Trudi Dempsey: Equine Trainer and Behaviour Consultant

09/07/2025

06/07/2025

The archived recording of my recent bitless riding and training webinar is now available to purchase if you missed it.

ON-DEMAND. An archived webinar recording of equine trainer and behaviour consultant Trudi Dempsey on riding and training using bitless bridles.

05/07/2025

The gap.

It’s not a pause I’ve cued or a behaviour I’ve trained. It's something offered that I notice because I'm not in a rush. It’s shaped, over time, with consistency and leads to clear communication.

It happens after a horse has had a moment to process. They shift. They check in. They choose to come back into the game.

It’s not something I try to create. But it’s something I notice, and respect.

Sometimes it’s small, an ear, a blink, a breath. A quiet readiness to start again.

Sometimes it’s more obvious.

It tells me they’re not just going through the motions. They’re here. They’re with me.

I don’t rush that moment. I wait for it to emerge.
Because when it’s there, I know we’re really working together.

Mind the gap.

04/07/2025

Some personal news...

I’m honoured and a little surprised to share that I’ve been voted onto the IAABC Board of Directors. Congratulations also to Lisa Stemcosky, Barb Deg and Tosia Zoltowska.

As someone working primarily with horses, I’m excited to help represent the equine community as well as contribute to broader conversations. The IAABC brings together practitioners across a range of species and countries, and I’m looking forward to supporting that international spirit.

I hope to play a part in creating open, supportive spaces, especially for those working with equines, so more of us feel welcomed, connected, and involved with this amazing organisation.

Thank you to everyone who voted, I’m looking forward to learning from my fellow board members and from all of you.

🎉 We are delighted to share the results of our recent Board of Directors election, and we extend heartfelt thanks to everyone who participated.

Please join us in welcoming our newly elected board members:

Trudi Dempsey
Lisa Stemcosky
Barb Deg
Tosia Zoltowska

These individuals will join our continuing board members Barbara Davis, Beth Brown, Suzanne Turner, Alice Chau, Abby Surrette, Amy Caron, and Ashley Conlin as we work together to advance the IAABC’s mission. The new board will officially take office on July 1st, and we are eagerly looking forward to their contributions in the year ahead.

02/07/2025

A big thank you to everyone who joined my Bitless Horse Riding and Training webinar yesterday!

We had some fantastic questions and thoughtful discussions throughout. It’s always encouraging to see so many people exploring ways to train and ride with greater connection and consideration.

One of the central themes we touched on was equipment choice and how deeply personal that decision is. There’s no single 'right' bitless bridle. What works for one horse-human partnership might not work for another. Conformation, past experiences, handler confidence, training skills and goals all play a part.

That said, there’s one consistent truth across all equipment choices: cues must be (re)taught and reinforced. Even a small change in design or fit can alter how a cue feels to the horse. Bitless or not, it's our responsibility to help the horse understand what we’re asking, without confusion or conflict.

Whether you're transitioning to a new type of bitless or trying bitless for the first time, take the time to make your cues clear and clean. Your horse will thank you.

Thanks again for being such an engaged and curious group. I really appreciate your interest in exploring ethical, thoughtful ways of working with horses.

Model Reggie of Little Green Stables sporting a Transcend.

29/06/2025

Complex behaviours start with simple, clean foundations.

It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of trying to teach something impressive. But the real magic happens in the quiet, early work. That’s where we build clarity.

If we teach the basics well, they can be layered to easily create the complex.

Clicker training forces us to be creative in building environments where the horse can learn easily, without confusion or frustration. That’s when even the seemingly impossible starts to look easy.

Our own enthusiasm can wane when we can’t work out how to train something. Not knowing where to start or how to get behaviour ‘off the ground’ can make us feel useless.

When I’m stuck, I start by outlining what I want the behaviour to look like when it’s finished. You’d be surprised how helpful this can be. A really clear description that you can name as a behaviour to work towards.

For example, long reining through a pole labyrinth. How does it look? Where will I stand? How will the horse carry themselves? How will the horse understand where to step? How will I communicate left, right, stop, walk? How will I pick up the reins? How will I reinforce?

These questions lead me to a solid description.

Consider any behaviour you have tried to train, and think how much easier it might have been if you had a clear road map to follow.

24/06/2025

Work with the horse you have, not the horse you wish you had.

We live in a world full of polished social media posts showing horses doing impressive things (as well as some that make my eyes bleed), and it’s easy to feel like you’re not cutting it. Easy to feel your horse should be further along, more advanced, or less... behind. Easy to feel you're not a good enough guardian.

But some horses need to go really slowly. Some take weeks to feel comfortable with a new protocol. Some come with baggage. Some have been misunderstood for so long that they don’t trust us to get it right. That’s not a training flaw. It’s just the reality for that horse.

