How to Teach Your Horse to Open His Mouth

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About This Video

To teach a horse to open his mouth, give the animal a piece of carrot, let the horse lick your hand and get the horse comfortable with human fingers in his mouth. Make sure a horse is comfortable with mouth examinations with helpful advice in this video on training horses.

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Posted By Amber Tuttle
on September 12, 2009, 9:11 pm

This is really good advice because we just rescued a mare that wont let you touch her mouth and now i know what i can do to work on getting her mouth open. thanks

Posted By Rick Gore
on April 4, 2009, 2:27 pm

The horse in this video is Buddy, he is a 4 year old QH. I did not work with him on this before filming so he would be a little resistant during the filming to better demonstrate what you might get from your own horse. If I do this once a day or every other day, it becomes very routine and he submits much easier. Like most things with horses, routine and practice helps the horse to know what to expect and then he is more willing to comply.

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Video Transcript

Hi. I'm Rick Gore out here at the Travis Equestrian Center. Today we are going to talk about how to get your horse to open his mouth. This can be helpful in a lot of ways because if he has a tooth, an abscess, he gets something caught in his mouth, or if the vet wants to check him out or when you're worming your horse, you are going to need him to open his mouth. So, the best way to get him to open his mouth is to break off a piece of carrot and give it to him. He loves that. Ok? So, you have to be comfortable around your horse's mouth when he's chewing and eating, otherwise you're not going to be able to do this. So, if you're kind of nervous about the teeth and you're nervous about getting bit, this is going to be hard to do. So, once you get comfortable where the horse can lick you and kind of put his mouth on you and you know he's not going to bite you, you want to start manipulating his lips. Maybe stick your finger under his front lip there and massage his gum. Ok? Now you see he's getting used to that. Again, I'm not worried about him biting me because I need to know how to keep my fingers out of his teeth so I don't get bit. Now, when you put a bit on a horse, which I don't use bits, but if you use a bit, you know it goes right in here between the bars and there's no teeth right there. So, when you stick a finger right here, a horse naturally wants to open his mouth. So, all I'm going to do is put the top of my thumb on the top of the roof of his mouth and his mouth is going to open. And since he did that good, I'm going to go ahead and release. So, he's getting used to my fingers going into his mouth. If I just try to do this right away and continue to do it, without giving him any release, he's not going to do it and he's going to want to fight me. So, I'm going to stick my finger in his mouth, he's going to open his mouth and I'm going to move it out. Good boy. So, he gave me that. So this time, I'm going to hold it a little bit longer. I'm going to stick it in there and hold it. His mouth is open. He's working, he's getting my finger out of his mouth. He's saying, "Get your finger out". And now I'm going to go ahead and take it out. Once I get him to open it that way, I'm going to try to reach in and get his tongue. Now when you grab your horse's tongue, again, make sure your hand is clean. You don't want to be cleaning out a stall and stick your dirty hand in there. Good boy. So, I'm going to go ahead and open up this jaw. And as he opens his mouth, I'm going to reach in, grab his tongue, which he doesn't like. And I'm going to pull it off to the side here. Now he won't bite down on his own tongue because I'm holding his tongue out. Now, he's going to get relaxed and loose and then I'm going to let him go and give him some release because he let me have his tongue. That was uncomfortable. So, now he's licking, he knows that it's ok. I'm going to go ahead and give him a little carrot since he's being a good boy. Hopefully, he won't eat me here. So, once you get a horse's tongue out of his mouth, you can pretty much do anything on the inside of his mouth, because again, he's not going to bite down. So, again, I'm going to reach up here, stick my thumb on the roof of his mouth. He's going to open his mouth. I'm going to reach in here and grab his tongue. I'm going to pull it out to the side, tell him to relax and now that I'm holding his tongue, I can go ahead and feel his teeth. I can look at his gums. I can do whatever I need to do. I can give him a wormer, etc. But by holding his tongue out, "Good boy, I know, you're a good boy," by holding his tongue out, you get him to keep his mouth open. And the more you do this, the more you get comfortable with your horse, the more the horse gets comfortable with your fingers in his mouth and worming, vet checks and all kind of other things become a lot easier. So that's basically how you're going to get your horse to trust you to stick fingers and keep his mouth open for you.

