Horsemanship- Allowing ourselves Permission to be Present

"Have to" often clouds our awareness and acknowledgment of the horse. It limits our ability to believe and be empathetic towards the horse.

Can horse goals be good? Absolutely

But what if our first Goal was to begin every session by letting our own distractions go. Exhaling our urgencies. Calming our emotions and energy. And being available to "hear" the horse's communication without Critique?

Learning to address the horse in the present helps us succeed with Quality in the future.

A reminder the first of three webinars is starting today:

Building Confidence in Horse and Human Jan 22, 2022

Horse Help: What am I missing? Feb 5, 2022

Pressure Points: Unintentional Human Communication Feb 19, 2022

50-minute lecture with 10 minutes Q & A opportunity. If you miss the LIVE event replay is available.

Click the link for details

Horsemanship- The Detriment of "I want"

 Has the urgency of "I want" limited Quality in your equine partnership? If the priority is, "I want," how available are you to hear, acknowledge, and address the horse?

Conversations with Horses

 

In the horse world I find there can be a lot fear, negativity and critique. This can be overwhelming, frustrating and depressing for many. 

Addressing the horse's thought before his physical behavior...

Rather than the handler or rider critiquing the horse's unwanted behavior, the person needs to "dig deeper" and address the root cause of it.

Getting fixated on stopping the obvious physical actions may temporarily curb the horse's initial actions, but it will not address the root cause of them.

If the behavior is only contained or criticized, the original unsought movement will evolve into a new undesirable one.

The horse's actions are a reflection of his mental and emotional state. If we prioritize having quality conversations with the horse helping him to learn to think through what we are presenting, he can then offer a soft, reasonable, physical "try" in his response to our requests.

Re-educating the dangerous and abused horse

This youngster had arrived after a rough initial start then eventual rescue. There is a big moment when familiar things such as tack is presented and a horse has the opportunity to be near it, while loose, that they will display how they really feel about it. In this case, preparing to tack while she was loose, feeling confident and relaxed, was quite the progression from the horse that couldn't stand still and was fleeing constantly when I first met her. It isn't about her obediently standing, it is about her offering to present herself in a confident, quiet manner, trusting and trying.