There are many myths in the horse world about feeding treats. Here are a few of the most common: “If you feed your horse treats, you’ll teach him to bite you.” “Treats make a horse pushy.” “Treats are for horsemen who don’t have any skill.”
My stance on treats is that there is a time and place for them. I never use food to train a horse. I’m not going to say that you can’t use food to train a horse, but to me, when you do, the results are inconsistent. Take trying to load a horse in a trailer with grain. If a horse is truly scared of the trailer, he’ll starve himself to death before he steps in it. With that being said, I don’t have a problem with using treats as a reward for a good job or an extra try. When I give a horse treats, I follow three basic rules.
Rule #2: Balance the amount of treats you give with asking your horse to move his feet.
A large part of the reason why feeding treats gets such a bad rap is that people who feed their horses treats don’t balance feeding treats with earning their horses’ respect. It’s not so much that treats are the problem, it’s that people rely on treats to bribe their horses and beg for their attention. As a result, the horse ends up being a 1,000-pound Labrador that runs all over them.
If you want to form a partnership with your horse, you have to earn his respect by moving his feet forwards, backwards, left and right. I don’t care if you want to feed your horse five buckets of treats every day, you just have to balance it with five buckets worth of moving his feet. If you don’t, he’ll get pushy and knock you around demanding a treat.
I monitor treats based on the horse’s attitude. If he’s looking for them, he doesn’t get any. If he’s being pushy, he doesn’t get any. If he’s being dominate, he doesn’t get any.
Read my first rule about feeding horses treats here.
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