Teaching the horse to lunge (part 1)

The third session of teaching lunging basics to ZZ, a 2.5 year old filly. Unlike traditional lunging done on a circle, this is more dynamic, using the entire arena and combining straight movement with circles. All is done at the walk with a halter and lungeline.

This is part of a series of videos so see the complete playlist right here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmAAtaCcDo0&feature=PlayList&p=F9A7FE7...

What really interests me is how naturally the lunging progressed from leading exercises and leading from behind to this parallel lunging. There is still much to do on bending, changing direction, and the finer points of increasing and decreasing distance but overall I'm very pleased with this third session.

The video shows and talks about learning voice commands, controlling pace of the horse, circling and bending, the use of the whip, the position of the handler and rewarding for small tries.

I'd strongly urge that you wear gloves (though I'm not) during lunging, especially with a young horse that you are just training. Also, never loop the lungeline around your hand or finger - if the horse takes off, you will lose a piece of your anatomy (and I do know of someone who lost a thumb from exactly this! ... :-O)

Notes on this session and more info on lunging can be found at my blog http://horseideology.wordpress.com/2009/05/22/my-thoughts-on-lunging/

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• horse
• lunging
• training