Defining My Work in Order to Help You With Yours

What training method is best for you?

Step by step training is very popular these days. Its seductive because it is easy to simply buy a book or watch a video and then go out to the arena and try out what you saw on your horse. But, as popular as it is, it doesn't consider the horse as an individual and quite frankly seldom works as a long term solution. In fact, you may be creating new problems while solving the existing ones.

Go into your library and count the collection of books and videos you have purchased after the proceeding one fell short? Count the dollars you spent. But what is a horse owner to do? Are there other options? We all know the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over each time expecting a different result.

Take the First Step to a Better Way

Lets imagine that you believe what I am telling you and chance setting your cookie cutter approach aside for just a bit and attempt to consider that horse as his own entity. Notice I said put it aside, not throw it a way. There are handy tools in some of those books and videos. I have my own collection and use pearls of wisdom from them now and again.

Now what? You have no tools and there is no plan. That probably won't work well all by itself, but you have done something that matters to the horse. It is HUGE. With nothing in your hands and with a clean slate, you are actually looking at your horse, perhaps for the very first time for who he is. Don't judge, just observe.

Now you can start addressing what he does. What if you have a horse that has a behavior that you can't help or figure out? Do you revert back to the manual out of frustration and try again? When that doesn't work, do you buy a different book....and so on and so on? It is a vicious cycle. It doesn't have to be. I recommend you do nothing until you are calm enough to do something.

Learn to Consider the Horse

Learning to consider the horse, is easier than you might think and you don't have to be a world class rider to do it. I teach horse owners how to increase their powers of observation. I can teach you what to do with your observations once I help you to understand them. I work with you to develop a plan to get horse and human in agreement so that you can ride or compete together and have fun doing it instead of being stuck in the ongoing wrestling match that caused you to buy that book or video in the first place.

A New Seeing

What does a turn of the head or the direction of an eye or the twitch of a muscle mean to YOUR horse? Where do you need to place your body to work in communion with his? What works? What doesn't?

Working with your horse is like buying jeans. How many pair do you have to try on before the right pair fits the way you want them to? You have to be willing to try things on with your horse. It's really fun once you get the hang of understanding his reaction to what you have put in front of him. What if you get it wrong? You can't punish him for your mistakes any more than you punish yourself if you don't like the jeans on your body that looked great on the rack. Observe it, learn from it and try again. I can teach you how to know what to try.

One Of the Keys...Free of Charge

Explore your horse with calm observation with a foundation based on gentle forgiveness. Remember, every time your coerce or punish or MAKE a horse behave, you diminish him. Horses are way ahead of humans on the forgiveness trail. We have some catching up to do.

What is Observation?

Observation comes in many different forms. You might be using any combination of your senses to at any given time. Once you have learned what your horse is trying to communicate, it is possible to either interrupt the conversation and start a new one without coercion or if the two of you happen to be in a good place, encourage him to continue speaking. What this ultimately does is help to reduce stress in both horse and human so you can both exhale. It allows both of you to get on the same page. With me, you don't buy the manual, you learn how to write your own.

Have You Diminished your Horse?

Whenever a human coerces a horse into submission it diminishes the horse. Most people have no idea that they do this. It is possible to create relationship with a horse where agreement does away with the need for coercion. I want to get to the point where if I think.. "come with me", the horse simply comes with me. I am almost there. What does this have to do with you the reader? When working with your horse and you ask him to "come with you" and he does, show your appreciation, but if he doesn't, what is the cost to the horse if you make him? You can tell the difference between a horse who has been diminished and coerced and one who hasn't. You might not know what you are seeing, but you can feel it. Just because you were told that horse's aren't capable of such relationship and intelligence, doesn't make it so. Think bigger, dream bigger, speak softly.

Building an Athletic Horse Helps Prevent Injury

I included this link because the article is written well and gives needed information. I couln't have written it as well and as succinctly.



http://www.thehorse.com/ViewArticle.aspx?ID=10679

Renovation and Sign Up

I want to remind everyone that my website is going through some growing pains and is under construction. One of the most exciting changes is that the blog will be reserved for training tips. So, if it looks sparse at the moment, it is because all non-training related comments and posts have been deleted. Don't forget to join (bottom right hand side of page). Stay tuned

Liberty Training

Training a horse to go at liberty is becoming quite popular these days. It is fun, looks spectacular and provides a different way of working with your horse. But, try and look at it from the horse's point of view. Horses need and desire leadership. When training at liberty, there is a very delicate balance between what is leadership and what is not. In essence you must learn how to lead and not lead at the same time.

The liberty horse has to have a well developed thinking mind and be able to make decisions based on what you ask him to do, but at the same time the human has to lead and control the asking. We access a horse's mind by controlling his feet. How can we control his feet from a distance yet allow the horse to move freely? If it sounds confusing you you, imagine how it sounds to the horse? Proper liberty training is a tricky thing. Kate teaches liberty training with consideration for the horse. It is possible to just go out and arbitrarily start to "GET" your horse to do things at liberty. The horse, out of love and willingness to please may respond with what looks to be favorable. But have you considered that what you are doing may be no better than trick training or conditioned response? That is not true liberty training. Kate believes that kind of thing can be demeaning to the horse. He may as well be a trained parrot; a horse without a single original thought. There is a difference...a huge difference. Call 303-601-7797 or email Katelyn to learn proper liberty training.

Photo 1: It is difficult to teach the first manuever as it has to first be done in very close proximity to the horse

Photo2: Kate is teaching Fable to collect at liberty. A horse should be able to go in all gaits in collected posture before learning advanced movements.