And once you stop fighting it, it can become something really beautiful.

There’s this idea that progress moves in a straight line. That if we do everything 'right', things will keep improving one step at a time. But with some horses, you need to take a step forward and then stop to let things settle. Or you go backwards for a bit, and that gives you the opening you needed to move forward in a different way. That isn’t losing ground, it’s following the pace that works for that horse to learn.

One of my dogs has taken years to confidently touch a target with his nose. I haven’t been training it that whole time. We’ve done lots of other things, and I’ve waited until he was ready. When he finally offered that touch, it felt like a huge milestone. Not because it was flashy, but because of everything it told me about how he felt now compared to before.

There’s nothing wrong with going slowly. There’s no deadline. You’re not in a competition. You’re not less of a trainer because your horse isn’t 'advanced.' Some of the best trainers spend months helping a horse feel safe just walking into the school. It doesn’t make for sexy social media content, but it’s extraordinary work.

It’s OK if your horse isn’t 'there' yet. Wherever 'there' even is.
Don’t let this be an 'excuse' not to train. Celebrate quiet training that meets your horse where they are.

Thanks to the handsome Jim for, well, just being Jim ❤

22/06/2025

I was speaking recently to a colleague about how professional trainers share their work.
Some are generous and open, others much more cautious. I get it. When you’ve put time and thought into developing something, it’s hard to see it used, reshaped, and passed on without credit or context. But that's the nature of the game. Most ideas we come up with aren't novel and, if by some luck they are, the ability to create them came from others generously sharing their work.

I’ve been influenced heavily by the skill and generosity of dog trainers who have shared their ideas freely. That generosity shaped my own learning and practice, and it’s a big part of why I use the techniques that I do today.

Frustratingly, when you put your creativity out into the world, it sometimes disappears into the ether. It gets picked up and used, and you may never hear about it again. Of course that can feel disheartening but what good would it have done to hold on tightly to that information?

I want to refocus my time in future. I’ve already begun to shift away from individual training with clients and spend more time mentoring professional trainers, not only those who’ve certified with me, but also others who share the same values and are committed to thoughtful, evidence-based practice. I want to support them to teach, share, and communicate what they do with clarity and confidence. To those clients currently training with me,I'm not disappearing, I'm here for you but I will pass on future enquiries to colleagues.

There’s still a lot of education needed in the horse world. I still want to help shift that, not just by doing the work myself, but by supporting a community of well-equipped, thoughtful trainers who are ready to bring something different to the table.

20/06/2025

Practical experience changes our understanding.

I used to use counter-conditioning (particularly open/closed bar) as my go-to when working with fearful horses. Scary thing appears, food follows, repeat until the horse starts to feel better about the scary thing. A simple process apparently grounded in good behavioural science. And I do still use it but not always in quite the same way I used to.

Over the years, I started to wonder whether what we’re seeing in some of these sessions is true counter-conditioning, as in, a genuine change in how the horse feels about the scary thing, or whether we’re seeing something else. Maybe blocking or overshadowing, where the presence of food or a well-practised learned response masks what the horse is really feeling. Or where the horse is focused on the reinforcer or handler cues to the point where they’re not really processing the scary thing at all.

It can certainly help horses during the session but does it actually change the emotional response? Being able to eat near a stimulus isn’t the same as feeling safe around it. It gets the job done but does it change emotions?

Of course there may well be, over time, a change in the horse's perception as nothing 'awful' happened during the process but this seems to take longer, perhaps because it is primarily a masking process. Do note that this can be an exceptional way to 'get the job done' in emergency situations.

I don’t want to throw out counter-conditioning. It absolutely has a place, and I’ve seen it work well, especially when the horse is already in a place where they can think, engage, and process.

But more usually now I rely on introducing a CAT (Constructional Approach Training) protocol that gives the horse more agency, more control over proximity and timing. Using this I see more lasting changes that don’t depend on whether I have food in my hand. It gives me clearer feedback about how the horse is feeling.

Sometimes I start with CAT, build safety and choice into the environment, and then bring in food later, when it’s likely to support rather than suppress behaviour.

I’m really saying...what we think of as counter-conditioning isn’t always doing what we think it’s doing. And that’s not a reason to abandon it, it’s a reason to understand it better. We need to keep asking whether our horses are actually feeling safer, or just appearing to cope. Whether we’re changing emotional responses, or just layering learned behaviours over top.

If you need help with this I'd ask a behaviour professional. Whilst I don't have time for more clients at the moment, I'm happy to try and link people up with the right professionals- drop me a message. Or join vet Gabriel Lencioni and I later in the year for our 4 week co-operative care course at the IAABC Foundation