McCall Horsemanship

12/25/2024

Merry Christmas 🎁

Wish you and your family a safe and happy holidays.

11/28/2024

We feel so fortunate and blessed to be able to play in our sandbox everyday.

Thank you to everyone who trusts us with their education and their horse’s education.

Happy thanksgiving🍁🦃

11/27/2024

Trailer practice for the youngster!

Trailering is a common thing that horses and owners struggle with. We try to make the trailer somewhere they want to be by using their curiosity to our advantage and making it a great place once they are in. We do not normally bribe horses, but if we can teach the horses that they get to relax and eat food in the trailer we absolutely will do that.

11/14/2024

•When they react that’s when mistakes happen•

Reactive is acting before they think.
Responsive is thinking before they act.

11/07/2024

Nailed it.

THE LESSON HORSE…

When I was facilitating equine therapy for inmates in a correctional facility, I started to question… how do we utilize horses in therapy, without exploiting them?

I saw my fair share of equine therapy sessions where the horse’s well-being - physical, mental, emotional - was disregarded, because facilitators were fixated on sticking to a scripted lesson.

But really, the lesson participants were learning was, it’s ok to disregard another being while trying to fulfill our own emotional needs.

So I completely deconstructed my own sessions to be horse-centric, because I believe the best lesson for a human participant, is showing up for the horse.

I believe the same philosophy should be applied to lesson horses.

If we prioritize the lesson for the student, we risk disregarding the horse, and teaching the student the wrong lesson.

If we prioritize the lesson for the horse, it’s always going to be the right lesson for the student.

When we show up as our best selves, to serve the horse, to empower them be their best selves, we both ascend…

10/13/2024

The show dog life is rough :)

10/09/2024

•Never be afraid to make a mistake•

Making mistakes is when you learn the most.

10/06/2024

•Sometimes fast results aren’t the best results•

What you want versus what your horse needs often does not line up. Obviously when you put your horse in training you want to see drastic changes. In reality that is not always going to be the case.

Before your horse can make big changes their foundation needs to be solid. The foundational training might not seem important, but in order to have a “cool, handy horse with fast maneuvers” they first need to understand how to properly yield to pressure.

Meaning… are they soft to leg and hand pressure? Do they push against it? Do they run from it? Etc.

For us when putting a horse in training we expect them to become more responsive and less reactive, have a desire to work and come out, and have a soft eye while working.

Everything else should come secondary.

10/02/2024

Don’t forget this is supposed to be fun!

The horse world can be hard. Never forget why you started this:)

09/29/2024

Is your energy affecting your horse?

Horses are very in tune with our feeling and energy and some times we can unintentionally transfer the wrong energy to our horses.

Sometimes horses get spooked or nervous not because they are genuinely scared but because they feel our energy rise and our bodies tense out of anticipation for what might happen.

People often see something that might scare the horse or is currently scaring horse and focus on that thing, but by staring or worry about that thing they are really just adding fuel to the fire.

When a horse is feeling nervous it is our job to be confident and steady for them.

09/22/2024

•Don’t over complicate things•

Often we see people getting frustrated about not being able to complete a task or a pattern because they get to focused on the end result and not the steps to complete the task.

When you get stuck go back and break the task down into little steps.

09/15/2024

•Tools in your tool box•

For our training program it is important to keep as many tools in our tool box as possible. For us this means to watch and learn as many techniques as possible, but most importantly to not over use any tools. A tool can be considered any thing from your legs to your bit or a dressage whip.

If you do not stay effective with these tools it is easy for your tools to become “dull”. In most cases it is much hard to sharpen your tools than to use them with caution and keep them sharp.

08/28/2024

•How available is your horse•

While there is something to say for natural athleticism and papers; I’ve also found horses are capable of more than we think. We have had several situations where people (including us) think a horse isn’t capable of something.

I like to think about watching them in turn out or in a herd. If they can do it out there they are more than capable of doing it under saddle and it is up to us to convince them that they can. Most of the time horse can do things fast or better than they offer, but they try to convince us they can’t.

In order to make sure I’m bring out the most potential in my horses possible I like to see how available they are by asking for things randomly and expecting them to do it quickly with out me setting them up.

If they can do this at all speed any time than you’re horse is available. If they can not than challenge your horse to be more available.

08/27/2024

Successful ILRHA show this weekend. We feel super proud of how all the horses came out and tried their hardest.

08/26/2024