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Permalink Reply by Stephanie Sanderson on April 29, 2009 at 9:06pm

Changed my relationship completely. My mare was hard to load. Not mean just took forever. Now she walks right on. I no longer get that "oh no I have to trailer her " feeling. I can just go . I used the pressure release method with her and it did wonders. Within a half hour or so she was loading like a old pro. She is also hard to catch when she thinks you want something but that to is coming along . She is learning to disengage her hind end and face me. Always easier to catch a horse when they face you. I plan on doing more with the natural horsemanship training this summer.

Permalink Reply by Nicki Velozo on May 20, 2009 at 4:27pm

I have to be honest, natural horsemanship is the only way I know horsemanship at all. Becoming a horse owner as an adult, I'm surprised! How working with your horse on a soft feel and the least invasive approach and trying to communicate through your body language and in a way the horse understands rather than trying to force the horse to talk human language.....I'm shocked that this seems to be adhered to by very little people in the horse world (although the number continues to increase) I don't understand why 'horsemanship' seems to have been secluded and appears to be stigmatized in a category of it's own and is not cross disciplinarily trained and a general way of being with all horses.

IMHO, too many people jump on their horses and ride around blindfolded, blinded to the world around them, the treatment and communication they are giving their horse...like Ray Hunt taught me...not enough people stop and think, really actually think about what they want to accomplish...have a picture in their head about what it looks like...a true horseman will have this natural horsemanship ability to stop, appreciate, gain the respect and have a horse that follows and teaches them a thing or two about how to get there too!

It seems like such common sense in life, not just horsemanship...to 'make the right thing easy and the wrong thing difficult'....have timing, balance and feel your way through. To release to pressure or move away. The concepts when you actually listen and think about what they mean...really should be applied with everything in life. I have dogs, I'm also a gardener....I don't jerk around my dogs, I encourage them to move with me....I'm gentle on my plants I train them to grow were I want and touch them softly letting them know I appreciate and care about what they will produce for me because I'll be putting it into my body.

A surface person will read all I'm writing here and take it as a bunch of hoopla...a real person will know just where I'm coming from and recognized how these important things in life apply across the board to all that we do, even or especially with our live horses. It doesn't always come easy or natural to everyone....but if you stop and think for a second and follow your intuition, listen to your inner voice...you'll get the answers your looking for. The result: for me has been very calm, extremely well behaved horses that know I have an expectation of them to load properly and step over on their own when I'm closing the divider...to not walk over me at feeding time and wait until I agree they can proceed...to watch and listen and wait for my ques no matter where we go....to follow me around willingly...not spooky but gentle, no ear pinning, fun animals that I connect with everyday and are part of my entire life as a whole. Not that I just jump on and ride hard.

Stephanie - why catch your horses? make them come to you...let them do the work, not you. It can be exhausting chasing them around. I do believe in feeding treats for training and reward for good behavior. The horses look forward to it...and are not mouthy...they know when it is okay to seek a reward and when it is not. I whistle a specific whistle each time I enter the paddock or field. A whistle that is specific only to the horses (the dogs have their own)...when they approach from a far I reward them with a treat. Now, as with any training, they will come anytime I whistle even if I don't have a treat...and they are there for me to halter them. This was especially helpful one day when the boarders horse broke through the fencing (hot electric fence and all) and the horse were loose and went to the bottom of the road down the hill to graze. Had I not whistle trained them, they all would not have raised their heads and started walking towards me when I was out looking for them...I would have never know they were there.