LS Horsemanship

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LS Horsemanship

Equine behaviour consultant. Kind horse training with a focus on healthy movement and a relaxed mind.
(21)

24/08/2024

How do I improve my horse’s topline? 🐴

The golden question on all forums and horsey Facebook groups.

The advice ranges from feeding topline cubes, to lunging in various gadgets, to poles and hillwork.

While a suitable diet is important to develop a healthy horse, buying products marketed for building muscle is not going to magically build healthy musculature on your horse. Fat is not muscle and fat can hide a multitude of sins but make the horse more pleasing to our eye. Sometimes it can be hard to see how poorly a horse is muscled until they lose their excess weight.

I also want to briefly talk about environmental factors. If your horse spends 20 hours a day in the stable he is going to really struggle to have healthy musculature. Horses are designed to potter around all day and every system in their body is negatively affected by restricted movement. We also want to think about feeding from the floor as much as we can so our horses aren’t having to pull their hay from high up all the time.

There are a few vague phrases thrown around a lot “you’ve got to get him working over his back/working from behind” and “you need to build his core”. Unfortunately when you try to get people to really break this down either they can’t or their explanation is flawed and they’re not actually achieving what they think they are. It is common practice to compress a horse in front and then ride forward, and people think the feeling of the horse softening to the pressure from the bit is them working over their back.

No amount of fiddling with the mouth and riding forwards is going to enable them to lift their back. On the same token hacking out for miles on a loose rein isn’t going to do anything either if the horse is hollowed out the whole time because they’re not in a place yet where they are developed enough to carry a rider for long periods of time.

Taking a weak horse and putting them over poles or up hills when they’re not yet physically able to do these things without resorting to compensatory movement patterns is counter-productive. The same goes for riding. If your horse has a poor topline, it is extremely unlikely that riding them is going to improve that. We need to get the horse to a place where they can suitably carry a rider by working with them on the ground to build that muscle.

For me that looks like helping the horse find relaxation in their body and then walking in straight lines in a nice, relaxed manner. Simple, but not easy. Once we have that in the walk then we can think about adding in other things.

I would just like to mention that if your horse is really tricky to fit a saddle to, maybe think about why that is, often their back is just not in a place to take a saddle and we really need to build them up on the ground first, as inconvenient as that may be. There are a lot of things we are told are just conformational or “just how he is”, but more often than not this isn’t the case and there are things we can do to help them. 🐴

If you’d like to train your eye I’m leaving a link to my good friend Yasmin’s upcoming topline webinar in the comments.

www.lshorsemanship.co.uk

Photo of my horse Dan a year apart. He has not been in ridden work and has been going through health issues, these changes are from improving his environment, improving his hoof balance and little bits of postural work and walking in hand. Before anyone comes for me I know the photos are slightly different angles and he’s stood differently but you can see the lift in his withers no matter the angle. I’m only showing these to show your horse doesn’t need to be doing 101 exercises to improve. This also didn’t take a year I just don’t have a more recent “before” photo.

21/08/2024

Please enjoy this ridiculous Jurassic Park-esque video with the sound on 🔈😅

I was filming some slow-mo videos and Lenny wanted to investigate.

Who knew slow-mo chickens sounded like dinosaurs 😅🦕🦕

20/08/2024

Introducing new things 🐴

Lovely 2yo Splash wore a rug for the first time today. This guy has been on quite a journey, from a very fearful, uncatchable little fluff box in March to the smart, curious guy he is today. You can read my previous post about him here https://www.facebook.com/100063889095107/posts/889717973167831/?

We have been training Splash using positive reinforcement as it is so powerful for building positive associations and therefore positive experiences when learning new things. We use appropriate food rewards with Splash which have lowered in value as his confidence has built.

Due to some itchy skin problems he needs to start wearing a fly rug. Wearing a rug for the first time can be a really scary experience as it is often their first time having something attached to their body and “following” them that they cannot get off. People expect a big reaction to a saddle, but really a rug can be a more intimidating prospect as it covers so much of the horse. I have seen lots of people just put a rug straight on a young horse, only to have them explode and panic as soon as they start moving and realise it is stuck on them. At best it is causing really unnecessary stress and at worst it can result in a nasty accident if the horse is running in a panic.

