Teaching a Flight Animal to Stand Tied - My Preferred Method

Okay, so this I will start by saying, if you are not into horses you will find it completely, utterly boring – unless you have an ultra curious mind.

I will say next that a person should be a pretty good hand with a horse before they try to teach one to tie. Of course, typically people that don’t know, go and do it anyway so my warning is probably moot.

Before a horse is ready to learn to tie, they need to know to give to pressure and they need to know how to lead. You should be able to take the slack out of the rope and get motion in the direction of the pressure. You should be able push the horse’s head away from you. Likewise the horse should give to pressure at the shoulder, ribcage and hip. Even better to be able to pick up the feet. However, being able to handle legs isn’t always practical prior to learning to tie – depending on situation.

Worst case scenario, you can do this with a half halter broke horse. Barely leads. It’s just a shorter, easier day if the horse already knows all of these things.

The first thing a lot of people think about when they are teaching a horse to tie is they don’t want the horse to learn to break away. This is a real concern as horses are more than capable of breaking away. If they learn it, they can be a real pain in the butt. Some do it because they plain out know they can break away, others because they have a panic attack every time. I think most halter breakers are having a panic attack every time. However I’ve met horses that will calmly snap the thing that’s keeping them from all that grass.

Habits like this are hard to fix primarily because the horse thought of it. Anything the horse thinks of will stick with them. The goal in training is to teach as many good habits and exercises as possible all while making the horse think they thought of it. A whole other topic in itself – a horse trainer’s self actualization, if you will.

My first concern when teaching to tie is how the horse perceives the experience. In order for a horse to break away, they first have to have a reason to break away. That reason being they are scared, and/or their “person” isn’t around to give direction. It is necessary for a horse to tie quietly alone otherwise there is no purpose to tying.

So, without further ado…here’s how I teach a horse to tie.

Before I do anything with the horse, I get a book, a diet coke and my cigarettes and put them at my waiting spot. J Read on and you will know why.

First, I use a plain nylon halter in good condition and not cheaply made. I don’t use leather because it can break easier and I don’t use rope halters because I don’t want any “bite” on the head aka do not want the horse to perceive it’s in pain.

Second, I use a long rope with a good snap. A bullsnap is fine but I don’t think you HAVE to use one. Just not a wimpy clip or a quick release snap. The length of the rope depends on your working space but 20-30 feet is a good length. You don’t want tons of extra rope to have to maneuver through but you do need a long rope, a standard lead rope won’t work. I think a lunge line might work fine but I’ve usually used a cotton lead or a lariat. No clip on the lariat of course.

You also need a solid tie space. Dirt (not cement) – an arena works great. You do need some kind of pole that has a stopper where the rope can’t fall to the ground or come off the top. You know, a fence post – the taller the better. I would not do this below wither height but I wouldn’t tie a horse that low anyway.

The best case scenario is that you have two posts. This makes everything much easier on you.

Something like this, like this, but not this and obviously anything electrified is a no go. If you have something like this up in your arena that would probably work too. The fence does have to be solid, if you can move it, it won’t work. A really bad wreck would be to take the fence out.

(I know that having a fence is contradictory to traditional tying with a tire or rope over the poll or neck, but the reason it’s okay here is because the horse isn’t going to come flying forward…read on.)

So, attach your long rope/lariat to the halter – to the ring under the chin. Nothing over the poll or around the neck. I know, sounds crazy, please don’t lose me yet.

Giving the horse about 2 ½ feet of slack, wrap the rope around the pole ONE TIME. No knots, I like to make sure the rope is not overlapping itself. Then I take the rope to another post about 10-15 feet away and I wrap it again. Same deal, no knots, not overlapping.

By this time you have “left” your horse. She’s looking at you, she can’t follow, she’s figuring out she’s stuck. This is usually the moment when you have to do the work. So you need to be ready for that (gloves on).

If you think you will have a real problem, you can set up the rope first, then attach the horse. I’ve done that, it gives me time to not be faster than the horse.

If she does pull back, the rope is going to slide. Keep in mind it’s not an EASY slide. It’s wrapped around two other posts so she does have to try. Let the rope slide, don’t try to hold her, but DO NOT take the slack out of the rope until she quits pulling.

Lots of horses don’t ever get to the point where the whole rope is off the posts and you are holding slack walking with the rope to keep the slack. But some do and some do it a couple of times.

***The key is to NOT let slack happen until the horse stops! If you do, you taught the horse to pull.

The second the horse quits pulling, release.

To keep this easier, if a horse pulls really good and you know that rope is going to come out, get closer on the rope, don’t stay back at the end. I’ll even walk up the rope a bit and get 6 feet from the horse. Usually, when that happens, they quit panicking and look at you like you just saved their life. Once again, don’t allow for slack until the horse stops.

Pause a moment, note that during this whole first lesson, even on the panicked horse, she did not fall down, hit the post with her legs or face and she did not break anything. She is still upright, she is not in pain, she’s bewildered and potentially a little pissed or a little scared depending on who she is, but she’s okay.

Now repeat. Lead the horse back up and do it all over again. Likewise if the rope only gets pulled out a little bit. Put her back where she was.

She has to figure out she can’t pull on this rope, it does her no good. She will have go back to where she was and be left alone again. Pulling the rope out is physically challenging. It’s easier to just stand there where nothing is hurting her at all.

