Is your horse a rescue? I’ve been tossing this subject around in my head for quite a while now. It’s a delicate subject, as there’s a fine line between a couple of different factors. One, is trying to avoid blame and shame, because I really don’t find that helpful or productive and we simply don’t […]
Is your horse a rescue? Read More »
Horse Training, get creative and change something Have you ever made a definitive statement about your horse? “My horse is not food motivated” “My horse doesn’t like being hosed down” “I have a spooky/aggressive/dominant/submissive horse” I’ve talked previously about how labelling our animals is not helpful in our training or how to solve problems. But
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The “lick and chew”, there’s no need to (scare your horse). I saw a video today that had me very concerned. Now that Natural Horsemanship/ pressure & release/ Negative Reinforcement trainers understand about the different nervous systems, the Flight/Fight and Rest/Digest states and the accompanying body language, they like to talk about it a lot,
The “lick and chew”, there’s no need (to scare your horse). Read More »
Do they really liked to be touched? I read a great article a while back about dog owners requesting that people ignore their dog. This can equally apply to our equines. The article went on to say that dogs are sentient beings and they have likes and dislikes and we shouldn’t expect them to be
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Paddock Paradise, history and examples. Not all of this will be useful or benefit your horse or be practical. Every horse and environment is unique. But the basic premise is to respect the horse as a species and try to improve their lifestyle and welfare. Some of the observations and science behind this concept, have
Paddock Paradise, history and examples. Read More »
Paddock Paradise I’m a big fan of Paddock Paradise (PP) approaches/philosophy, in that I understand that the modern domestic lifestyle doesn’t suit a lot of equines and a PP approach can be a good compromise. It’s not perfect either, but it comes a little closer to how equines evolved to live. It gets people thinking
Paddock Paradise, horses need varied terrain. Read More »
Is Negative Reinforcement “bad” and Positive Reinforcement “good”? There is always a lot of discussion that regularly does the rounds on social media surrounding the question, is Positive Reinforcement “good” and Negative Reinforcement “bad”? First of all, I would ask, for who? The trainer or the horse/animal? You are then assured that positive simply means
Is Negative Reinforcement “bad” and is Positive Reinforcement “good”? Read More »
All behaviour is communication This subject is about another big, huge, challenging mind shift we go through when we move across from traditional (aversive/ forceful) adversarial style of horse training, handling and interactions. When we change over to a different, more positive, empathetic and co-operative way of being with and training our horses via force
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Generosity I whipped up a quick video and voiceover to try to illustrate a point I’d like to make that is super important! I’ve talked about generosity before and I’d like to talk about the importance of it again. I realise “generosity” is a concept and can be extremely subjective. So let me explain. You
Paddock Paradise systems Fantastic words that encapsulate the approach needed, from PP fb group member Emma: “my biggest learn . . . . is making sure I embrace flexibility, observation, and keep my mind open to the changing needs of the horses and the land! What I initially implement is just a framework to build
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