Recently I had a client horse who broke his jaw. This is how it happened: he was clenching his teeth around a bar of his stall door, while his forefeet were on a ledge of that same door. He dropped one foot down and neglected to release his teeth from the bar of the stall. This action broke his jaw on the side of the mandible.
I really like this expression and it fits so many experiences I’ve had with horses, where they see their human not taking appropriate charge and so they feel they must take charge!
Pat Parelli says you must be “mentally, emotionally and physically fit” to handle horses. I would argue that many people who aren’t physically fit can do a lot with horses. To me the bottom line is energetics. The horse recognizes the energy in the person, and will respond to that.
I know what I’m about to write is probably controversial to many people. But I believe therapy horses need help.
Until our gelding Patches came to live with us, I didn’t know much about the horses in therapeutic riding programs. I thought they were doing a public service and that was great. Now I see remnants of that experience in our horse and have spent two years helping him get confident again. During the past two years, I’ve spoken to others who have either worked in such programs or who have horses from the programs and have also seen similar problems these horses suffer.
Horse trainers know that repetition is what gets a horse to learn something, and it is true with people too. We can’t learn to play the piano without doing scales, lots of them.
Continue reading Bring joy to repetition in liberty horse training
Are you afraid of your horse? Being afraid of your horse is nothing to be ashamed about. Many horses are scary, or people have had scary things happen with horses. Sometimes people come to liberty training because they are afraid to ride, or have a horse that is unridable or unmanageable. It’s also good to have a healthy fear or caution when working around horses.
Continue reading Afraid of your horse?
When people say they have a good “bond” with their horse, it can mean a lot of different things. I have talked in the past about the difference between an emotional bond and a working bond. What we work on developing in liberty training is the working bond. But the degrees of bond or connection people have with their horses when they come to liberty work can be varied. Here are some possibilities, including some not-so-good bonds:
Continue reading Degrees of working connection in equine liberty training
Training is something not just for horse trainers to do, but for horse owners too.
Continue reading Practical application of liberty horse training
Sunday’s Horses at Liberty Clinic attracted some really good horse people here in New Mexico. Our attendees showed excellent timing and feel for the work which helped the horses learn faster.
Continue reading Horses at Liberty Training Clinic: Sharing Horse Sense
Just because we are doing liberty work it doesn’t mean that the horse is at liberty to boss us around. We are working with boundaries, territory, food, all things that are very important to horses.
