For more help on clicker training horses, dressage and “true” horsemanship check out the Links page for my favorite websites from around the world. If you think your site should be there, just email me with the link.

Also, if you want to read what I’m reading my Book Store has a selection of the books (and DVDs) on clicker training horses, dressage training, and horsemanship that are either in my personal library right now, or are on my own wishlist.  AND if you buy a book via the Book Store a portion of your purchase price goes to support this site. Thanks in advance!

–Sharon

Related posts:

1. Of Life and Horses by Ann Nyberg Bradley
2. Bad Behavior Doesn’t Just Happen
3. New book by Karen Pryor

Horses are remarkably quick studies.  They are also designed to want to get along.  In Mary Hunter’s kind review of my book she quoted one of my favorite sayings:  “If the horse knew what you wanted and was confident that he was able to do it, he’d BE doing it.”  So, if it seems like your training issues just never seem to get resolved you need to look at the bigger picture.  It is truly mind boggling sometimes how little it takes to block a horse from being able to cooperate with us.

It could be your equitation is the source of the block and I see that a LOT in my teaching. But that isn’t the source I wanted to talk about today.

Since moving to East Tennessee three years ago I’ve been without the support system that I had access to up north.  This included quality dental care among other things.  I’ve been having the local vet (who I do like as a vet) float my horse’s teeth.  I would have preferred an equine dental specialist but finding someone who would come to this area was a challenge.  So, this was on my radar but not until recently did the stars align to get the person I was looking for to me.

For the last couple of years I’ve been encountering a building resistance in my mare, Danke.  I’ve been in a quandary wondering why she was so resistant when I picked up the reins to make contact.  Now, Danke can be persnickety anyways so when certain issues began creeping in it was easy to blame any one of a number of possibilities.  Like the footing or pulled muscle or maybe my equitation!

A few weeks ago, Krystin Dennis of horsefloss.com, a Natural Balance Equine Dentist, came to visit with my  horses.  She found a number of small but crucial anomalies in Danke’s mouth that could be performance inhibitors.   In the weeks that have followed when I’ve ridden Danke I’ve become more certain that the work that Krystin did was the missing link.  Danke was trying to tell me that something wasn’t right.  The resistance to taking up a feel of her mouth is gone.  The resistance to backing that had been there before is gone.  Now, we are back to being able to focus on building balance and suppleness without fighting against the spots where Danke was saying, I really really can’t.

There are plenty of challenges in horse training under the best of circumstances.  Give your horse a chance to be successful by removing the obvious roadblocks like an unbalanced mouth, or unbalanced feet (another subject I’m passionate about) or saddle fit.  Then your efforts to improve your training skills and equitation will have a prayer of being successful!

To learn more about equine dentistry check out this informative presentation by Krystin Dennis.

Related posts:

1. Getting a Horse to Work WITH her Massage Therapist
2. Horses at home
3. On being particular, every day

“Sharon Foley’s underlying philosophy is that the “horse would be doing what was asked of him if only he were clear about what was wanted and was confident that he could do it.” Our horses aren’t trying to be brats or challenge us or make us angry. However, they often don’t understand what we want or why they should be doing what we are asking.

The goal of good training should be clear and precise communication between horse and rider. In Getting to Yes, Sharon Foley shows us how to break training down into small steps and show our horses exactly what we are asking. By doing this we can build a mindset where we work with the horse, rather than against him, and help the horse be right every step of the way.”

Thank you, Mary, for the your kind words!

Related posts:

1. My book gets a shout-out on About.com
2. Lifelong learning
3. New book by Karen Pryor

There is a hole in the Universe where you used to be.

I go through my day tripping over the impressions you left in my routine.

Like a photograph negative I see the outline of you.

But it is not you.

At the door.

Under the coffee table.

At my feet under my desk.

I get out of bed – late because you didn’t make me get up.

I wander aimlessly in the morning thinking there is something I’m supposed to be doing.

You would have told me.

You knew our every move.  Time to go out.  Time to eat.  Time for pop tart.

We were so predictable.  So trainable.

I know with time the tide will wash over your footprints.

Soon the movement of the Universe will fill in those holes.

Too soon routines without you will feel normal.

But I’m not ready to let you go.

I leave your dish with three bits of kibble from that Tuesday morning where you left it.

I leave your nose prints on the windows unwashed.

The dog hair un-vacuumed.

We want you back home.