As we have with all other parts of his training, we broke it down into bite-size pieces so he was never getting to a level of stress that would make him upset. Firstly he sniffed the rug folded up and we rewarded any interaction with it. We then opened the rug on the ground and encouraged him to interact with it. Splash has been trained to stand in “neutral” so we can move down his body without him following us, so we could then start to quietly touch the rug to his shoulder, then reward, repeating each step until he was comfortable with it. I also started to walk him with the rug folded over his back so I could see he was okay with it moving with him before I attached it to him.

We did this over 2 sessions, in the first session he got to the point of having the rug thrown over him and I felt it was enough as he was just a little bit worried. Today’s session he was much more comfortable straight away and he had the rug on, all straps done up and back off twice. And now he is ready to wear his fly rug with no stress.

We can approach all elements of horse care and training like this, fly sprays, hosing, clipping, hoof handling etc, there is no need to go through high-stress and cause the horse to rear, panic and try to get away from you. There is a difference between learning “this is scary but the only thing that makes it stop is if I stand still” and “this is actually fine and I’m getting a nice reward so I want to do it more”. It might take a little bit longer to get there but it is worth it if you value the relationship with your horse. 🐴

www.lshorsemanship.co.uk

19/08/2024

Groundwork - the effects on biomechanics, posture and the emotional state of the horse

17/08/2024

Just because a horse lets you sit on his back doesn’t mean he’s ready to be ridden 🐴

There’s a misconception that horses are designed to be ridden. We think as long as they’re not lame or sick then they’re capable of carrying a rider. Maybe once a horse turns a certain age they’re good to go or a that a horse that’s been in work for years must be strong enough to be ridden without issue right? As long as they’re compliant then they must be ready to do the thing we’re asking them to do? Unfortunately this is not the case.

This is not a post about the appropriate age to back your horse, there are plenty of resources and thoughts on that, I want to talk about the other factors we need to consider before we continue sitting on our horse’s backs and expecting them to perform.

The backing process for most horses seems to be heavily focussed on having the horse accept tack, learn how to respond to cues, move with tack on and eventually accept a rider. I don’t want to go off on a huge tangent here about the backing process but usually this will look like lunging or long reining with tack on, then legging the rider up and doing that desensitising process, then great off we go, we start riding the horse and getting him to hack and do poles and circles etc.

It is great to have a horse calmly get used to tack and a rider, but here’s the issue, there is usually very little time spent developing that horse’s posture and musculature without a rider. Lunging an unbalanced horse around in side reins isn’t going to do it, neither is long reining about the place for a few weeks. We are talking slow, progressive in hand work that just takes the time it takes depending on the individual horse, you can’t run them to a schedule.

We might talk about just doing lots of hacking but it doesn’t really matter if its “just” hacking if carrying a rider at all is causing a horse to develop compensatory movement patterns because his body just isn’t capable of carrying a rider without doing so yet. We might talk about turning a horse away for a season, but again it doesn’t really matter if we then just crack on like before. A horse isn’t suddenly strong enough to carry a rider in a healthy way at 4 years old or 6 years old or 10 years old if we don’t do anything to develop that strength from the ground first.

Often the older horses are worse off, because they’ve spent years developing their compensatory way of going, and by the time I see them the wheels have really started to fall off. They’ve been playing whack-a-mole with the vet and their horse still just isn’t right, because we keep trying to stick a plaster on then carry on as we were. You’re never going to fix the foundation if you keep damaging it every time you ride. We need to stop doing the things that are contributing to the damage and start doing the gentle work to help it, only then can we start to see real progress.

It is extremely frustrating as an owner to be doing all of the supposedly right things and seeking professional help and not be told any of this. Unfortunately the horse industry is still very backwards and its taking a while to catch up with the information we have access to now. We are in such a quick-fix industry and this kind of thing is a really inconvenient truth, so I get why people push it away. Why listen to this idiot if the vet/bodyworker/instructor are telling you there’s nothing else you can do and to crack on? I get it, but just because something has always been done a certain way doesn’t make it right, and maybe we should reflect a little on why the majority of horses are “broken” in some way by the age of 10. Isn’t it great that there might be something we can do to help our horses?

