Showing posts with label horse training. Show all posts
Showing posts with label horse training. Show all posts

Teaching the Horse or creating Unwanted Behaviors


Dear Sam: Horse Help Horsemanship Series
Are you effectively teaching your horse or unknowingly nurturing undesirable, resistant, and defensive behaviors? Gain insights into human behaviors that perpetuate fear and defensiveness in horses, and explore creating mental availability to foster willing equine behavior.
Click the link to watch on the Alternative Horsemanship YouTube Channel.
New videos are posted every Friday

 

Holes in the Horse's Education: Lightness vs Softness

It is my job when a horse first comes in to evaluate “where the horse is at,” mentally, physically, emotionally, and experience-wise.

One of the most basic and common initial scenarios is a horse that is “light” on the lead rope (constantly offering slack on the rope, but physically tight), when led in the “normal” position (standing somewhere near his head and drawing him forward with the lead rope.)

Horse Training Help : Containment or Skills

Dear Sam: Horse Help Horsemanship Series 

Tying the Horse: Are you teaching unwanted equine behaviors?



Horse Training Basics

Teaching containment or adaptability in the equine? So many unwanted equine behaviors are taught by human interactions that challenge the horse without ever teaching the horse the skills to think, search, try, and retain.

Click the link to watch on the Alternative Horsemanship YouTube Channel 

New videos posted every Friday 

Detrimental Patterned Human & Horse Interactions


Changing the pattern in
the small day-to-day interactions can be a great opportunity to safely assess Holes in your Horsemanship, refine, communicate, and build trust.
If there are any "holes," it can be a safe time and place to start changing up the Conversation, and refining influencing thoughts, without the equine getting overwhelmed. All in preparation for future unfamiliar situations.
Improving the Quality of communication builds trust and reinforces your support towards the horse. Establishing this before the day of unexpected events allows for less traumatic or overwhelming scenarios for both humans and horses.

Horse Training Discussing Pressure & Force Free


Dear Sam: Horse Help Horsemanship Series Horse Training & Pressure

Discussing horses, human communication using pressure and thoughts on force free approaches.

Weaponizing Horsemanship

 Weaponizing Horse Communication

The Horse's Behaviors reflect their mental and emotional state. How often are you critical, demanding, and inserting a human emotional filter without considering what the equine is experiencing during the interaction?


Horse Skills

 "Following a Feel"


Those words had no value to me all the years I interacted with the horse unintentionally offering continuous tension- on the lead rope, on the rein, in my leg, etc.  There was never any true release of pressure towards the horse (other than during a jump.)

Are you creating unwanted horse behavior?


 Alternative Horsemanship the Remote Horse Coach shares insight into human interactions that can lead to unwanted equine behaviors.

Subscribe to the YouTube Channel for weekly videos in the Dear Sam: Horse Help Horsemanship Series.

Holes in the Horsemanship

 Holes in the Horsemanship

It is my job when a horse first comes in to evaluate “where the horse is at,” mentally, physically, emotionally, and experience-wise. So I thought I’d share with you some of the more common “holes” I tend to find in working with horses of all ages… I believe a majority of the time the holes are present because owners and horses learn to get comfortable with how or what they present in a scenario. The horse learns what is expected of them and then can comply. The problem occurs when the “rules” or expectations change.

Horsemanship and Horseback Riding: Reviewing the Release

 Reviewing the Release

As with everything, there are many interpretations when it comes to the terminology associated with horses. I try to be clear and precise in the words that I'm offering, but there still can be a gray area in the human student's understanding. This often comes from their level of awareness, background, and unintentional anticipation/expectation of their mind "getting ahead" of wherever they are currently at with their horse.

Horse Tips: Perceptions of the Halt

 Perceptions of the Halt

Many humans view the halt as physical yielding or obedience. There is little or no concept of the difference between the feet not moving versus a horse mentally present and physically relaxed when asked to stop.

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.

Horse Goals vs Creating a Quality Equine Partnership



Horse Goals vs Creating Quality Equine Partnerships

It is very easy to fall into a pattern of setting goals and getting fixated on them while losing sight of assessing if there's quality during the interaction with the horse.

What does Horsemanship mean? By Alternative Horsemanship the Remote Horse Coach

 Horsemanship... (my random morning thoughts)

Isn't a "thing" or a fad... it is a mindset influencing a way of being.

What is it like being a Horse Trainer? Thirty years later


Alternative Horsemanship with Samantha Harvey the Remote Horse Coach shares her unexpected journey as a horse trainer, developing equine partnerships, trauma, building trust and try, and setting the horse up for success in the human world. So much of the horse's initial training influences its future safety and well-being.

Summer Hoofprints & Happenings Newsletter with Alternative Horsemanship

 



Get the latest scoop on Alternative Horsemanship clinics, the Equine Retreat, new courses added to the video catalog, upcoming clinics in Uruguay and Argentina, and more!
Enjoy the Summer Hoofprints & Happenings Newsletter edition for all the upcoming events, click the Video Catalog for distance learning, or subscribe to YouTube Channel for weekly horse insight.

Horse Learning- Are you helping or Hindering?

 Learning how to Learn



 I find the way most people offer information to the horse is with an expectation of tolerance by the equine. 


Rarely is there any consideration for being able to influence the horse's focus, redirect his thoughts, help him let go of physical tension, or have many of the other tools needed so that he can learn how to think through the unfamiliar, rather than just tolerate it.


Why does it matter?


Because each interaction you're teaching the horse to either become more weary and distrustful of the human experience, or you're increasing his curiosity and building his confidence for all that you ask of him in the future.


 The real motivation, even without acknowledging the horse and what he is experiencing, might come from asking oneself, "Wouldn't it be easier to set the horse up for success from the start, rather than having to undo unnecessary traumatic experiences and dangerous coping behaviors created because of hurried, unclear, and lack of quality human communication?" 

Re-Introducing the Halter to the Fearful and Defensive Horse


This is Cinder a two-year-old horse that was rescued from a life of abuse. When she arrived she was fearful and defensive, wanted nothing to do with humans, and would try and climb over anything to get away from the human. 

The journey of reawakening her Curiosity, which will replace her fear, allows her to physically offer reasonable behavior. 

It is not one that you can make happen. It is about creating 2-way Communication, believing the horse's feet back, addressing their concern, and then allowing them the time to mentally process their new human experiences. 

This isn't about getting a halter on a horse, it is about setting the horse up for success for the rest of her life in the human world. 

Far too many people are rushing trying to accomplish a goal, rather than seeking the quality. Certainly, in the case of horses who have a history of abuse, there is nothing you will sneak past them. So the mental shift we need them to make must be 100%, otherwise, their old survival and behaviors re-emerge if humans attempt to contain them or make them comply, which will trigger the dangerous behavior.

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.