But not like this, in a metal box with the inscription “Until we meet again at the Rainbow Bridge”.

by Sharon Foley

Related posts:

1. Danke’s story: solving a perplexing problem
2. Taking the time it takes
3. Video: Connected Riding and Groundwork

Here in New England one of the things I really miss in the winter is the ability to ride outside on grass.  Or, as we like to call it, the ‘Carpet of Motivation’.  The reason it has earned that name is because of all the food rewards we’ve offered—and we’ve used just about every possible treat under the sun—none have the reinforcing impact of grazing.  I started the practice a few years ago and have since introduced several horses to it with excellent results.  The rule is let the horses tell us what they find reinforcing.  The horses tell us grazing is good!

Getting Started

The first thing you have to do is explain to your horse how the Grazing Game works.  Before starting your horse should already be familiar with the clicker, targeting, head lowering, and backing.

Begin on the ground with the horse in a halter and lead rope and let him lower his head to take a few bites of grass, then ask him to raise his head by following your feel.  Click for any response, even a momentary hesitation in chewing.  Then let him graze again.  Just a few bites, then ask him to lift his head.  Click for reply then let him graze.

If your horse doesn’t respond to your request to lift his head don’t jerk it up.  There are there several ways to illicit the behavior without force.

An easy way is to simply turn into your horse and walk straight through his line of grazing.  Your attitude should be one of “I’m going this way.  You coming?  Oh were you grazing right there?”  This nearly always results in the horse picking his head up to get out of the way and follow you.  Click that and let him graze again.  Provide a little warning you are about to start walking away and he’ll soon be with you as you walk off.

This should be practiced each and every time you are hand grazing your horse.

Consider the following if when you hand graze your horse just dives down for the grass and drags you around.

This is really just a variation on the mugging problem.  Just as your horse has learned that he can’t just dive into your pocket for treats he can learn that he can’t just dive for the grass at will either.  This isn’t a difficult point to get across.  Like other mugging behaviors the solution is 100% consistency on your part.

The number one reason why horses learn to ignore their human on grass is their human taught them to do it.  Consider this, when you take your horse out to hand graze what do you do?  If you are like most of us, you stand out there chatting with friends or just mosey along daydreaming as your horse eats.  Then, you look at your watch, say it’s time to go, then proceed to drag your horse back to the barn.  Meanwhile the horse knows this is the last bite so he’d better make hay while the sun shines and keeps pushing for ‘just one more.’

So the very first step toward leveraging the most powerful motivator on earth is to change that dynamic.  Set it up so that the horse doesn’t believe that this is the last bite of grass he’ll ever have.  The way to do that is to keep asking him to pick up his head followed by letting him eat again.  Your better leading and backing skills will go a long way here, and will improve dramatically if you practice like this on grass.  With consistency your horse will learn—quite quickly in fact—that when you ask him to come with you it doesn’t mean that that is the end of the grazing.  He needs to know that before you can effectively use the grass as a motivator for performance.

You will also want to have a cue that lets the horse know that he should return his attention to you.  I use the horse’s name.  So, before I ask the horse to do anything else I’ll say his name then immediately carry on with purpose.  When they get accustomed to this routine they will soon stop eating in anticipation of some change.

More halter-work

As your horse improves in his willingness to let you control his access to the grass when up close you can start to integrate grazing as a reward for distance work like longeing.  If you have been clicking and treating for longeing there is no difference except that you are standing on the treats.  Just let him put his head down for a few bites.  Then say his name and ask him to do something, such as Trot on.

You know your horse is with you when he will continue in walk, trot or canter nose brushing the grass but not grabbing for it until you click.

A most valuable side benefit of this is the gymnastic value of up and down transitions with the nose brushing the tips of the grass.  The most beneficial exercises are the ones the horse does without forceful coercion.  Here he stretches his own neck, and prepares his own balance to be ready to come to a quick halt.  What may start out as choppy eventually evens out as the horse practices a maneuver he’s highly motivated to perform.

Due to the nature and accessibility of the grass you must be ever diligent about consistency.  If you allow any loopholes (such as being too slow to provide the horse with something worth paying attention to) the horse will surely find them by deciding the grass is more interesting than you.

Under Saddle

Once in hand and distance work on the halter is going well you can introduce grazing under saddle.  A common concern is that of letting the horse graze with a bit in his mouth.  I can only say that we’ve been doing this for quite a few years now and it has never been a problem.  Other than a really slimy green bit to clean.  But the horses are happy.

