Practice Listening to the Horse

We could gain a lot more out of our relationships if we practiced listening and hearing more, especially when comes to interacting with the horse.

5 Ways to Improve your Horsemanship

As folks are learning with their horse or experimenting with a new way of communicating and interacting, they can unintentionally develop intensity in their facial expression, posture, energy, and movement. 

Making Peace in your Equine Partnership

Horsemanship: Three detrimental contributors to failing human/horse partnerships

Horses are beginning to arrive for training at my summer facility. The two most common groups of horses have either had the winter off, and the owners realized they either need some refining/furthering of their education, or there are a lot of young horses that need to be started.

If you’ve spent any time reading my Alternative Horsemanship with Samantha Harvey website, or past Blog entries, you’ll realize that I’m not the “quick fix” kind of horse trainer. The two sites help separate those folks who don’t want to have to sift through information and are looking for quick and easy answers, and those who are committed to learning/participating in the journey they and their horse will be experiencing with me.

Horsemanship Pressures : Making appropriate choices for you and your horse

The initial romanticized idea of what equine ownership can be, inspires many people to commit to buying a horse, but it can quickly diminish with the realities and learning curve they experience.  I’ve found that there is a preliminary assumption, that because someone is able to financially “buy” a horse, there is an expectation that the horse is “waiting” to do whatever the person asks of him. 

Experiemental Interaction with your horse...

I am the first to admit that I’m quite resistant to most “step by step” methods of training.  I find that although what/how you ask something of your horse may “seem initially clear” with a one, two, three type of instruction, due to the focus of the end goal, it also limits a person’s perspective in seeing what is ACTUALLY happening in what I call “real-time.”  Often the horse doesn’t act/react as shown or explained in the article or TV show, and the person is at a loss as to what to do next with their horse.  If there is a lack of understanding as to the how whats and whys someone is doing something with their horse, it leaves a lot of room for miscommunication.

Ask the Horse Training: Breaking down the philosophy and training theories of Alternative Horsemanship with Samantha Harvey

Ask the Horse Training: Breaking down the philosophy and training theories of Alternative Horsemanship with Samantha Harvey

Over the past three decades, I have had a variety of Ask the Horse Trainer “problem situations” regarding horses offering unwanted behavior and their owners at a loss as to what to do. Typically horse owners who write in asking for help with their “problem” horse are doing so from a mainstream perspective searching for a “how-to” or quick fix answer to change their horse’s behavior. This means that generally the questions are asked with a sole focus on the unwanted behavior these horse owners are seeing, experiencing, or trying to change. They are trying to STOP the unwanted physical action of the horse. Sorry but I’m the wrong person to offer what I call the “McDonald’s Fix” solution- in my mind, you cannot work with horses in a “standardized” manner with a step by step solution.

Word of the Day: Directing a Horse's Thought

Directing a horse's thought- communicating a person's intention to the horse's mind. The person's ability to have the horse literally look towards the planned direction of movement or focus.  This also leads to re-direct ability, or getting the horse to "let go" of his thought, and re-focus on where or what the human is asking. This influences the quality of the physical movement that follows. 

Word of the Day: Communication with the Horse

Communication- the sending and receiving of thoughts between the horse and person; each needs to safely express themself. Each needs to be mentally available to believe what is being conveyed. There needs to be adaptability in the energy and intention in both the human and horse.