Curing the Confirmed Kicker

Kickers Aren't Only Maddening, They're Dangerous

 

Copyright 1992 truth-or-consequences

 
Roughly 2304 words

 
Published in The Western Horse

 


Boy I hate a kicker!

Fortunately, most horses, if they have the kicking habit at all, aren't really confirmed kickers. They're half hearted, part time kickers. And those guys are fairly easy to cure. Usually all it takes is a few sessions in the stall with a quirt. When they turn their butt to you in preparation for a kick, they get a whack on the rump. Most equines don't want to kick badly enough to argue with a smarting rear end. It's usually easy enough to instill in them the reflex to spin away instead of kicking.

But occasionally......

We sometimes find a horse who is downright fond of kicking and a few stings on the backside aren't going to be enough to convince him to give up this long established habit. Even when this type of horse can be cured of kicking at people, he often continues to take out his misguided aggressions on other horses in the pasture. And fairly often we see mares who might be the epitome of sweetness in all situations except at the feed dish, where they turn into the "Wicked Witch of the East". Kickers aren't just maddening, they're dangerous and often too much of a liability to keep around.

When the horse kicks only out in the pasture or at other times when his rump isn't handy to you (and neither is the quirt), it usually becomes a matter of merely hoping he'll quit before he does any real damage to another horse or to himself. Often the young kicker will simply outgrow his bad habit, or, sometimes a really rank horse can be turned out with the smart aleck little colt for some serious "attitude adjustment". Of course you're still confronted with the problem of how to cure that really rank kicking horse that you used to cure your smart aleck little colt.

Sometimes the opposite tactic can be used too, by turning the obnoxious young kicker in with a very docile old horse or a dominant mule. I used to have a 2000 pound Shire mare that taught many skinny little mustangs some manners and civilized ways. But even then, some just wouldn't take the hint.

I knew a crusty cowboy years ago, a deputy sheriff, who thought the answer to the kicker was to shoot him in the butt every time he kicked. He used .22 caliber bird shot rounds, and they never did any serious damage except to pepper the horse's after end with pellets that were about like sand. But no trainer worth his salt would tolerate the damage. This rather extreme measure did produce results, but eventually this man graduated to larger and larger calibers until one day he misjudged the distance and did do some serious damage. If he's not in jail by now, he ought to be.

But still, the basic concept of being able to reach out and touch someone (the horse) over a distance greater than the length of a quirt has its merits. And that's where the wonderful world of electronics saves the day.

Hunting dogs are often trained using an electronic radio receiver that's built-in to a collar. From a significant range, usually up to about 1/2 mile, the trainer can push a button on his hand-held transmitter which administers a small shock to the dog via the collar's receiver. The shock is utterly harmless, being comprised of a fairly high voltage, but with almost no amperage behind it. The dog feels this split second of "negative reinforcement" and stops doing whatever it was he was doing that was objectionable. Since the trainer is usually not in close proximity, the dog doesn't associate the unpleasant sensation with his owner--he associates it only with the unwanted action. If the trainer is flawlessly consistent in administering the tiny jolts when and only when the dog is misbehaving, then the dog learns very quickly to associate the undesirable action with an undesirable result, and he simply stops doing it.

As in all phases of training, negative reinforcement should always be balanced with positive reinforcement where possible. The two in combination are more effective than either by themselves.

Electrical shock therapy has been proven in many applications to be one of the most effective behavioral modification methods available today. And that's just what is needed in the case of the horse with an as yet untreatable kicking problem-- behavioral modification.

It has been used to cure some drug addictions, cigarette smoking and other unwelcome afflictions in humans with a good record of success. --Sounds sinister, I know! But if a small dog can be trained using the device with no harmful effects physically or psychologically, then it follows that a 1000 pound horse can tolerate the same measures with even less chance of adverse results.

If the confirmed kicker tends only to kick with a particular hind leg, as some do, then you can get by with only a single dog collar on that leg. If the horse is ambidextrous with his kicking tools, as are most, then you'll have to buy two collars. The devices are expensive, ranging from about $150 for one collar and one transmitter, to more than twice that much for higher quality units with more range or more features. For a single treatment of a single horse, it may not be cost effective to buy this training device. But if the horse is quite valuable, or, more appropriately, if the horse could be more valuable if he didn't kick, then it may be a sensible investment.

If you are a professional trainer or plan to work a lot of horses, you'll eventually run across a percentage of hard core kickers. In that case, this should be one more item to add to your bag of tricks for those "special" situations. If you have a kicker that's not worth the expense of buying the unit yourself, and all other attempts to cure it have failed, you may be able to seek out a trainer who can give your horse a session or two of this therapy at a reasonable cost.

The idea is to install the collars on the horse's hind legs, usually around the pastern. Sometimes the devices can be placed around the base of the tail, and in this case only one unit need be installed. However, it can be argued that success might not be quite so easy to attain, as the horse cannot so readily associate this "pain in the behind" with his hind legs which are doing the kicking. Still, the desired result is the cessation of unnecessary and injurious kicking, and to a point, whatever works, works.