About The Author

Expert: Rick Gore

Specialty: Horsemanship

It is never the horse's fault. Good natural horsemanship and a true understanding of horses will always get the best results with a horse.

9	Craig Thompson	Orion	USA	Withdrawn						Withdrawn				Withdrawn
20	Ashley Leith	ESB Irish Doctrine	USA	Withdrawn						Withdrawn				Withdrawn
15	Kristin Schmolze	Cavaldi	USA	51.00	51.67	56.67	--	70.3	47	Withdrawn				Withdrawn
32	Corinne Ashton	Dobbin	USA	68.33	70.00	66.67	--	47.5	12	Withdrawn				Withdrawn
6	Mike Winter	Kingpin	CAN	65.67	66.00	67.67	--	50.3	17+	Eliminated				Eliminated
17	Susie Beale	Isabella II	GBR	56.67	58.00	59.67	--	62.8	42	Eliminated				Eliminated
21	Sandra Donnelly	Buenos Aires	CAN	61.33	59.33	62.33	--	58.5	34	Eliminated				Eliminated
26	Karl Slezak	Kachemak Bay	CAN	58.00	59.67	57.00	--	62.7	41	Eliminated				Eliminated
54	Tamra Smith	Chaos Theory	USA	55.67	51.00	49.33	--	72.0	48	Retired				Retired
35	Stanislas de Zuchowicz	Quirinal de la Bastide	FRA	60.33	71.00	68.00	--	50.3	17+	Eliminated				Eliminated
37	Barbara Crabo	Eveready	USA	62.00	60.33	62.00	--	57.8	33	Eliminated				Eliminated
58	Jennifer Wooten-Dafoe	The Good Witch	USA	65.00	65.33	65.00	--	52.3	21	Eliminated				Eliminated
67	Mike Winter	Wonderful Will	CAN	64.67	65.33	64.33	--	52.8	23+	Withdrawn				Withdrawn
68	Jose Ortelli Jr.	JOS Aquiles	ARG	Eliminated						Eliminated				Eliminated
42	Missy Ransehousen	Critical Decision	USA	64.33	66.33	67.67	--	50.8	20	--	0.4	51.2	13	Withdrawn
43	Bonner Carpenter (YR)	Acapulco Jazz	USA	63.67	62.67	60.33	--	56.7	30	--	11.6	68.3	23	Withdrawn
57	Lucinda Fredericks	Headley Britannia	AUS	79.67	78.67	77.00	--	32.3	2	--	--	32.3	1	--	--	32.3	1
51	Bettina Hoy	Ringwood Cockatoo	GER	82.00	84.67	75.67	--	28.8	1	--	9.6	38.4	2	--	--	38.4	2
63	Bruce O. Davidson Jr.	My Boy Bobby	USA	74.00	72.67	75.33	--	39.0	3	--	1.2	40.2	3	--	--	40.2	3
53	Nicolas Touzaint	Hildago de l'Ile	FRA	72.67	73.67	65.00	--	44.3	7	--	--	44.3	5	--	--	44.3	4
61	Lucy Wiegersma	Woodfalls Inigo Jones	GBR	70.33	72.00	71.33	--	43.2	5	--	1.2	44.4	6	--	--	44.4	5
66	William Fox-Pitt	Seacookie	GBR	71.00	70.33	71.67	--	43.5	6	--	2.4	45.9	8	--	--	45.9	6
64	Phillip Dutton	Connaught	USA	69.00	68.00	69.00	--	47.0	10	--	--	47.0	9	--	--	47.0	7
18	Oliver Townend	Carousel Quest	GBR	70.00	74.67	68.00	--	45.2	8	--	--	45.2	7	4	--	49.2	8
30	Tim Lips	Concrex Oncarlos	NED	73.33	72.00	70.67	--	42.0	4	--	--	42.0	4	8	--	50.0	9
