Reward Your Horse Training

27/07/2024

Here’s my take on the Charlotte Dujardin news. I can’t say I’m shocked, but I can say that I’ve been thinking about tbe ethicality of using animals for competition. What are your thoughts?

04/10/2023

Acclimating a horse to a new location can take time. My horse moved to a new barn in April, and took a long time to habituate to the sight and sounds of cars, motorcycles, and other vehicles near the arena. When I took her into the arena or barn early on, she would go over threshold and start pacing the fence line in panic. So we didn’t do that for a while. I worked on behaviors in her paddock or the round pen and took her for walks and grazes near the road. We just tried the arena again yesterday- and I made sure to set her up with productive things to do. She had several feeding stations and a well familiar exercise involving cones, which served as a visual reminder of what we were doing. Guin had a few moments of worry but didn’t lose her mind and remained calm the entire time. Small steps for the win!

02/11/2022

New student Teaspoon

24/09/2022

The power of environmental cues, a story.
When I was putting my horse Guinevere away after work, she decided that rather than hanging with the other horses in the paddock, she wanted to go back and play some more. Silly me hadn’t locked the gate, so out she went, without a halter.
Catching her isn’t a problem, but I hate being the no fun party pooper.
But what actually transpired was this:
Guin left the paddock and stopped on the mat where we always stop for me to close the door and for her to be reinforced. This was our routine, and she very much stuck to it even without being attached to me. I clicked and treated. Then I asked her to put her nose in the halter, which she did easily. I clicked and treated. I told her she was a very good girl (click/treat). And then we went back into the paddock. It was a good moment.

29/06/2022

Horse owners are all too aware of how a physical injury can temporarily sideline - or even permanently cripple - their horse. This knowledge leads most owners to do their best to minimize physical injury: raising foals with maximum turnout opportunities properly conditioning their horse for the dema...

03/06/2022

Shaping a retrieve has not been easy for Guin and I. I thought it would take a couple of weeks. This is where we are after a year- our first actual steps of retrieve.
Here are a few variables I played with:
- finding an object Guin wanted to bite
- building a bite
- lifting her head with the object from a chair
- lifting the object from the floor
- building duration on holding the object
- moving with the object
- moving towards my hand
- a slight tug as the release cue
We took weeks off. We had very very short sessions maybe once a week. We always went back to places we could be successful. We made no progress for months. But we gained confidence. And now look at us.
Today, Guin whinnied when she brought the ball to me for the first time. I like to think it is because things finally made sense to her. “Oh, this is what you wanted? I can do that, mom.”

30/05/2022

27/05/2022

Will you look at this lovely balance? It is brought to you by dressage done with clicker training, most recently inspired by Monty Gwynn, the Balance Through Movement method done with clicker training, careful hand feeding techniques, and of course bodywork by
Proof that you don’t *need* pressure to develop that thoracic sling.

22/05/2022

Guin has a storied history of VERY BAD THINGS HAPPENING when saddle pads are involved. She’s keeping both ears on the pad but still giving me the go ahead (head lowering). We are now learning that pad on = VERY FUN THINGS HAPPENING in the form of beloved cues (head lower and smile). It takes the time it takes.

21/05/2022

Preparing for “air bubble pets” with the start button. does a lovely job getting Agnes more comfortable with petting movements!

15/05/2022

and I spent a fun day at the Fort Dalles Horse Affair, showcasing R+ training and promoting a rewards-based training approach!