There’s a bunch of keen horse people out there, many of them clicker trainers, who are working with a technique for dealing with fear in horses that was successfully adapted from a technique developed for aggressive dogs.  It’s called CAT-H Constructional Approach Training for Horses. 

Hmmm, I know… dogs are predators and horses are prey and they have quite different ways of thinking and characteristics.  It certainly wouldn’t have occurred to me to think that something that works on aggressive dogs would work on fearful horses. 

But the Youtube footage below showed me differently. 

The information in Zen Connection with Horses is a beautiful addition to any way of being with horses.  One of the things we talk about is noticing and then developing how we experience our early warning signal that something is Not Quite Right with our horse.  Not Quite Right is what happens before what happens, happens.  So you can imagine how useful it is to have that kind of sensitivity and that kind of responsiveness.

When we ask our horse to do something, we use that early warning signal to know when to stop asking and then we wait for as long as it takes until our horse has chewed and is ready for the next step.  Sometimes in that waiting, the horse will process and release a trauma from earlier in their lives.  It’s a beautiful and liberating thing to do with our horse – to free them from an old fear that is affecting their lives now.  The horse gets systematically calmer and more confident – and so does the rider.

CAT – H does it differently – though still progressing in small stepslike we do.  CAT – H approaches in very small increments and then waits until the horse shows calm before the person retreats.  This retreat rewards the horse’s calm by taking the pressure off, thus giving the horse control over the whole process and empowering them.   Anything that empowers a horse in a fearful situation is a good deal.  And judging by this Youtube footage, it works. 

So, viva la difference!  And Just Say YES! to a different technique that has the horse no longer scared, but alert and in the self carriage that indicates they are truly comfortable. 

Click here to enjoy the video footage where they work with a fearful horse and explain more about the technique at the same time.

 Click here for the article that explains the Just Say YES! project

Because it enables us to respond to our horse’s needs in our pursuit of what it is that we want from our horse and the fastest way to get our horse to consider us, to co-operate with us in whatever it is that WE want, is to consider them and co-operate with them first.

So how can we do that?

We can respond to our horse’s mental, emotional and physical needs with sensitivity. 

So what is sensitivity and how can we be sensitive with our horse?

It is the ability to notice:

• That something needs changing.
• What that something is.
• And make the adaption, take whatever action is needed, as early as possible.

The more sensitive we are, the earlier we notice that something needs changing, the earlier we notice what it is that has to change and the earlier we take action.

All this sensitivity, this noticing, this awareness stuff, comes from LISTENING to our horse.

And we all listen to them in different ways.  One of the reasons that people think they cannot “hear” their horses (and I promise you, everyone can) is because we humans have many different ways of experiencing our connection with our horse and have many different ways in which we notice what needs changing.   Zen Connection with Horses addresses that “problem” with its audio lessons that lead people step by step through their awareness.

I throw this little challenge to you: 

• Decide to notice when something needs changing in order for you to get what you want from your horse.
• Decide to notice what it is that needs changing for you to get what you want from your horse. 
• Decide to take action as early as possible so that you can have what it is that you want from your horse, as easily and smoothly as possible.
• And make the time to just “be” with your horse on a regular basis so as to make all this noticing easier.

And why am I making such a “duh” suggestion, such a simple suggestion?

I am shaking my head and smiling at my reply to this question.  Because your whole world with your horse will change in the instant of that simple decision.

They both had their front feet in the float and the back feet on the ramp and had that in their comfort zone when we finished.  Well done babies!

We have a lovely comfort zone partly in the float to start off with tomorrow, or the next day or whenever I get around to the next stage…

And just to cap off my amazing day, I took Bobby out onto a bush track for a 6 kilometre trot / extended trot / canter – at liberty (that’s no ropes no nothing on him) with me driving alongside him with the Four wheel drive and float and calling him to stay beside me out of the car window.   Yes, you read that right – he trots along beside the car, completely at liberty, out on bush tracks and stays with me at the speed that I request.

But that’s not the wonderful thing with my amazing horse – we do that all the time…

He very strongly persuaded me today, to ride bridle-less, nothing on his head and not even a string around his neck, out in the bush, for kilometres, (in a bareback pad no less!) playing at climbing up and down the (small) banks beside the track.  It was such fun.

And to cap it off, he jumped on the float at liberty and we came home…

Man, we enjoyed ourselves!  What a wonderful way to spend a cold, damp winter’s day!

We suggest that even if you don’t get what you are asking for, that you stop asking and wait for your horse to lick their lips and chew, no matter how long that takes.

“What the?” I hear some of you asking as you want to read that again and seee if you’ve misread what I wrote.  Yes, that is what I mean, stop asking even if you didn’t get what you wanted and wait for The Chew.