Your major concern, and again this is resolved through absolute consistency, is ensuring that the horse wait for your signal that he may graze.  Pulling the reins out of your hands is just the same as mugging.  Allow it to happen once and the horse will believe it is an option.  Therefore, right from the beginning, after you click, ask the horse for some thing like rock back half a step then present the reward.  Presenting the reward in this case is the signal he can lower his head to graze.  I touch the withers in a special way.  OR you may hand feed another reward.  It is wise to mix up the rewards, sometimes feeding something from your hand, sometimes letting him graze.  Since grazing is such a superior motivator it makes an excellent jackpot.

Related posts:

1. When the grass is greener over there
2. How to get a horse OK with clippers
3. Motivation of Dressage Horses: Richard Hinrichs

Sweet Libby

This week I worked with Libby, a 30 year old Quarter Horse mare, for the first time. Libby and her owner, Kirsten, were referred to me by Libby’s massage therapist, Heather Davis. Libby suffers from some lameness due to injury and hard use (before Kirsten). Not surprisingly as a result she holds her body very tightly. The massage therapy has helped Libby but Heather believed that if Libby could become more mentally relaxed that it would help her body to relax as well. This is where I come in.

Kirsten had started a little bit of target training with Libby before I arrived. I was curious to see how Libby responded to this. Did she ‘get’ it? Was she willing to work for food? How hard? With all of Libby’s prior history I had a feeling that this sort of free shaping work might be too big a leap for her. So I decided to go into the stall with her and work on some basic lessons in feel…. look at me, follow me, turn… on the lead rope.

As always my first objective is to capture the horse’s interest and cooperation. With some experimentation I discovered that Libby loved…LOVED…scritchies. Particularly in the udder area. This was, for her, way better than food. So, I began to click and scritch rather than click and feed.

Historically, Libby would only put up with any kind of handling (like for trimming) for only a short time. Then she would begin to fuss and struggle making the whole procedure unpleasant for everyone involved. I saw this happen when we opened the stall door and Libby tried to bowl me over to get out. This, I learned, was a regular occurrence. Libby is so very focused on what she thinks needs to happen next that all thought of the human goes right out the window.

I decided to make it my mission to show her another way. We worked for a while in front of the open door as I asked her to continue to back up, look at me, follow me and turn. For every tiny change I would release stop and scritch deeply for a moment.  (I eventually eliminated the click as it was unnecessary.)  Did this take some time? Yes, it did. But it was time spent scratching itchy spots (or being scratched from Libby’s point of view) which was, for all involved, way better than having a fight. Soon, I was walking her out of the stall on a long loose lead and she was exiting calmly. We went in and out several times.

As Libby began to let go of thoughts of leaving she did relax in her body just as Heather had predicted. The lameness was still there but overall she was walking much more freely and relaxed. It was a nice change that I was very happy to be a part of.

Related posts:

1. Building a Change One Tiny Step at a Time
2. Getting a Horse to Work WITH her Massage Therapist
3. It is Not About the Food

Editor’s Note: Laurie Grann is a dear friend and a most excellent horse woman.  She recently participated in a week long clinic with Mark Rashid.  She wrote up her thoughts about how she is working his ideas into her every day riding.  The result is what follows.  Perhaps if we are all very nice to her she will contribute again!

Laurie and Dulcie

Today, my sister and I went on a 14 mile ride–2 loops of about 7 miles each.  The first loop was mostly flat and good footing and took us 1 hour and 20 minutes.  The second loop was climbing and lots of rock and ledge.  Quite challenging so there was lots of walking.  That loop took 2 hours. So plenty of saddle time to think about all the concepts and doors Mark Rashid showed me.

I guess I can sum it up to 2 major areas:   Starting with softness and Breathing.

On starting with softness, I need to start with a thought and offer that as my first cue and remain soft inside and outside.   Mark would say, from your inside to the horse’s inside.   I just never thought to start that far down the scale.  I could get work on just a thought before but always with a lot of preparation that involved aiding and sometimes quite strongly.

My mare, Dulcie, had a real strong desire to go forward on this ride so I had to monitor my thoughts carefully!   If I said to myself, “well maybe we should trot now,”  hup, there we were trotting along.   Very neat.   Also getting into the canter  was pretty easy with all the long straight lines on dirt trails, roads and fields.  Just think 1,2,3 & exhale.   We would flow so nicely  into the canter.  And, it was  mostly a smooth canter with good relaxation which was amazing considering the level of tension she used to carry–all balled up and tight.

Several times in the ride as we were  trotting along, I felt Dulcie take a Real Deep Breath.  I could feel it in my seat and leg.  She can be pretty tight so this was a good sign, and not something I usually notice her doing.

And that ties into: The second Big concept.  Breathing differently.  (For me and my horse.)   I tried to concentrate on breathing deep and rhythmically but also to stay soft even if/when she got tight.  I find that if she tightens then I tighten, especially my back and shoulders and then low and behold she tightens  more.  So keeping that soften in me is crucial.