This is a huge reason why I don’t take horses in on training livery, I find it much more useful for the horse to stay at home, in their comfortable environment and work away slowly with all the time they need. I do not envy people who’s career depends on taking horses in for a few weeks training or selling them on, it is not a business model that works very easily when you want to centre the horse.

I find myself scrolling the sales ads and just seeing horse after horse with sunken necks and backs out jumping and doing dressage describing how great and willing they are, and they will be bought by a new owner and this will continue until they start to break down, as these horses pass 5 stage vettings all the time. I know because I meet them a few months down the line. We have to start looking at things differently if we want our horses to last.🐴

www.lshorsemanship.co.uk

If you want some insight into how to assess posture you can watch a free live recording here: https://fb.watch/u0cQjiKFRN/?

Photo of my horse Dan at his first show as an underdeveloped 4yo who I probably had no business sitting on and 10 years later I can only wish I knew then what I know now

15/08/2024

I have 1 space available in the Newcastle/Sunderland/Durham area next Tuesday afternoon.

Equine behavioural consultant and coach.

Kind training with a focus on a relaxed mind and healthy movement.

Behavioural issues/problem solving/groundwork/ridden work/postural rehab etc.

Please have a look at my page/website for more information. 🐴

www.lshorsemanship.co.uk

14/08/2024

Thoughts Around Groundwork Training 🐴

I talk a lot about groundwork, but the term means different things to different people. The groundwork I do now looks a lot less exciting than the groundwork I used to do. Most groundwork in horsemanship circles heavily leans toward moving the feet, disengaging the quarters, backing the horse up, changing direction and demanding swift compliance with these things. There are lots of themes around “respect” and “connection”, but what are we actually doing to the horse and their body and how might they be perceiving it?

When I am training with horses now, my main aim is to have the horse feeling relaxed in the work because only then will I be able to truly influence his movement and posture in a helpful way, then I want to do things that are going to help develop his body, not put strain on it. A horse that is braced and tense around you is not going to be able to do this, even if outwardly they look calm.

Most horses with behavioural issues will have discomfort or pain in their body, even if it is just from the bracing they do in their every day life. I have lost count of the training videos I’ve watched where I can see the horse is visibly lame behind or showing very compromised posture. So already we have a horse who is going to find movement difficult, yet we train these horses by asking them to move their bodies in taxing ways and usually at speed, as a slow response is seen as a sign of disrespect.

Disengaging the quarters is something I used to do repetitively in training, I thought it was helping the horse physically, it definitely wasn’t and is actually hard on their bodies. As is excessive backing up, especially if the horse is hollowed out while doing it because he’s having a rope smacked up into his face.

Much of this training is actually creating hyper-vigilance in the horse, they become so focussed on watching you because they’re desperately trying not to do the thing that gets you waving that flag again. That doesn’t sound very relaxing. It actually sounds quite scary. A lot of this training tries to catch the horse out, stopping or changing the ask quickly so you can get an opportunity to correct the horse sharply and make him even more hyper-vigilant to you. Instead of preparing the horse for the ask slowly and quietly and making it so easy for them to succeed.

When you do this sort of groundwork training, pretty quickly you’ll get a horse that is standing, lowering his head, licking and chewing etc, and we can think its great, we have a relaxed horse. But is it relaxation? Or is it relief? Or is it just a horse beginning to shut down? I can’t answer that, but I do see a lot of horses who have been trained in this way who just aren’t on the other end of the phone when I try to open an actual conversation with them. They’ll go through the motions and they’ll do all of the things, but they’re not really in the room with you, they’ve learned people don’t listen, they just demand, and the only way to get it to stop is to comply.

When I train now I do just as much as I need to to get the tiniest try, and then I stop asking, and we build from there. I’m not trying to send the horse into a frantic search for the right answer, I’m showing him how to get there the quietest way I can. When you train like this the horse starts to trust that he isn’t going to be asked to do anything he needs to get tense about, and then we get actual relaxation in work. There is no leaping, or flying backwards, or yanking, or rearing away. You can get a horse to look extremely relaxed and be moving with much more flow just by walking and stopping in hand with absolutely no dramas, we don’t need to be spinning in circles and moving the feet all over the place. We just need to be patient, change our expectations and meet the horse where they’re at.

