Synchronicity & Matching Steps When we clicker train, there’s lots of different ways that we can convert what we are doing on the ground, to ridden behaviours. I thought this video was a great example of true liberty work. No whips directing her shoulders or body, no need for extensions of my arm, no body […]
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It’s ok, you can comfort your horse FF R+ dog trainers talk a lot about encouraging people to comfort their dog when they’re afraid. Patting and praising them when they’re scared, wont reinforce their fear. I’m a FF R+ equine trainer and I say the same about horses. If your horse is afraid, giving them
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Horses Are Herd Animals Horses are such amazing and beautiful creatures! But do we truly understand them and what their needs are? One of the most important requirements that is often misunderstood is that horses are complex social herd animals. They would never choose to live alone, they need company! In a herd, they enjoy
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Run with Food? OR Stand and Train? One thing that I really love about R+ training is shaping behaviour and putting it on cue and playing around with cues. I’d encourage all of you to develop your shaping skills, allowing the horse to offer behaviour and most importantly, get those behaviours on cue. All my
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Running around horses when you have food? What is it really? I often see videos and descriptions of happy horses, or playing horses or horses generally having fun. But when I look at the horse’s body language and the context, where they are often in an arena with a human, a human who is often
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Choice & Control in Clicker Training I’ve heard interesting statements over the years from those who are against training with Positive Reinforcement (R+). That means training without pressure, coercion or force. What I find interesting is that detractors of R+ training claim it is manipulative, coercive, transactional, controls the animal and their mind and that
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How to Approach Fear in Equines from a Human & Ethical Training Perspective Helping a horse who is experiencing fear should never be about making them “face their fear” or “get over it”. What can fear look like? It can look like anything from a horse freezing, refusing to go forward, baulking, napping, looking off
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Contiguity – What is it? Although people struggle with the terminology of R+ training, I’m a big fan of using correct terms, not for the sake of it, or to look super brainy, but because it improves our training. Knowing what something is, or what to avoid or the name of something you want to
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Why the Yawn? What horse people tell themselves:- “She’s so relaxed she’s sleepy!” “She loves being lunged/ridden/round penned, because she yawns right after, so I know she’s super relaxed!” “She yawns after I take the bit out and saddle off, so I know she’s had a good time and is super chill!” But what are
Progression of Equine Fear “The key themes that emerged throughout several of the questions were: that fear and/or anxiety is very poorly recognized by horse caregivers; that the more overt signs of more extreme fear are more likely to be recognised than the more subtle signs; and that fear and/or anxiety is often misinterpreted by
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