Recognizing the Horse's Communication

Alternative Horsemanship the Remote Horse Coach shares Understanding Horse Behavior and Communication- Learning how to assess the horse to remove the guesswork about his future responses. All new access to Exclusive LIVE Content with Q & A Opportunities https://bit.ly/ExclusiveHorseContent In-Person Learning https://learnhorses.com Distance Horse Coaching & Consultations http://www.remotehorsecoach.com Alternative Horsemanship Video Catalog https://remotehorsecoach.uscreen.io

 

Helping Horses in less than ideal scenarios

Dear Sam: Horse Help Horsemanship Series

Helping Horses in less than ideal scenarios 

Alternative Horsemanship the Remote Horse Coach shares thoughts on helping difficult, fearful, reactive, injured, distrustful, inexperienced horses in less than ideal scenarios. 

Weekly videos in the Alternative Horsemanship YouTube Channel 

Understanding Unwanted Horse Behavior

 Horses don't just "do" that...

What if we recognized and addressed the initial signs of concerned, fearful, or defensive equine behaviors before they erupted into things like:

Bucking

Bolting

Kicking

Spooking

"Over-reaction"

Biting

Fixating

Fleeing movement

Biting at the Air

Pawing

Jigging

Stomping

Weaving

Horse Problems- When things dont go as planned

Horse Problems- When things don't go as planned 

Some days everything may go as planned with the horse, and other days nothing does. My personality is to "will" things to happen; it has taken a lot of years and daily intention to realize that approach wasn't going to work when it came to my interactions with horses.

Eliminating the Hurry to Improve your Horsemanship

In western society, people tend to hurry, and unintentionally carry their chaos into their horsemanship.

Their self-imposed urgencies of task accomplishment often become the focal point, rather than prioritizing the Quality of Communication with the horse. The general unspoken standard of "if the horse's behavior doesn't scare me, we're still okay," leaves many horses in the gray area during a majority of human interaction. If the horse "mostly" complies, the tendency is to add more to what is being asked of him.

Horseback Riders and Equine Enthusiast Tips- Stop overwhelming Yourself

Stop Overwhelming Yourself
It is very easy to become overwhelmed by everything that "isn't" or is challenging, frustrating, and exhausting with the horse.
Unrealistic expectations, hopefulness and continuously comparing ourselves or our horses to what "everyone else" is/can do, is detrimental to the Quality of our interactions and leads to less-than-ideal scenarios.
I wish more folks gave themselves permission to literally and figuratively focus on being present and addressing themselves and their horse in small segments. Each segment of Clarity in Communication can connect to the next, which influences how the "final" piece of accomplishment is experienced by the horse.

The Resistant Horse

When the horse is...

Resistant to being caught
Constantly pulling when led
Pulls back or gets stressed when tied
Swishes his tail every time you walk behind him
Always is moving away when trying to tack him up
Steps away when trying to mount
Walks off as soon as the rider is in the saddle
Is drifting, bracing, or anticipative when ridden
Takes "a while" to load into the trailer
Might explode backward during the trailer unloading
Is "buddy" or barn "sour"
Has the same "issue" with the same scary spot repeatedly
Offers dramatic behaviors when something unexpected arises
Paws, paces, cribs, weaves, wall kicks, bites while in his enclosure
Is aggressive towards other horses or at feed time
Etc., etc., etc.

Finding a Horse Boarding Facility- How to Choose the Right One

Choosing the right barn to board your horse means knowing what questions to ask and what to look for when visiting boarding facilities. In this video, we discuss the important features to consider, like cost, other horse owners, facility rules, owner responsibility, and the health of the animals currently boarding.

Subscribe to the Alternative Horsemanship YouTube Channel for the Tuesday Trainer Tips series and the Dear Sam: Horse Help Horsemanship Series on Fridays.

Help- My horse suddenly stops moving forward!

The theme of the past few days has been new folks asking for help with horses that are going "fine" and then the horse "randomly" or suddenly stops, or quits, moving forward.

Horsemanship Challenges: The Human Learning Curve

In this horse trainer advice video, Sam discusses in her Dear Sam: Horse Help Horsemanship Series challenges, frustrations, and understanding of the horse many horseback riders experience as their horsemanship journey progresses. 

Subscribe to the Alternative Horsemanship YouTube Channel for weekly videos in this series and the Tuesday Trainer Tips Series.