I will be doing a free live on this topic with Yasmin Stuart Equine Physio on Monday at 7pm, sign up here: https://facebook.com/events/s/groundwork-the-effects-on-biom/870366431091774/?

We will be discussing the common groundwork exercises we come across, explaining the biomechanics behind them, their potential emotional effects and offering some insight into our own ways of working to give you some ideas to try. 🐴

www.lshorsemanship.co.uk

13/08/2024

Just because we can doesn’t mean we should 🐴

A common theme with the horses I go out to see is that they have been given the “all clear” by vets/bodyworkers/various other professionals. Therefore the owner logically assumes they are definitely dealing with a behavioural issue as they have done all of the things they’re supposed to do as a caring owner.

Unfortunately diagnostics can be very limited and people seem to have trouble seeing the whole horse. Just because you haven’t found a solid cause yet doesn’t mean the horse isn’t in pain. Horses don’t lie and if they are behaving like they’re in pain I believe them. There is more to pain than hocks, kissing spine and ulcers.

With permission, I’m going to tell you a story which is unfortunately not an unusual one. I was called out to this horse as he had a “fear” of being mounted, but they said he was fine once they were on and they were jumping him competitively up to 1.20m. They had done x-rays of his back, stifles and hocks and scoped him for ulcers. A physio had also seen him and said they found no issues. The owner had tried every training method under the sun to fix this behaviour, pressure/release, chasing him around with a flag, clicker training, putting him against the wall, having someone hold a lick in front of his face etc. The horse was still biting, swinging away and becoming really agitated. I observed him being ridden and he was showing several conflict behaviours, tail swishing, unhappy in the mouth, head tossing etc. I didn’t do any training with the horse, to my eye the horse was definitely in pain and I referred them onto a recommended specialist vet. Upon investigation this horse had extensive arthritis in his neck and issues in his spine that had not been picked up by the first vet.

Horses are so, so stoic and we are also rubbish as an industry at seeing discomfort in them because it is so normalised. We see them as “fine” to ride as long as they aren’t actively decking us. We ignore them until they’re screaming and even then many do not listen because it is justified away as “quirky” or “sassy” behaviour.

Imaging is only useful if the person reading it has the skill to do so well and I have experience of one vet saying x-rays are fine then a second-opinion specialist vet making a pretty devastating diagnosis from the same images.

Now I am not saying we all need to spend thousands at the vet immediately, a huge part of what I do is gently, quietly improving posture and emotional health to see if we can start to help the horse feel and move better over time, but a hill I absolutely will die on is if the horse is unhappy with any part of tacking up/mounting then we do not ride the horse that day.

There are so many things we can do beyond just medicating and cracking on, if we can all learn a bit more about recognising postural issues and behavioural indicators we can potentially avoid a lot of heartache and frustration.

The industry as a whole is blind to postural issues, I’m still seeing horses regularly who have been “cleared” by several professionals who I find with saddle shaped dips in their back and incredibly poor hoof balance which is going to make their body really uncomfortable. Yet the poor owner has been told again and again the horse is fine and they need to crack on and get a trainer out, and then the training methods make the posture even worse…I will be writing in more detail about this soon and doing a live with Yasmin on the topic.

If your horse goes to the back of the stable when you arrive with your tack, you need to restrain him in cross ties or he repeatedly moves away from the mounting block, I encourage you to think about why that is. There is a reason he doesn’t want to, be it physical or emotional discomfort with the situation. Making him move his feet and harassing him until his only option is to stand still isn’t going to change those feelings. A horse complying once you’re in the saddle does not mean they’re fine with it, they just know they have no choice once you’re on because nobody has ever listened to the no. 🐴

www.lshorsemanship.co.uk

10/08/2024

Groundwork and Obstacle Sessions 🐴

I am now offering a new kind of session at your own yard.

In these sessions we will cover basic groundwork foundations and learn to read behavioural cues so we can then introduce our horses to new objects safely and with minimal stress. We will talk about different desensitisation methods and how the horse experiences them so you can make informed choices about your training. All of these skills are applicable to our daily life with our horses.

