Toward the end of March Dominique and I met for an afternoon’s conversation which I’ve divided up into three episodes. Last week we talked about puzzle solving. This week rope handling is in the spotlight. Dominique is going through my on-line rope handling course. She’s just reached a section which describes what it means to turn a lead rope on and off. This is involves what can seem like a very fussy rope handling skill but the horses have shown us this use of the lead makes a difference to them. That’s especially true when you’re working with nervous horses. This detail emerged through the ..read more

Toward the end of March Dominique and I met for an afternoon’s conversation. I’ve divided up into three episodes. In part 1 we talk about puzzles. So much of training success revolves around a handler’s ability to set puzzles which engage the learner. You want to make the puzzles easy to start out with to build the learner’s confidence that this is a puzzle he can solve. Then you gradually add elements so the training progresses. In this episode we talk about treasure hunts and why some people grow up loving puzzles and others want nothing to do with them. We explore strategies for developing ..read more

This is Part 4 of a 4 part conversation with Svenja Sawinski. Svenja has a horse who has been giving her a master class in teaching stillness and relaxation. In Part 1, Svenja introduced us to Daryan her Arab barb cross. When Svenja began with a very young Daryan, she was still using traditional, pressure-based training methods. That worked fine with her older horse because he would always back down from escalating pressure. But not Daryan. In Part 1 Svenja described her discovery that you could teach a horse to stand still using clicker training. For both Daryan and Svenja that was a transfor ..read more

This is Part 3 of a 4 part conversation with Svenja Sawinski. Svenja’s horse, Daryan, has been giving her a master class in teaching stillness and relaxation. In Part 1, Svenja introduced us to Daryan her Arab barb cross. She described the early steps she used to teach Daryan to stand still. That was just the beginning. Daryan was a challenging horse to work with. He needed more than foundation level standing still. In Part 2 Svenja shared how she taught Daryan how to settle and relax into stillness. We ended with stillness becoming a default behavior. In part 3 Svenja expands this to show you ..read more

This is Part 2 of a 4 part conversation with Svenja Sawinski. If you are a regular listener to the podcast, you know Dominique and I talk frequently about topics that come from the coaching sessions that are part of my on-line clinics. That’s very much what led to this series with Svenja. Svenja is one of the regular attendees at these coaching sessions. Last fall we were looking at some video Svenja had sent in in which she was doing some body work with her horse Daryan. Dominique was fascinated by how long Daryan could go between clicks while remaining seemingly very settled and relaxed. He ..read more

We all know there are many forms of standing still. There’s standing at full attention like a soldier on parade. There’s standing at ease watching the world drift by. There’s standing still ready to spring into action like a sprinter at the starting line. Often people get to four on the floor with their animals and stop at that point. As long as the feet are still, they consider they have taught stillness. But what happens if that horse or that dog is quivering with expectation, trying to figure out what to do to get you to click? You may have four on the floor, but you’re a long way from a re ..read more

This is Part 3 of a conversation that was sparked by the on-line coaching session that I host once a month for people in my on-line clinics. In Part 1 we talked about resets - what they are and how they can be used to help horses rebalance so they are more in sync with their handlers. In Part 2 this led to a discussion of shaping on a point of contact, the WWYLM lesson and visualizing your horse as a marching band. In part 3 explore some useful metaphors that help in understanding lateral work. We’ll begin with Merry-Go-Rounds and then move on to railroad tracks. Dominique has been discovering ..read more

This is Part 2 of a three part conversation that was sparked by the on-line coaching sessions that I host once a month for people in my on-line clinics. We were talking about balance, which is no surprise. We’re always talking about balance. Embedded in that conversation was a discussion of resets. In part 1 we defined resets, discussed their importance, described how they are taught and used. In this episode we begin with the “Why Would You Leave Me?” Lesson. I describe what this lesson is, how it is taught and the relation to resets. We discuss how to help horses that tend to overflex and ho ..read more

This is Part 1 of a three part conversation that was inspired by the coaching sessions that are part of my on-line clinics. We are talking about resets and lateral work. Resets give you do-overs so they are a key element of teaching good balance. If your horse starts to step forward out of balance, instead of letting him continue on so the balance issue just continues and becomes more and more of a mess, you reset him back to the beginning so he can try again. Resets can become corrections. If the only time you ask for a reset is when things are going wrong, the focus will be on behavior you w ..read more

This is part 2 of a conversation Dominique and I recorded on December 28 2023. We were in a year end mood which meant we began our conversation by looking back over a year of podcasts. We had just finished up several head spinning topics with conversations with Anita Schnee about Feldenkrais work, with Joe Layng on public and private events, and then with Michaela Hempen on assessing animal welfare. We were both feeling the need for a topic about more practical training applications. Dominique chose the trick training chapter from my book “Modern Horse Training” as a good focus for a lively co ..read more