There will be some behaviours that your horse finds more challenging than others. Perhaps this is overcoming fear of the tarp or the fly spray, perhaps it’s finding joy in forwards movement or maybe it’s slowing down and standing quietly. Whatever it is, the Challenge Sandwich concept will help! The temptation is often to work […]
Challenge Sandwich Read More »
Breathing slowly and deeply helps to calm your horse under saddle and improves your connection. On Selena’s first ride after re-backing, Rachel Bedingfield explains how to use your breath to create connection at the mounting block and calmness as you walk on. The three steps to success with this are Build connection on the ground
Breath Connection Under Saddle Read More »
Do you ever find that you lose connection with your horse during transitions? That his head comes up or he hollows his back? Or maybe that he rushes or blocks? Or perhaps you just feel tense and out of sync? These are all really common as transitions can be tricky! Here are my top 4
Staying Connected Through Transitions Read More »
It’s every horse owners nightmare when their horse gets ill or injured. It’s bad enough seeing your wonderful horse in pain, but it’s even worse when you have to fight to treat him for it. It’s common to need several people to manage or use a twitch or always need sedation for medical procedures, which
Training For Medical Procedures Read More »
You can build great connection with your horse by paying attention to your own movement. Horses are born to mimic and move together in a herd. This harmony is part of how they build strong bonds and you can use this fact to build your bond too. In this video, I teach Claire Waldron to
Follow, Match, Lead. 3 Steps to Better Connection Read More »
Everyone knows a horse who won’t load. It’s a common problem for horses because it’s actually quite a big ask – we’re asking herd-bound open-space animals to load into a small, rattling, moving box, often on their own. But they CAN learn to love it, if it’s trained positively. This video shows Revel, a rescued
Positive Trailer Loading Read More »
By using two simple breathing exercises, Rachel works with Claire and Selena to help build their connection on the ground. These exercises can also be done in the saddle which will work wonders to help your horse tune into you. Using and Fading the Target At first, we build connection by teaching our horses to
Breathe Your Way to Better Connection Read More »
I love getting the chance to show off my own fabulous horses (not that I’m biased!), so I was delighted to be contacted by Ellie Fells, journalist for the Trot On equine social media website, for an interview about CT. I was even more delighted when it turned out she only lives an hour down
Accentuate the Positives | Trot On Interview Read More »
In a previous blog I developed the traditional behavioural consequences model (aka the “learning quadrant”) to include my ideas of how Panksepp’s emotional systems may be considered in that framework. In this blog I want to take this further to look at the next consideration: arousal and threshold. Arousal levels have a massive effect on
The New Emotional Learning Quadrant: Adding in Arousal Read More »
Did you see this good article, Positive Reinforcement: Where Does It Fit in Equine Training? about learning theory and horsemanship (with great comments on our own Shawna)? I particularly like the graphic that Henderson used to illustrate the four quadrants of operant conditioning: The Original Learning Quadrant This is often known as the “learning quadrant”
The Emotional Learning Quadrant Read More »
Have you ever wondered why reward-based training works so well to build a strong connection with your horse? Maybe it’s because when we start Connection Training, we emulate many of the behaviours that horses use themselves to create their mutual bonds. This fantastic video clip from The Cloud Foundation shows an older foal meeting his
The First Connection: Learning from Foals Read More »
Ever seen a horse do any of these when being saddled? > Moving away from the saddle > Pinning ears > Nipping when girthing > Tail swishing > Kicking out I’m sure you have. Unfortunately, it’s all too common for horses to be afraid of the saddle. The most common reason is pain – a
How to Solve Saddling fear Read More »
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