By John Lyons Symposiums, Inc.
 
Think of the times when you can't get your horse to do something that you want him to do. These are things that you know that your horse should be able to do or maybe your horse is doing something that you don't want him to be doing. Let me help you with some examples that come to mind. Do you ever come across one of these situations?

► Does your horse ever dive for grass when you are leading or riding him? 
► Does your horse wiggle and fidget when the blacksmith is working on his feet? 
► Does your horse dance around when you are trying to give him a bath?
► Does your horse walk off when you are trying to get on? 
► Does your horse not stand still when you want him to? 
► Does your horse jig on the trail? 
► Go faster than you want? 
► In general, does your horse not pay attention to your signals?

If you answered "yes" to any of these questions or have some examples of your own, let me introduce you to the replacement concept. The replacement concept is a method that I often use when I want an unwanted behavior to stop. I ask the horse to do something that will get him to stop what he is doing – the unwanted behavior. I am not letting my horse get away with not doing what I had planned for him to do, or what I originally asked of him. I am, however, getting control of the horse in another way. Essentially, you are stopping the uninvited action by not giving the horse the opportunity to demonstrate, or continue that behavior. The key to using the replacement concept is to choose an ac­tiv­ity that you can get the horse to do and if at all possible, one that he needs practice with. That way if you ask the horse to do something that he needs practice with, you are still engaged in meaningful training.

When applying the principle behind the replacement concept, understand that your horse needs more training in lots of areas. When you start to use this principle, the activity you choose as your replacement activity may be something that can be done for a short period of time and then the unwanted action ceases. On the other hand, depending on what your horse is doing, the replacement activity may need to be done for longer periods. This may take many training sessions until the unwanted behavior ceases. When your horse no longer does the unwanted behavior, you will know that you have practiced the replacement activity long enough. Many handlers may think that unwanted behaviors are annoying, frustrating and at times, can be unsafe. In most cases they are annoying. This is an opportunity to improve your horse’s performance or responsiveness to you. Any time you get the opportunity to work your horse through a problem area, you are identifying a "hole" in the training that needs to be fixed. You will, in the end, improve your horse's responsiveness, which will benefit many other areas of his performance. It is not unreasonable to expect that if your horse is standing still when you get on him, he will also be standing still for the hose, the blacksmith, the vet, etc.

Let’s look at an unwanted behavior that we can correct by using the replacement concept. The steps to the exercises that I would like to use can be found in the Ground Control Manual as well as other John Lyons' educational materials.

My horse will not stand still when I want him to...
This is a common problem whether you are on the ground or mounted. When using the replacement concept for this problem, in the end you want to invite or give your horse the opportunity to stand still instead of hoping, using a chain on the nose, saying “whoa” or “stand” dozens of times with no results. There are many things you can do to solve this problem.

► The first suggestion that I would like to give you is to not resent movement. A horse that is willing to move gets to practice moving more. What do I mean by this? Most of what we want the horse to do involves movement – walk, trot, canter, etc. When a horse has the energy to move, we need to direct the movement and make it productive. The horse that won’t stand still gets more practice being responsive on his feet and to the bridle (halter). Think of it as if you are saying to the horse, “Ok, if you want to move, we are going to do this…” Think of all the things that you can do, even with your horse in hand, to improve his overall responsiveness to your cues with the halter or bridle when you are on the ground. You can ask him to walk forward and then back up (parts of a lesson that I call “College Level Leading) getting him to do so on the lightest cue possible. You can get him to circle around you and change direction, improving on the change of direction (a lesson I call the “WESN” lesson). You can ask the hip to step away (part of a lesson I call “Hip, Shoulder, Shoulder Lesson”). You can ask the shoulder to step away (a lesson I call the “Clock Lesson”). There are many training opportunities that you can take advantage of when you use the replacement concept.