Our biggest take away from the Stronger Bond Workshop
One of our biggest take aways from our stronger bond workshop is having permission to get quiet, get still and wait longer.
When we are working on connection with our horses we need to start from a place of relaxation.
When we push, rush or force our horses into something that’s where we start to disrupt that connection and trigger our horses emotional resistance.
Maybe they need to take a moment to deal with their fear. Or maybe then need a moment to deal with their resentment or frustration of being made to do something they don’t want to do.
Whatever the reason is we have found that giving the horse the space to process that emotional resistance and return to the state of relaxation and then choose to do what we ask of their own accord then we deepen our connection and our relationship with our horse.
This does require an extreme amount of patience. And letting go of the idea that all nos are our horses being naughty. Some nos are our horse legitimately trying to tell us something. Ie they have a problem like pain or discomfort or not understanding or not being able to do what we’re asking. For a lot of the horses I get called out to work with, the most important thing the are looking for to deescalating behaviour deemed naughty and dangerous is just that we listen to their nos.
Once we figure and remove all reasons for a no then we can start working on our yes. Part of how we get our horses to say yes is to bring them back to that state of relaxation by focusing on their breathing and allow them the option to say yes or no. We teach this with our consent cue. When our horses have the option to say yes I’m ready for the next ask, this is where true willingness is and we are working on a level of mutual cooperation. To get there we as their trainer need to take a deep breath, have some patience, be quiet, be still and wait a little or a lot longer.