Boredom cause/effects

I know a lot of you know who Cowgirl is. I am slowly training her, lol. I taught her to stand tied in the beginning. When she gets bored, she starts pawing, and I just ignore it, figuring she will realize it is no help and stop. She is estimated around 2 1/2 to 3 years of age.

Its amazing though, how long she will stand next to me, relaxed acting like a 20 yr old horse when I am holding the lead rope. I don't even have to hold the lead rope. I will just throw it around her neck and stand there, or walk off, and she will follow me around the yard, compared to tieing her and she immediatly starts to paw and gets super bored and acts like a little brat. She is always good about standing still when I put weight on her back or the saddle, but she gets bored the instant I turn my body away from her.

Will she ever quit pawing? It's not that destructive, but a lot of people would probably see it as bad manners. And if she does it when tied on concrete it is very loud and annoying.

She is a horse though, that if you do it once, she will remember, so naturally if you dwell on something she gets dull=bored=onery. From what I have learned. So I don't know how to go about this tieing behavior. It's just a boring thing for a horse lol.

I give mine a slap on the shoulder when he paws, he usually won't do it again until he is in cross ties the next occassion. It's not a hard slap, just a 'hey I don't like that' slap.

I am hoping to break him of the habit as well.

Me, I would just ignore it. She is like a teen ager, or even a tween at that age, so her attention span is that of a gnat. With you turned toward her, she has you with her, like she would her dam
You could always try the "pay attention to her when she is quiet, walk away when she paws and fusses" kind of training.
Personally, that sort of stuff doesn't bother me too much as long as it doesn't progress to walking all around mindlessly and walking into your space while you are coming and going with grooming/tacking stuff.
This behaviour might pass on its own with time. I like to put in my two cents worth, but I am NOT a real trainer, just the armchair variety.

Gotta agree with this. Tiny, I love the just the armchair variety!

One thing that works (though some people would call it cruel) is to get a small length of chain and attach it to a dog collar. Attach the dog collar around her pastern whenever she is tied so that when she paws, the chain will pop her on the legs/belly. Use a smaller gauge chain and it will be enough to get her attention but not enough to actually hurt her. I only use this as a last resort though with a habitual pawer.

One thing that might work better is to work the crap out of her under saddle and then tie her to something for an hour or so until she is standing quietly, then untie her and turn her loose.

I go the slap on the shoulder method. I just do a pop on the shoulder and a "hey!" and they knock it off.

The ignore method works well also - I just like instant gratification in this instance, its easier on shoes, and I don't have to listen to them paw on concrete for a freaking hour.

I would just take some time every day, tie her up and leave her to figure out that pawing and being all shifty is not going to get her untied.

If you have a safe place to do so, that is what I would do...tie her up, and go read a book within sight distance. It is a good idea to do some hard work before tying her too, that way she is tired and will want to stand...and if she doesn't she should 'tire out' a bit quicker, and stand nicely, than if you were to just tie her fresh out of the pasture.

My horses spend alot of time tied, not just for grooming, and saddling, untacking, etc...tying to me, is one of those ground work exercises that just needs to be done; so tie her up and go about your business, and ignore all the antics; she will figure it out eventually that being tied is a part of the 'normal routine', and won't care when it happens.