The obstacles are designed to be broken down into the smallest steps so we can learn how to truly build confidence in our horses without over-facing them, with the main aim being to keep our horses comfortable and under their stress-threshold so your horse has a pleasant experience and gets to build more positive associations with you and their environment.

Come and learn how to build a good relationship with your horse so they can start to trust you will keep them safe and won’t put them under too much pressure when they’re unsure. A confident, relaxed horse is one who has been given time to assess, investigate and interact positively with their environment.

These sessions are suitable for any horse/pony and will be done in walk only. Sessions will be either private 1-on-1 or shared sessions of no more than 2/3 people to ensure I can give you all enough attention. I provide a variety of obstacles each offering its own challenges of through, over or under and plenty of photo opportunities if that is your thing.

Please note these sessions are not behavioural consults and if you have an issue with your horse which makes handling them difficult please message me to discuss suitability.

www.lshorsemanship.co.uk 🐴

07/08/2024

I have 1 space in the Durham area this Sunday 11th.

Equine behavioural consultant and coach.

Kind training with a focus on a relaxed mind and healthy movement.

Behavioural issues/problem solving/groundwork/ridden work/postural rehab etc.

Please have a look at my page/website for more information. 🐴

www.lshorsemanship.co.uk

04/08/2024

How do you deal with a horse that bites? 🐴

I saw this question come up on a popular horse forum and most replies were describing different ways to punish the horse and how it is a completely unacceptable and dangerous behaviour that cannot be tolerated. How often do we completely miss the cause and go straight to trying to get rid of the symptom? A horse that is biting is not okay and we need to figure out why if we want to actually solve the issue instead of just shutting the horse up.

Now I am not saying you should stand there and let your horse bite you, however it is a communication and it is never as simple as “he’s biting to dominate you and you need to show him who’s boss”. We need to figure out what the cause is so we can help the horse to not feel the need to bite anymore.

Firstly what sort of biting is it? A frustrated horse quickly nipping at you when you’re leading them is very different to a horse lunging at you with their teeth bared.

Truly aggressive horses are very rare and will not be cured by you whacking them when they bite. If a horse is at a point where they are genuinely lunging at people, this is extremely dangerous and needs to be assessed by a qualified clinical animal behaviourist alongside a vet. This is usually chronic pain, trauma or a neurological issue and will not be solved by training alone.

There are two kinds of biting behaviour I come across most commonly. The first one is situation-related, usually when being rugged, saddled, groomed, mounted etc. This is a really clear communication from the horse that they are uncomfortable with what you are doing and is usually a pain/discomfort issue. I don’t care how many checks the horse has supposedly had I am always going to keep looking for pain in these scenarios as horses do not lie. If we have ruled out the obvious I would see if we can change the horse’s associations with these tasks using positive reinforcement training.

The second type of behaviour I see is the sort of nibbly/nippy/biting the lead rope type frustration behaviours. This is again a stress/anxiety response and a horse trying to communicate they aren’t feeling okay. If it is not pain-related this behaviour tends to dissipate with quiet, low-key training, stressing the horse as little as possible, creating clear boundaries and asking easy questions.

In none of these scenarios would I advise punishing the horse by slapping, hitting or shouting at them. I will absolutely defend myself, that mostly looks like quietly pushing their face away with my hand on their headcollar, occasionally it will look a shake of the rope and it stops as soon as the horse moves their head away. There is no backing the horse up as punishment or making them move their feet. I just want them to know “yes I heard you but you cannot take it out on me”, rather than “Don’t you dare!”.

A horse that is biting is already a stressed horse, and a horse that is smacked or chased for biting, will often still bite and then panic because they think they’re going to be smacked, causing more stress and the cycle repeats. The other thing that can happen when we punish the horse, is we stop the biting behaviour, but the horse is still in pain/discomfort but too scared to show it as he knows he’ll be punished for it.

Horses that are feeling okay and relaxed do not bite, they are not aggressive creatures. It is also worth noting that hand feeding does not cause aggression unless you reinforce aggressive behaviour by rewarding the horse when they bite you. I have dealt with several fear-based aggression cases by using food in training with great success.