The collars need to be padded and protected to keep the horse from accidentally breaking the receivers. Any type of padded vet wrap will do. Once the collars are strapped on it becomes only a matter of sitting back and watching. If there is some situation that usually provokes the horse to kick, go ahead and place him in that situation and let him be provoked. When he kicks, push the button. That's all there is to it.

The first few times will be a real "shock" to the raucous brute. He'll likely kick a few more times to shake off whatever he figures has bitten him. He may buck. He may shoot off across the pasture doing all of the above. Or he may simply stand there and look around, wide-eyed and bewildered, trying to figure out which horse so adeptly kicked him back when none are near.

Chances are, after a minute or two, he'll forget all about the little sting, and will go back to whatever untoward activity he was engaged in, in the first place. Next time he kicks, push the button again. Do not ever push it just to test it, or just for fun, or just to see what happens. Never! And try hard to never let the horse get away with a kick without getting a sting for his trouble. Consistency and a sense of fair play are the keys to the success of this method, as with all training.

If you are daydreaming and miss a kick, try to hit the button within a second after he has kicked. If you can't zap him within that time period, then zapping him too long after the fact will probably do no good and may begin to confuse him. The stings should be instantaneous with the kicks for best results. A more appropriate signal will be implanted in his little equine brain by not doing anything if you are too late, than to zap him too late. Just wake up, pay attention, and try not to let him get away with it again.

I suggest a training period of as long as you can make it. Ideally, the device would automatically zap the horse every time he kicked for the next several days. Every single time. But obviously you can't stay awake watching your horse for forty eight hours straight. When the session is over, you may leave the collars in place if you're not worried about them getting damaged in the normal course of horse life. But try to remove the horse from the situation that causes him to kick. For instance, if the horse only kicks at feeding time, then make sure the horse does not get fed during those times when you cannot be there to monitor his behavior and to apply incentives with your transmitter. If the horse only kicks when he's let out to pasture with the herd, then make sure he's locked in his stall during those times when you cannot monitor his behavior. If he only kicks in the stall, then make sure he's out to pasture between sessions. If he only kicks when he sees you coming-- then don't approach him without your transmitter until he learns not to kick. Or buy a new horse that likes you more!

How long will it take to cure the problem? It depends partly on how many man-hours you're willing to expend to do the job, and it depends as well on how many times your horse will kick and be punished for it. If the horse only kicks three times a day, then it may take you many days of treatment-- but in that case, the kicking problem is probably not severe enough to warrant going to these lengths anyway. If you commit only ten minutes a day to a hardened kicker, then it may take a long time-- or maybe it won't be enough of a time investment to cure the problem at all. It depends also on how badly the horse wants to kick and how stubborn he is about altering his behavior. Some horses will get the message right away-- say within a half hour. And after the initial treatment they may hardly kick at all the rest of their lives. But remember that no matter how much training the horse has received to the contrary, any horse may still kick at any time. No horse can be blindly trusted not to kick. The best you can hope for is to greatly reduce the incidence.

You may be dealing with a real problem case. A five year old mustang comes to mind. It took about two hours a day for perhaps a week to convince this guy that kicking people and other horses simply was not worth the bother. And even at that, he still kicked sometimes out of reflex, but it's hard to begrudge the horse the pursuit of his own survival. That bronc never again, however, kicked out of meanness. --Not that he didn't want to sometimes! But he had been conditioned to know that the consequences of kicking were greater than the pleasures, and that is the very essence of behavioral modification.

Will this new and modified behavior last forever? Sometimes it will. Sometimes it won't. It may be necessary to go back in a week, a month, or a year, and do a "tune up". Tune ups are generally fairly painless and quicker to accomplish, as the cerebral circuitry is already in place-- all that's required is to reinforce it by reminding the horse of what happened last time his kicking became a problem.

Most people agree that a horse should never be pushed or reprimanded with a cattle prod. I agree as well, from the standpoint that it is far too severe a method. And it is too severe an instrument to use in this kicking therapy too. In addition, it associates, in the horse's mind, an extremely unpleasant sensation-- call it genuine pain-- with you, personally, and he'll be suspicious of you (and long sticks) forever more. Cattle prods are far more potent than electronic dog collars. Even the wimpiest of electric fences are many times hotter than this canine training device.

Some people claim that electricity and horses don't go together in any form. They say that once a horse has been shocked, he'll be unmanageable for life. Some say that electricity will turn horses vicious and mean. That frankly has not been my experience, as long as the devices are used properly. While anything is possible, and while anything can be grossly overdone, electroshock therapy in this minute dosage, when used sparingly, judiciously and appropriately, can bring about dramatic results to an unruly horse whose inappropriate behavior might otherwise cost him his life. Or more importantly, might cost you yours.

 

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