I don’t work with my own horses often enough -
Maybe some of you feel the same way?
Not enough hours in the day
Worn out from working with everyone else’s horses
All my energy is going into rehabs…whatever the reason.
Time will just slip right through my fingers and suddenly a month has gone by and we haven’t done a single thing together.
Read MoreIf you’re anything like me….
You have a list a mile long of unstarted or half-finished online courses.
It was the next thing guaranteed to change your life, but now its just sitting there…
As both a seller and avid consumer of online education I’ve thought about this a lot.
Read MoreLet’s talk timing for a moment -
Do I click when she touches my hand?
or do I click for the step?
The answer is BOTH because it really depends on what you’re trying to achieve.
This, my friends, is the beauty and the art side of R+ training.
Read MoreLuna is here with me for training after being recently adopted from a rescue.
She has been ridden before, but we’re treating her like she hasn’t for a variety of reasons…
she was super unconfident with me on her back
she braced against pressure/traditional cues and would quickly get tense and inverted
she felt extremely weak and unbalanced which was a safety concern for both of us
One of my all-time favorite skills to teach to horses is body targets.
Body targets are an extension of the nose targeting that we usually start with when teaching our horses to target a target stick. Instead of the nose touching something, we’re now going to ask different body parts to touch the target. I usually use a raised hand with a flat palm as my “target” here, but you can use anything...
Read MoreI’ve been sitting on something BIG for a while….
And the time has finally come to say it out loud.
I’ve spent a lot of time asking myself - how can I help people at a distance while facilitating *real change* in my clients?
When I talk to you guys some big things come up over and over again…
You want to feel confident that you can pick up on subtle lamenesses, soreness, or unbalanced movement EARLY...
IT'S HERE! and IT'S FREE!
I've been getting lots of requests recently for virtual clicker support, and I've been telling you all to hold your horses because I have this great thing coming to get you started - and it's finally ready!
I've created an online course called Clicker Training 101 and it's absolutely 100% FREE.
Read MorePause or a moment and try something with me...
I want you to close your eyes, focus your mind on what you love about your horse, and take 10 deep breaths, then come back here.
What do you see?
Read MoreSo…… the barrel racers got me hooked
I’m playing around with teaching Forrest the barrel pattern and I thought this was a good opportunity to talk about chaining behaviors together with positive reinforcement training.
When we chain behaviors, the previous behavior becomes the cue for the next behavior until we reach an end point with the usual click/treat reinforcement.
Read MoreHello friends!
We’re having a bit of a polar vortex in middle TN this week. We are getting quite the accumulation of sleet and ice instead of snow… and boy it is NASTY! I hope you all are staying safe, warm and dry wherever you are reading from today.
So last week we talked a little bit about behavior science and the different types of reinforcements and punishments that influence behavior. If you missed that email, no worries! I’ve transcribed it into a blog post, which you can read here:
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