After a few times, for many horses it is only once, but some may take a couple tries, you will have a horse standing without pulling. They will not be hurt, they will not be covered in sweat from exertion.

They also aren’t 100% on tying just yet – because what happens when a truck alarm goes off at the show? Or a loose shavings bag blows down the aisle?

After you have a horse standing quietly or even sleeping (this is where the waiting with the book and soda come in), you can start getting imaginative and adding stimuli that could intrigue or startle them. Make sure you have control over your stimuli and make sure you allow the horse time to relax before you start it.

Remember, you are teaching tying. Tying quietly is your only goal so if they want to stand quietly for a long time, let them! The more practice chilled out at the post, the better. I usually do not add stimuli the first day.

When you add stimuli, if the horse pulls on the rope again, the rope can’t get slack until they quit pulling. You can let up on the stimuli the first few times. Not letting up on it focuses the horse on the stimuli, which is sacking and that’s not what we’re doing. We’re teaching to tie. For more advanced tying lessons, use can your sense and imagination.

You never want relief associated with pulling. You want quitting pulling associated with relief.

So, some stimuli I’ve used: driving the tractor into the arena, moving the horse to a trailer or a barn aisle (same wrapped rope set up as arena), having people ride in the arena, mowing the lawn, flapping a bag, removing other horses, setting up arena obstacles, whatever.

A couple of things I’ve learned: this is not a good time to sack out, you are just teaching tying. I had a near accident with a horse almost jumping on top of me and almost getting stuck in a rope when I was showing this technique – because I got into sacking.

Likewise, using your stimuli, don’t keep at it if the horse made the decision the first time to stand still. For example, if you flap a plastic bag from 10 feet away and the horse CHOOSES not to pull out that rope. Don’t keeping flapping the bag. The horse did the right thing. Quit, that was good. Let her relax. Go on to something else. I’ve made that mistake too.

If the horse does choose to pull out the rope because of the bag (for example), you go right back to the original plan: no slack until she quits pulling, but quit the bag. You are not sacking.

You really do have to wrap the rope once. If you don’t, the pull will be too easy and the horse could repeat pulling over and over again.

This is the same reason you really should have that second post to wrap too, it keeps the pull hard – they can pull it out, but they have to try. If you don’t have a second post, then you need to be able to lean on the rope a little bit yourself to keep the pull hard. They have to pull you. This is difficult. Also, a single, solitary “thinking” post (what I like to call them) doesn’t work well for this because the horse can go around it.

If you wrap the rope more than once, you run the risk of a knot in the rope which is a hard tie and takes away the whole lesson – where you get the thrashing, crash boom bang.

I’ve never tried teaching this starting with a trailer and I don’t recommend it because the trailer can move.

I’ve cheated when I’ve had exceptionally flighty horses by tying really broke horses in the vicinity so they aren’t all alone. It’s cheating because you will have to go back and teach to tie alone. So, I think it’s best to start alone. However, with untouched yearlings (for example) it’s easier to use the other horses and then make the next lesson alone time. I’ve found. But you don’t HAVE to, it’s just a way to “cheat.”

Just remember to keep your primary goal on tying, not sacking, not tractors. The more immature the horse, the shorter time you should make the lesson, always ending on a positive note where the horse has stood without pulling.

For unweaned foals, don’t take the mare away, they aren’t ready for that yet anyway. She will help teach her baby, providing she ties up!

If the mare is a halter breaker or not very well handled, don’t even teach that lesson until after the foal is weaned.

Also for foals and weanlings, you can only wrap the rope around one pole. Because they are smaller, sometimes wrapping around two polls is too hard of a pull for them to get a pull and feels the same as tying hard. It depends on size. A 500 lb horse can pull the rope out of two poles.

This method can also work on longtime, tried and true halter breakers. But, it takes more time and I can’t guarantee you will 100% fix them. My personal horse was a longtime, tried and true halter breaker when I acquired him. He has not pulled or broken anything in 7 years. I am still conscientious of him however and I haven’t met all the horses in the world so who knows.

The purpose of getting the pull (for the horse) is so not to panic them off the bat. If this is done right, they will not learn they can just keep pulling the rope. Even a super determined 4 year old stallion gives it up.

As with any training, practice makes better. Doing this one day and expecting a miracle cure – that’s not what this is. But it does work faster than tying hard and it’s safer.

This whole idea is very similar to the ideas around the blocker tie ring, and the clip. I learned the theory before these products came on the market. It’s definitely not a new theory but these are good products. I am a bigger fan of the clip.

What I like about this theory is that I don’t have to buy anything special (besides perhaps a used lariat and a nylon halter). Most horse farms have a decent place to do the rope wrapping too.

I know it seems like a lot more work than to just tie up the horse. It actually isn’t too much more work (it's just hard to explain). I’ve never needed a vet, a doctor or tools to fix something after I was done. I’ve had some near misses in learning to do it right, but I’ve talked about them here. Some big ranches may argue that it is too time consuming to do a lot of horses, but I've worked on up to 12 in one day.

I’d rather not have a horse flopping around. I hate that and it’s never good for them to have experienced it.

Quite possibly my longest blog posting EVER. Please excuse grammatical errors and if anything is unclear, please let me know. I can’t read it again, it’s hurting my eyes.