I thought of the image for our energy the Mark gave us.  He says, if the horse’s energy level spiked to 8 I had to breath deep and try to lower my energy to a 2.   It had amazing effect!   After a few moment she would relax.   At first I thought I just got lucky but I had plenty of opportunities to try it over and over and for the most part it was wonderful.   She could not always respond immediately (what with other horses cantering up behind her and such) but within a few minutes if I stayed soft, relaxed and focused she came back to me.

Sometimes her thought s would fly way ahead and I felt like I was being dragged down the trail.  I just kept offering for her to come back to me and tried really hard not to get tight and tense in my back and shoulders, breathing slow and fully.   Even if I had to get a little strong for a stride or two, after maybe 6-8 -10 strides she would come back.

Related posts:

1. Whole Heart, Whole Horse by Mark Rashid
2. It is NEVER too late!
3. A horse needs to be OK inside

This is not a book about training horses in the sense of providing “how-to’s”. This book is about enlightenment and perspective. It comes from her lifetime with horses which started with an attitude of “show him who’s boss” and evolved into one of harmony and unity. To quote her introduction:

Much of the way we interact with horses is dependent upon perception, and perception is always versatile. Merely looking at another from a different point of view will change one’s perception, and thereby one’s feelings, and thereby one’s intentions, and thereby one’s actions, and thereby change the entire interactions with the other being.

Like me, Ann, does not subscribe to the typical “dominance model” of horsemanship so often seen in the world. Throughout the book she encourages us to see things from the horse’s point of view and challenges us to work with the horse’s nature for a better outcome for all.

If you like Mark Rashid’s books, you’ll enjoy Ann Bradley’s, “Of Life and Horses: The Nature of the Horse” as well. If you would like to read it, you’ll find it under Horsemanship in my Book Store.

Related posts:

1. Horses for Life–Free Issue
2. Whole Heart, Whole Horse by Mark Rashid
3. Horses are big…

He gave the example of a rat in a maze.  The rat knows the way to the reward very well as a result of many repetitions and rewards.  Let’s say one day that you decide to train the rat to take a different route.  You have a few options.  You could block the old way (more of a management solution, not really training) or you could rig it so that the rat would get a shock when ever he tried to go the usual way.  This part was interesting.  You would think that after getting shocked for turning left enough times that the rat would choose to go right.  But, that isn’t what happens.  What happens is that the rat will still try to keep to the old program because that is what he is in the habit of doing.  He’ll keep doing the old thing but instead of doing it happily he will be stressed about it.  Turns out, the very best way to get the rat to go right instead of left is to put a food reward to the right.

This reminds me of a story Leslie Desmond told about Bill Dorrance at one of her clinics I attended.  She said that he used to talk about how other fellas would say stuff like, “make the wrong thing difficult and the right thing easy”.  But, that he would say, “why not just make the right thing — OBVIOUS.”

The other thing this speaks to is the power of a well established habit.  And it is another reason why the old horsemen would say, “so they are started, so they go”.  The most important thing we do with a horse is put that good solid start on them. Those habits started early, repeated and heavily reinforced can last a lifetime and be pretty hard to ruin once installed.

When dealing with a horse who has habits that need changing, the smartest thing to do is to break it down into the smallest achievable steps and reward, reward, reward until there has been enough repetition has occurred to call it a new and better habit.  “They” say that 5,000 repetitions are needed in order install a new habit.  That means, it won’t happen tomorrow.  You just have to have some faith in the process and accept that it will take the time it takes.

Related posts:

1. Building a Change One Tiny Step at a Time
2. What’s reinforcing THAT?
3. When the grass is greener over there

The book is titled “A Guide to Understanding and Retraining Your Off Track Thoroughbred.”   It is over 80 pages and packed full of detailed information about what an OTTB experienced as a race horse and his life on the track.  It also provides a lot of sensible suggestions for what to look for when selecting an OTTB, how to transition him to ‘civilian’ life and tips for retraining.  All in all it struck me as a most useful and thorough reference for someone considering giving one of these worthy horses a new life after racing.

The site is the online face for “Thoroughbred Placement and Rescue, Inc.” a non-profit organization dedicated to helping Thoroughbreds find new careers after racing.  Go here to check out the site and get the free ebook: http://www.helpfortbs.org/retrainingIntro.htm

Related posts:

1. Horses for Life–Free Issue
2. If I Knew What I Wanted
3. Of Life and Horses by Ann Nyberg Bradley