How do you use groundwork to fix a horse that is disrespectful or pushy on the ground?

Disrespectful and pushy behavior on the ground — crowding the handler's space, walking ahead on the lead, pushing through the handler, not stopping when asked — is something Clinton Anderson, Pat Parelli, and Warwick Schiller all address as a leadership and communication problem rather than a discipline problem. The distinction matters because the solution to a communication problem is more and better communication, while the solution to a discipline problem is correction, and applying correction to a communication problem typically makes the behavior worse. Clinton Anderson's approach is to immediately make any invasion of his personal space the beginning of a yielding exercise. If a horse walks into him, Anderson immediately asks the horse to yield its hindquarters — stepping into the horse's space, directing its hip away, until the horse yields softly and steps back. He does not retreat when the horse crowds him; he advances. This directly reverses the dynamic the horse is trying to establish. He also uses the Lunging for Respect exercises specifically designed to reestablish the handler as the one who directs feet. Fifteen minutes of specific disengaging, yielding, backing, and sending exercises that give the handler control of all four of the horse's feet consistently produces a horse that is lighter, more aware of the handler's space, and more responsive to direction. Parelli addresses pushiness through the Porcupine Game — applying steady pressure in the direction of travel until the horse softens and yields — combined with making the horse's unsolicited movement toward the handler the trigger for sending the horse away. The horse learns that moving toward the handler uninvited means moving away, which quickly removes the motivation for crowding. Schiller adds the perspective that truly pushy horses are often horses whose nervous systems are activated and who are seeking human contact as a coping mechanism. For these horses, the correction-based approach can make the pushiness worse because it adds stimulation. He recommends investigating whether the pushiness is dominance-based or anxiety-based before choosing the response.