01/25/2025
Change the pattern.
Have you ever experienced a time when you’re working with your horse and no matter how hard you try, you can’t accomplish what you’re trying to do? If you’re drilling over and over again and not getting anywhere, it might be time to learn a new way of communicating.
Recently I was giving a lesson to a student; she was lunging her horse and the horse consistently tossed his head, crow hopped and refused to listen. She was popping the rope and tapping him with the whip but alas, it didn’t help. Instead of continuing doing the same thing and getting nowhere, I asked her to consider changing the pattern.
The change we made was that every time he tossed his head and kicked out he was asked to disengage his hind end and change directions. He quickly put two and two together and the undesirable behavior went away in minutes.
Will this work on every horse? No. Changing patterns is a lot of trial and error to see what you have to change to better communicate your intentions with your horse.
Is it always this simple of a fix? Nope. But oftentimes, it’s all the little things that add up to the big things.