If you take anything away from this please understand that biting is not the behaviour of a happy horse, it is not a quirky personality trait or just a sassy mare and it is not something we should be ignoring. Horses communicate with us so often and so clearly and we as an industry have become numb to it, we just need to open our eyes and listen instead of trying to fix what we perceive to be the problem. 🐴

www.lshorsemanship.co.uk

Apologies I have no photos I can use of a horse biting so please enjoy this photo of Dan looking like a high-end catalogue model.

02/08/2024

The call is coming from inside the house 🐴

I’ve had a lot of conversations with my friends over the last week, not about “the video” as such because we didn’t find it particularly shocking, more about the reaction to it and the state of the horse industry as a whole.

I’ll tell you why I didn’t find “the video” shocking, someone in elite equestrian sport is using harsh, unethical training methods? Well yeh, and the sky is blue…. I’m so uncomfortable with the stuff that happens in the public eye, that many, including the governing bodies, seem to be okay with, that the video just fit right in with that for me. Also anyone who has worked with these horses at that level knows what goes on behind the scenes. It is common knowledge. To condemn one person and continue to praise and cheer on others who are known to be just as bad behind the scenes is tiresome, it’s just theatre.

This isn’t a case of one bad apple, and we get rid of them and everything is fine. When you have a sport that involves an animal unable to consent and a judging system that rewards compliance above all else, that could’ve been any rider, in any yard, anywhere. I don’t really care who it is, the system is sick from the top down and the bottom up.

We are sold this fairytale of partnership and horses who just love their jobs so much, all smiles and big pats and feel-good stories. Brush aside anything that doesn’t fit the narrative, we’re really good at doing this as humans, we don’t want to acknowledge uncomfortable truths so its our brain’s way of protecting us. But if we can start to acknowledge that we have all been indoctrinated and conditioned to some degree, maybe, just maybe, we can allow ourselves to sit with that discomfort a little bit and really look at what we’re doing.

Equine behavioural science is really inconvenient when it doesn’t match up with the story we want to be true. Instead of making real change there is a lot of welfare-washing going on and we eat it up because it makes us feel good. Don’t worry about those blue tongues or that blood, look at this woman kissing her horse on the nose after she falls off! That’s true horsemanship right there!

We need to move away from the idea that abuse is just whips and blood. I have seen several professionals condemning “the video” while their own pages are filled with videos causing extremely high-stress with flags or schooling their over-bent, atrophied horses in tight flash nosebands. But these people genuinely think what they’re doing is kind and good horsemanship, we’re really good at telling ourselves these stories, this isn’t about evil people secretly getting a kick out of harming horses, this is a systemic issue within the industry.

Where is your line? We seem to look at tools and equipment as our measure rather than what the horse is actually experiencing. We will condemn someone lashing a horse with a lunge whip but we’re fine with someone frightening a horse with a plastic bag on a stick in the name of training because they tell stories that make us feel good? Or the kids at the local clear round being encouraged to “pony-club kick”, growl and slap their ponies down the neck and calling it great, effective riding? Or the “problem-horse” trainers who “save horses lives” by continuing to get on them while they show extremely high-stress until they just give in and get used to it, but its kind because they pat them the whole time?

How often do we hear “you can’t make a horse do anything he doesn’t want to do” and yet most of the training industry is selling you methods to get your horse to do stuff he doesn’t want to do. We have been indoctrinated into a world where highly-stressed behaviour is normalised, horses are kept in inappropriate environments and we are setting them and ourselves up to fail.

We cannot expect people to be reliable advocates for the horse when their whole career and identity is wrapped up in getting horses to do stuff. Its a really tricky road to navigate and I would be much better off financially if I just dropped my ethics and behavioural knowledge and went back to “getting horses to do the thing”. Its so easy to spin yourself a justifiable narrative, I used to do it all the time.

This isn’t about “us and them”, this is about them, and me, and you, and if we can sit with the uncomfortable realisation that we have all been indoctrinated and somewhat conditioned to accept and justify poor treatment because its convenient, we can all do our part to create a better world for our horses. I can’t force anyone to change their mind, but if you’re still reading this and you’ve found yourself even slightly questioning things, I encourage you to sit with those thoughts and do some further reading. 🐴

A book I think everyone involved with horses should read is “Language Signs and Calming Signals of Horses” by Rachael Draaisma.

