Much of my appreciation for classical dressage training comes from my lessons with Karl Mikolka. One of the (many) things I remember him saying (probably while my horse was having a fit) was, “the horse is allowed to say NO!” I’m not saying that fits are desirable! Of course, what we’d prefer is a resounding YES. But if you want to be more than ‘just’ a rider you need to be willing to listen to the horse and if he says No then you need to accept responsibility for that feedback. Then you [more...]
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In my Secret Weapon post I talked about how important it is to remain focused on what we want and rewarding that and only that. Read it here if you want to be reminded about it or missed it the first time. In her article in Psychology Today titled, Trainers with Jackhammers Need Not Apply, Susan Friedman, Ph.D. talks about this very issue from a slightly different point of view. And, hearing the same thing said differently is always a useful learning strategy. She brings up two key points to consider when training (any animal, horses included): Identify what you want the [more...] Lots of rain and mud means I’ve only managed to say hello to my girls at feeding time. On nicer days I’ll visit, groom and massage. Actual riding is a distant memory. Ha! So posts have been thin at best as I await the inspiration of spring and more riding exploits! Something interesting did come up recently in conversation, though, that I thought I would share. The topic was what I call my “secret weapon”. Do you want to know the secret to getting along with pretty much every horse? It isn’t a [more...] Those who have hung around me for some time will know that I’m very fond of saying, “If the horse knew what I wanted and believed he was able to do it, he’d BE doing it.” I used to say “…and was able to do it…” but people would just say that they knew a horse who knew very well thank you very much what they wanted and simply didn’t WANT to comply. So, I adjusted the phrase to include the word “believe” because it is my opinion that those horses who “don’t want to” usually have something else on [more...]  The author, Heather Davis, with Cheyenne By Heather Davis I am a certified equine “massage” therapist, applying principles of touch to encourage horses to release old neuromuscular strain patterns and relearn how to exist without previously held pain and resistance. Much of my work is informed by the work of Ida Rolf (known as “Rolfing” or Structural Integration), osteopathy, shiatsu, and myofascial release. Many horses, when asked to “let go” of old tension and memory stored within the body’s vastly intelligent network of innervated structural soft tissue, will take some time to relax into the willingness to release. [more...]  Recently my husband and I decided it was time to get rid of the burn pile. We have a small excavation project coming up that requires we finally burn the darn thing. The burn pile consisted mainly of small cherry trees we had to remove when we decided to bring the horses home. With all the rain we’ve had the pile of tree limbs, branches, and leaves were quite wet. But the task needed to be taken care of, so one sunny morning we got out there. The whole pile burning experience was really quite a [more...] The other day I was behind this woman in line at Walmart. She had a little 3 yr old boy with her who was working quite hard to get her attention. And it was working although it was mostly her saying “Now quit that,” and “Stop it,” and “Don’t make me have to whoop you.” It seemed obvious to ME watching this transpire that this Mom had no idea how to change her son’s behavior. I read a book, years ago, called Don’t Shoot the Dog, by Karen Pryor. One might erroneously think this is a [more...] Recently, on the Yahoo Classical Dressage group talk has turned to how to deal with ‘bad’ behavior such as biting and kicking. Absolutely all agree that this is not something that we ‘wee humans’ can really tolerate since our bodies are pretty fragile when compared to horses. They can do Real Damage to us! There is no agreement, however, as to what is the right way to deal with such behavior. Several people weighed in with their techniques for biting or kicking back those horses who offered such behavior. I shake my head reading these suggestions. [more...] Sometimes people write to me privately, via email. It might be to ask a question they aren’t comfortable asking on one of the public forums I participate in. Or, it could be that they read my book and want to say that they found it helpful. I’ll admit that those do make my day! And, some times the writer feels the need to write to inform me about how wrong I am on points A, B, and C. The latter aren’t frequent but when they arrive they usually cover the same ground all based on [more...] Recently I wrote about horses who drag owners to eat grass. In response, Nell made a deceptively simple comment, “So what if your horse has a fit? – does this work both ways?” I’d replied, “Sure, if her ‘fits’ get your attention!” That exchange got me to thinking about reinforcement in general and how important it is to understand how behaviors get stronger or weaker. This relates to riding as much as with any other horse related activities. The first principle always to keep in mind is that behavior that is reinforced/rewarded will become stronger–more likely to occur in [more...] |
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