11	Stephen S. Bradley	Brandenburg's Joshua	USA	68.00	65.67	70.00	2	48.2	13+	--	0.4	48.6	10	4	--	52.6	10
41	Nicola Wilson	Opposition Buzz	GBR	62.33	65.00	63.33	--	54.7	26	--	--	54.7	15	--	--	54.7	11
2	Phillip Dutton	Woodburn	USA	64.33	69.00	66.00	--	50.3	17+	--	--	50.3	12	4	1	55.3	12
48	Amy Tryon	Leyland	USA	69.33	65.67	67.33	--	48.8	15	--	--	48.8	11	8	--	56.8	13
40	Allison Springer	Arthur	USA	64.33	67.00	68.33	--	50.2	16	--	4.0	54.2	14	4	--	58.2	14
1	Bruce O. Davidson Jr.	Ballynoe Castle RM	USA	60.33	60.67	59.67	--	59.7	38+	20	6.4	86.1	29	--	--	62.9	15
33	Sara Dierks	Somerset II	USA	55.67	62.00	57.00	--	63.2	43+	--	--	63.2	19	--	1	64.2	16
59	Tiffani Loudon-Meetze	Above 'N' Beyond	USA	64.67	61.33	65.33	--	54.3	25	--	12.0	66.3	21	--	--	66.3	17
14	Jolie Sexson	Killian O'Connor	USA	69.33	67.00	69.00	--	47.3	11	--	12.8	60.1	18	8	--	68.1	18
65	Bruce O. Davidson Sr.	Cruise Lion	USA	64.00	61.67	62.33	--	56.0	28	--	9.6	65.6	20	4	--	69.6	19
12	Selena O'Hanlon	Colombo	CAN	67.33	70.33	66.00	--	48.2	13+	--	20.0	68.2	22	4	--	72.2	20
31	Ashley Adams	Vaunted	USA	64.33	41.00	63.33	--	55.7	27	--	2.8	58.5	16	12	2	72.5	21
27	Jan Byyny	Syd Kent	USA	61.00	61.33	64.00	--	56.8	31	20	3.6	80.4	26	--	--	80.4	22
4	William Fox-Pitt	Navigator	GBR	68.67	69.67	68.33	--	46.7	9	20	16.4	83.1	28	--	--	83.1	23
62	Peter Thomsen	The Ghost of Hamish	GER	66.00	62.33	66.00	--	52.8	23+	20	8.4	81.2	27	4	--	85.2	24
50	Debbie Rosen	The Alchemyst	USA	61.67	59.00	60.33	--	59.5	37	20	27.2	106.7	36	4	--	90.7	25
7	Jose Ortelli Jr.	JOS Aladar	ARG	58.33	55.67	59.67	--	63.2	43+	--	27.6	90.8	31	--	--	90.8	26
29	Kelly Sult	Hollywood	USA	53.33	53.00	54.67	--	69.5	46	--	5.6	75.1	25	4	12	91.1	27
22	Cayla Kitayama	Esker Riada	USA	61.00	59.67	60.00	--	59.7	38+	--	9.2	68.9	24	20	3	91.9	28
16	Diana Burnett	Manny	CAN	64.33	64.00	66.33	--	52.7	22	20	15.6	88.3	30	8	--	96.3	29
25	Ronald Zabala-Goetschel	Che Mr. Wiseguy	ECU	63.67	61.33	62.67	--	56.2	29	--	36.4	92.6	32	4	--	96.6	30
52	Stephanie Boyer	Macloud	USA	62.33	62.00	61.33	--	57.2	32	--	37.2	94.4	33	8	--	102.4	31
3	Bruce O. Davidson Sr.	Jam	USA	60.33	57.33	60.67	--	60.8	40	20	25.2	106.0	35	--	--	106.0	32
47	Kyle Carter	Madison Park	CAN	59.67	60.33	62.33	--	58.8	35	20	20.8	99.6	34	8	--	107.6	33
23	Madeline Blackman (YR)	Gordonstown	USA	59.67	55.67	58.33	--	63.2	43+	20	23.2	108.4	37	--	--	108.4	34
60	Tara Ziegler	Buckingham Place	USA	51.33	50.33	50.67	--	73.8	49	40	36.8	150.6	38	20	--	170.6	35
24	Ralph Holstein	Arctic Dancer	USA	60.33	60.00	61.00	--	59.3	36	--	--	59.3	17	--	--	--	--