What is Alternative Horsemanship?

Samantha Harvey discusses her riding background and education and how she developed her Alternative Horsemanship approach to help horses and horseback riders improve their equine partnership. She shares how her horse philosophy and goal are to help horse riders improve their understanding of equine behavior and communication.

Equine Rehabilitation and Horse Re-education what is involved? Addressing the viral video

A recent video I posted on TikTok got over 1.1 million views in about 72 hours showing the Before and After of a horse that had arrived for "bad and dangerous behavior" issues such as biting, kicking, bucking, bolting, striking, etc. when the root cause was the amount of pain he was currently in, his past mental and physical traumas, and the strong distrust towards humans. This is a response video explaining what is involved in the way I approach equine rehabilitation and building the Horse's trust. Here's the link to the Before & After Horse Rehab video https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRaJTJ5s/

Horsemanship Tools- Unintentional Weaponizing Creating Fearful Horses

 Weaponizing Horsemanship "Tools"

"It" has been called a variety of names, has multiple different styles, and in the name of imitation without understanding, so many good intentioned horse people are using "it" in a destructive, aggressive, critical manner teaching the horse fear, flee, containment, and defensiveness.

Horse Rider MindSet- Caustic Categorizing

How Your Thoughts Influence your Horsemanship

Somewhere in the course of people riding the interaction with the horse became compartmentalized into good and bad, right or wrong.

 
It comes from a place of human expectation (irrelevant of if it is appropriate or not,) which overshadows the interaction with continuous critical communication.
Approaching the horse as something to "make" comply, when the person's fixation is stuck on the agenda, they miss things like:

Dear Sam: Horse Help Horsemanship Series *Why Quality Comunication Matters

Dear Sam: Horse Help Horsemanship Series *Why Quality Communication Matters Alternative Horsemanship with Samantha Harvey the Remote Horse Coach shares her perspective of why quality communication is an invaluable tool in creating reasonable equine partners. Subscribe to the channel for weekly videos.

Considering the Horse: Assessing the fearful and abused horse

Observing the Horse: Starting with the fearful and abused horse... by Alternative Horsemanship the Remote Horse Coach

She's 2 years old and came out of a very bad situation. She's had about 6 months off to just be a horse and gain weight. Her current owner has been unsuccessful in perking the mare's curiosity to participate to any degree with the human. 

I see far too many scenarios where a horse already is fearful and reactive, and people are continuously adding pressure in a manner that is challenging to the horse. 

These are the type of horses who will climb the fence and are seemingly unable to literally see what is in front of them when extreme flight emotions are triggered. If I approach working with her in a "have to" or "make her" manner, there will be no success and I will reinforce what she's already experienced about the human. 

The goal is not about getting her close to me but rather reawakening her curiosity which will replace her fear, which then diminishes the flee and instead she can offer thoughtful, reasonable behavior. 

I will be filming much of our sessions together and creating a course on my Remote Horse Coach video catalog site for those interested in this aspect of horsemanship. 

Dear Sam: Horse Help *Re-evaluating Horse Problems by Alternative Horsem...

Alternative Horsemanship with Samantha Harvey the Remote Horse Coach 

Dear Sam: Horse Help *ReEvaluating Horse "Problems" 

Addressing how most common problematic or unwanted equine behaviors are a symptom, not the issue(s) the horse is struggling with.


Subscribe to the YouTube Channel for weekly horse learning opportunities with new videos posted every Friday.

Horse Rider Mindset Hints by Alternative Horsemanship

The Story...
What ifs...
Yeah, but I want to...
In peeling back the layers of why things fall apart, there is an imbalance of blaming the horse versus human self-observation and awareness.
Rarely is it popular to discuss how much the human mind and emotions can delegate how the horse interaction occurs.

Improving our Horsemanship- One Step at a Time

 One Step at a Time

It is very easy to be overwhelmed by everything that "isn't" or is challenging, frustrating, and exhausting with the horse. 

Addressing the Horse's Concern- Alternative Horsemanship the Remote Horse Coach

The Horse's Concern

What if we recognized and addressed the initial signs of concern before it erupted into:
Bucking
Bolting
Kicking
Spooking
"Over-reaction"
Biting
Fixating
Fleeing movement
Biting at the Air
Pawing
Jigging
Stomping
Weaving
and so many other moments responded to as, "OH, he just does that, he's being a ____."