Past the Foundation Behaviour

Training happens in sequence and the first is the default behaviour of our horse standing ‘calm and attentive’ and not foraging (mugging) around their human carrying food or showing any other kind of uncomfortable emotional response.  From the default behaviour, there are number of options, depending on the individual human and horse and their goals.

You can move on to learning basic targeting and shaping and then utilise these techniques for husbandry, movement for exercise and/or ridden behaviours, or you can focus on helping your horse feel comfortable with different experiences in their environment. Whether that be helping a fearful or anxious horses to be trained to willingly accept various stimuli such as humans in proximity, touching, haltering, grooming, hoof handling, rugging, hosing, accepting gear, etc.  This process again, focuses on the emotional well being of the horse and I build choice into this type of training, so that our horse can ‘tell us’ at every step, how they are coping with the stimulus we are introducing.