him to do the exact behaviour you’re looking for, without any prompting or commands.The best method to use to wet your horse would be a garden hose, if you’re able to find one long enough to reach where you are.
Alternatively, if a garden hose isn’t possible, use a couple of buckets filled with water.
You may even be able to use the horse’s water trough to fill or re-fill the buckets. , After you’ve wet your horse, stand back and watch him.
When your horse lays down naturally, click the clicker and give him a treat.
This reinforces that the behaviour of lying down is the behaviour that gets the treat.This may take a long time, which is why you have to be patient.
You also have to be paying attention.
If you click too long after your horse has lay down, he might not connect the right behaviour with the reward.
If your horse has already been clicker trained for other types of behaviours, he may recognize the clicker sound and know that a treat is coming.
This may speed the process up because your horse already knows he must perform a specific behaviour to hear the click, and a click means treats. , Continue to watch, click, and reward your horse for the behaviour of lying down.
If you’re horse isn’t use to clicker training, and it takes awhile to connect the dots between the behaviour, the click, and the treat, you may need to re-wet your horse so he'll continue to do the behaviour naturally., Once your horse has connected lying down with a click and a treat, you want to add a cue or signal to the process.
This cue or signal is the sign you’ll give when you want your horse to lie down.
You now need to get your horse to connect the cue with the combination of lie down-click-treat.The key to this step is to ONLY click and provide a treat when your horse lies down WHEN you’ve given the proper cue or signal.
If your horse lies down on his own, without the cue or signal, do not click or reward the behaviour.
A cue for this step can be anything that works for you and your horse, including a word or verbal command, hand gesture, whistle, or other sound.
You will want to select a cue that isn’t related to a gesture or word you may say on a regular basis, otherwise your horse may be confused.
Like all the other steps, this may take a while, so be patient. , The purpose of training your horse to lie down isn’t to also have him jump back up immediately.
You’re likely training your horse to lie down because you want him to stay in that position for at least a short time (maybe during a vet appointment, etc.).
In order to train your horse to stay lying down, increase the pause between when your horse lies down and when you click the clicker.Start with a short pause and slowly work your way to longer pause.
If your horse doesn’t stay lying down until you’ve used the clicker, do not give him any treats. , Regardless of whether your cue/signal ends up being a voice command, continue to talk to your horse in a gentle manner while training him.
Praise him at the same time as you click and provide him with a treat., If you’re training your horse to lie down because you want him to eventually perform a trick, you’ll need to work this into the training after he’s learned the lie down behaviour properly.For example, maybe you don’t want lying down to the be the final phase, but instead the look of your horse actually sitting down on his rump but his front hooves on the ground.
This position would come naturally to your horse when he goes to stand up (since he’ll usually start with standing up on his front hooves).
You then need to time the click and treat with the exact position you want.
There is no need to turn this into a trick.
Simply being able to get your horse to lie down may be all you need or want. -
Step 3: Watch your horse for the required behaviour.
-
Step 4: Repeat the “wet and watch” process.
-
Step 5: Add a cue.
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Step 6: Extend the time between the behaviour and the click.
-
Step 7: Provide gentle praise and encouragement throughout training.
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Step 8: Change up the trick.
Detailed Guide
To train a horse using a clicker, you’ll need to (obviously) bring the horse and clicker with you, but you’ll also need your horse’s favourite treats.
Plus, for safety purposes, you should wear the proper equipment yourself so you don’t get hurt if the horse gets spooked.A helmet is always an excellent piece of safety equipment to have when around horses, especially for children.
Don’t begin a training session if you do not have the time and patience to follow through.
Training any type of animal takes time and repetition.
When a horse is wet, it naturally wants to lay down in order to roll around.
Wetting your horse will encourage him to do the exact behaviour you’re looking for, without any prompting or commands.The best method to use to wet your horse would be a garden hose, if you’re able to find one long enough to reach where you are.
Alternatively, if a garden hose isn’t possible, use a couple of buckets filled with water.
You may even be able to use the horse’s water trough to fill or re-fill the buckets. , After you’ve wet your horse, stand back and watch him.
When your horse lays down naturally, click the clicker and give him a treat.
This reinforces that the behaviour of lying down is the behaviour that gets the treat.This may take a long time, which is why you have to be patient.
You also have to be paying attention.
If you click too long after your horse has lay down, he might not connect the right behaviour with the reward.
If your horse has already been clicker trained for other types of behaviours, he may recognize the clicker sound and know that a treat is coming.
This may speed the process up because your horse already knows he must perform a specific behaviour to hear the click, and a click means treats. , Continue to watch, click, and reward your horse for the behaviour of lying down.
If you’re horse isn’t use to clicker training, and it takes awhile to connect the dots between the behaviour, the click, and the treat, you may need to re-wet your horse so he'll continue to do the behaviour naturally., Once your horse has connected lying down with a click and a treat, you want to add a cue or signal to the process.
This cue or signal is the sign you’ll give when you want your horse to lie down.
You now need to get your horse to connect the cue with the combination of lie down-click-treat.The key to this step is to ONLY click and provide a treat when your horse lies down WHEN you’ve given the proper cue or signal.
If your horse lies down on his own, without the cue or signal, do not click or reward the behaviour.
A cue for this step can be anything that works for you and your horse, including a word or verbal command, hand gesture, whistle, or other sound.
You will want to select a cue that isn’t related to a gesture or word you may say on a regular basis, otherwise your horse may be confused.
Like all the other steps, this may take a while, so be patient. , The purpose of training your horse to lie down isn’t to also have him jump back up immediately.
You’re likely training your horse to lie down because you want him to stay in that position for at least a short time (maybe during a vet appointment, etc.).
In order to train your horse to stay lying down, increase the pause between when your horse lies down and when you click the clicker.Start with a short pause and slowly work your way to longer pause.
If your horse doesn’t stay lying down until you’ve used the clicker, do not give him any treats. , Regardless of whether your cue/signal ends up being a voice command, continue to talk to your horse in a gentle manner while training him.
Praise him at the same time as you click and provide him with a treat., If you’re training your horse to lie down because you want him to eventually perform a trick, you’ll need to work this into the training after he’s learned the lie down behaviour properly.For example, maybe you don’t want lying down to the be the final phase, but instead the look of your horse actually sitting down on his rump but his front hooves on the ground.
This position would come naturally to your horse when he goes to stand up (since he’ll usually start with standing up on his front hooves).
You then need to time the click and treat with the exact position you want.
There is no need to turn this into a trick.
Simply being able to get your horse to lie down may be all you need or want.
About the Author
Gary Rivera
Committed to making pet care accessible and understandable for everyone.
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