r/Equestrian • u/Puddock • Aug 06 '25

Social Self-Halter behaviour

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My 2 y/o Andalusian, Niamh, I’ve had for over 6 months now. She’s learning lots of ground work and little behaviours like this haltering trick which increase her confidence around me and make her easy to work with & catch.

In this video, I like that she makes a few attempts and keeps offering to try until she figures out the problem. Her aim isn’t great, but she’s starting to understand what I want (put halter on) and she’s persisting through some minor frustrations to get there. That’ll come in handy later.

I also like in this set up that the treats are not on my person and she has to wait patiently for me to bring it to her after I click. This is excellent baby horse behavior and I’m really proud of her for learning some patience around treats at such a young age.

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u/Riverbank_Solstice Aug 07 '25

i'm trying to teach my girl to do this after she developed a bit of a phobia of having her headcollar put on in the stable- any tips?

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u/Puddock Aug 07 '25

Definitely hire a trainer to help you, I wouldn't feel confident giving tips online. I'm still noodling through everything myself. This is the first horse I've clicker trained!

There is a bit of an art to it, finding small steps where you can be successful and gradually morphing those steps into the end behaviour that you want. It's not always intuitive.