If you’d like to read more about the welfare issues within elite-level horse sport check out the book “I Can’t Watch Anymore” by Julie Taylor.
The following pages are also sharing plenty of information during the Olympics and beyond EPONA.tv and Milestone Equestrian

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Videos

Please enjoy this ridiculous Jurassic Park-esque video with the sound on 🔈😅 I was filming some slow-mo videos and Lenny wanted to investigate. Who knew slow-mo chickens sounded like dinosaurs 😅🦕🦕

Groundwork

Groundwork - the effects on biomechanics, posture and the emotional state of the horse

Just bros being bros, Dan literally chowing down on Lenny’s dock 🥲 apparently Lenny loves it 🤷🏻‍♀️😅

Timeline cleanse of my cute guys being cute guys this morning 🐴🥰

How do you make your horse feel? 🐴 There are so many actions we perceive as kindness as our intentions are good, but our intentions really don’t matter if the horse isn’t experiencing it that way. We can be quite abrupt and disrespectful around our horses without even realising it, it is the way many of us have been taught to be around horses and we probably don’t even notice the affect its having, I know I didn’t. Sometimes we can be the equivalent to our horses of a person coming into your room, immediately starting to shout at you, asking repeated contradictory questions without waiting for your answers and then smacking you on the neck while calling you a good boy. Please understand when I talk about shouting, I mean figuratively “loud”, yanking on the halter, moving quickly, missing behavioural cues, having intense energy and being very abrupt in your asks. I was stood with a client’s very sensitive, anxious horse a while ago, and her lovely friend came over to see him. She went straight up to him and started patting him on the neck while loudly telling him what a good boy he is. The horse raised his head, his eyes were on stalks and he was clearly uncomfortable and worried, and yet the person was completely oblivious to how they’d just made the horse feel. Her intentions were good, she is a lovely person, but the horse did not enjoy that at all, it actually made him really anxious and he definitely didn’t perceive it as something pleasant. If a horse hates being touched or is frightened of people, being stroked or scratched is not going to be something they enjoy. Forcing a horse to accept touch because it makes us feel good to do so is definitely not kind. I often see horses turn their head away to try and disengage with the situation, only to be yanked back and then have their face petted as “praise”. The horse couldn’t have made it any clearer they do not want that touch, and we’re basically saying “this is happening wheth

An Introduction to Positive Reinforcement Training

with Jordan Wood

I’ve been playing around with different enrichment/fun ideas for the boys recently. Now I have them home I’m able to spend so much more time with them and I’m really enjoying just hanging out and doing things they enjoy. This was a very ambitious dish of carrot smoothie with meadow nuts and dried spearmint 😅🧑‍🍳

Had an emergency vet visit for one of the horses at 1am (all fine now) and ended up having the opportunity to sit with Lenny on the bed ❤️❤️ he tends to lay down through the night/very early morning so I rarely catch him. So peaceful ❤️🐴🥰 it’s the little moments

It almost felt like summer for an hour there this morning 😅 These two have lived together for almost a decade now which is mad to think about ❤️❤️ I love seeing the horses enjoy each other’s company.

When you’ve got to have first dibs on the fresh bedding, perfect for sheath itching 😅❤️

Saturday breakfast with friends 🐓🐴🥰

An Introduction to Posture

Spring Weight Management

Spring Weight Managment with Kelly Thomas Horse Weighbridge North East

Myth-busting Horse Behaviour Part 2

Spacial dynamics, misinterpreted behaviour and learning theory.

Myth-busting Horse Behaviour: Part 1

Debunking Myths of Horse Social Structure and Respect

That mud that’s just the right consistency to really grind in 😅🐴

When you’re trying to film but the chickens need to sing the song of their people 😅

It’s the simple things 🥰🥰 what a lovely day, I just love them so much, just missed Lenny trotting up over the hill

Lenny is so clever and talented he was on and weighed before I even noticed 😂🐴 Horse Weighbridge North East

Dan doing his own passive physio this morning, yesterday he jumped down and cantered into the field and I wanted to catch it on video but he decided on a more sedate technique today 😅 I’m so interested to see how their bodies change now they have lots of different movement opportunities and surfaces to explore. I’ve been so surprised to see both him and Lenny choose to go up and down the banks rather than use the slope. 🐴😎