One of the most common causes of a horses fear and resistance – indeed vast amounts of our horse’s fear and /or resistance, comes from having pressure put on them when they are confused.  You might eventually get what you want from applying that pressure, if you have a lot of skill – but the anxiety burdened horse that is the result is not what I want my partnership with my horse to feel like.

So with that in mind, here is a readers’s question: – “you know how you said even if the horse doesn’t give the response you want, you stop and wait for The Chew etc…   If you ask for something and they do something different – like you ask for back up but they go sideways instead - if you stop asking, do they not think that what they did was right because you took the ‘asking’ pressure off?  Just trying to get my head around that part as couldn’t explain it to a friend lol.”

Click here for my reply.

I know that’s a big statement, but I’ve been working at helping people and horses recover by natural means for 14 years now, have supervised and aided in what must be thousands of recoveries by now and have personally seen this to be true.

So how does it happen that emotions can have such a huge physical effect?  I’ll talk about humans first, because once we have related it to ourselves, it will be easier to understand our horse.

Click here for the rest of this article.

Well, OK, now I’ve thought about it … and from a practical point of view, I would probably still castrate my young colts and I expect that I would do it before they had a chance to learn what they were missing.

In the past, castrations have typically been done for two reasons – one to stop the colt or stallion from being able to make a mare pregnant and secondly to make them quieter and more amenable to being handled.  Geldings typically have a much more even temperament than stallions and even mares.

However, for those of you thinking about gelding your colt just for behavioural reasons, there is a good reason to think again.

Click here for the rest of this article, including what castration can mean to a gelding.

Pam’s question had some great timing to it, because we have just had a second aggressive / dominant horse change his ways here in our herd and stop beating up on the other horses and I had been doing some thinking about what it was that caused him to change.

So here are my thoughts on that.  Click here for the rest of this story…

We have decided to set up Heidi’s emails and my replies about Tilly’s dramatic float loading problem as an on-going lesson here on the blog, so that others may benefit from the on-going lesson.

Click here for Heidi’s email and my reply.

And I am afraid that, after all that work (darn it!), the most movement travelled by domestic horses was done  in a basic big paddock of four fenced-off sides.

I guess there is no substitute for playful companions that promote a good gallop around, enough room to do that romping in and plenty of happy work and play with their humans to get miles under their feet.

Here’s a photo of me getting creative about getting some miles under the feet of my miniatures - keeping them healthy during the spring growth.  Please note, this is only possible because the ponies are completely unafraid and very co-operative!

The researchers of the horse movement study, Hampson and his colleagues,  ”tested five pasture structures to see if they tended to encourage more movement in horses – a thought that has been gaining popularity among some horse owners.  The “racetrack” style fencing system, which blocks off the center area of the pasture, made no major difference in movement and actually seemed to make the horses move less, Hampson said.  A maze pattern also slightly reduced average movement, and a spiral fence pattern lowered the average even more.  Fencing off a tree to keep horses from stagnating in the shade seemed to cause little changes in their movement habits.

In fact, the pasture structure which yielded the greatest daily travel distance was the basic open pasture system of four fenced-off sides, he said.”

This quote was from the Horseconscious newsletter, click here and scroll down about a third of the page to get the rest of their article for the horse movement study.   Their article was in turn taken from  thehorse.com, Christa Leste-Lasserre June 15 2010, Article 16515.

As I said “darn!  All that work!”

To us, a good barefoot trimmer is more than just a person who trims our horses’ feet.  He is the person who works with our horse when they are just about at their most vulnerable – with their leg in the air and unable to run away easily.

We are so lucky that not only are Gene’s trimming skills excellent, he is brilliant with the horses – gentle, sensitive and responsive to their emotional as well as their physical needs. 

I laughed when I read what I wrote.  It sounds like a great recommendation for a man, let alone a feet trimmer.  But unfortunately for you single ladies, this one’s married to the beautiful Kylie!

It is not going to be too long before a guy with this sort of horse talent has a full book, so if you are looking for someone who really knows his stuff about barefoot trimming, transitioning from shoes to barefoot, fitting easy boots for endurance and other performance horses, foundered horses and other specialist horse podiatry – then I suggest that you get on to him.

Gene is living just outside of Gormondale, near Traralgon and is working through South Gippsland, areas of the Mornington Peninsula, down the Princes Highway, past us at Moe to Pakenham and Cranbourne, Beaconsfield and across into the Dandenongs to Monbulk and Cockatoo.  Obviously East Gippsland is also on his doorstep.

Click here for the link to Gene’s website.  His phone number is 03 5194 2286 and his Mobile is 0488 421 189