RL Horsemanship

16/12/2016

Consider a trail ride for a great Christmas experience! For you or a friend/loved one.

15/12/2016

This is some proud flesh that was forming after an abscess blew out a heel. After two months of keeping it bandaged, changing bandages almost every day, it's looking great! Thanks Dr. Terry for the great advice!

25/11/2016

Give an experience instead of something that will break or get sent to the thrift store in a year! Give a "Ride Through The Redwoods!" Gift Certificates available for a 1, 2 or 3 person horseback ride, 90 minutes in length.

Kids over 9 can usually ride their own horse. Younger kids can ride double. Prices range from $100-$200 depending on number of people.

Message me here or contact me via text, messenger or phone at 831-345-0417.

16/11/2016

Spidey's first trail ride in Boulder Creek. Big hill climb for an amazing view. He did awesome!

13/07/2016

This is a great article. Anyone whose horse has ever spooked on them should read it.

Our horses see the world very differently from us in many ways. These differences in vision, due to the structure and placement of their eyes, have a profound influence on how they react to visual stimuli and should be thoughtfully considered in all aspects of horsemanship. These differences include...

14/04/2016

Now is the time to book your trail rides! If you have guests coming into town looking for something fun to do, tell them about my trail rides through the redwoods. Or if you just want a break from your daily routine, try riding! 1 hr 30 minutes of beautiful scenery for up to three people. No riding experience necessary.

13/10/2015

The adaptive riding center where I volunteer, Lichen Oaks Adaptive Riding Center in Felton, is losing their two therapy horses at the end of November. They are actively looking for some new horses. Horses considered must pass an evaluation to see if they are suitable for therapy. They are taken on retained ownership (which means they do not accept donations. Your horse is taken on a "feed lease" and you keep ownership.) Horses must be suitably sound and able to be ridden. Contact Melissa at 831-335-2347.

10/07/2015

Well said, Ross. Building trust and confidence in your horse is key to the best relationship you can have.

I use to have a private pilot’s license. I would borrow or rent a plane and fly to the beach for an afternoon surf. I got heavily involved in aerobatics for a while and had the most fun throwing the plane all over the sky. I would tow gliders for the local gliding club. I would dive down into gorges just metres from cliff faces on either side to take tourists on joy flights. I would grab with both hands any excuse to going flying. But paradoxically I have a terrible fear of heights. I mess myself just thinking about getting on the roof to adjust our TV aerial or climbing up the windmill to grease bearings.

On the other hand, my wife will climb anything. She is like a little squirrel monkey the way she scurries up and down ladders and is fearless about heights. Yet, she would gut me with a blunt nail file if I tried to get her to into a light plane. The idea of flying in anything with less than 4 engines makes her shake.

The point of this tale is that just because a person is happy looking down from 5,000 feet, doesn’t mean they are okay looking down from 15 feet. And the reverse can be just as true.

To put it in a way that is about horses, just because a horse is okay to walk across a tarpaulin lying on the ground, does not mean it is okay about walking through a puddle or over a bridge. Just because a horse is okay about a kangaroo wandering through its paddock does not mean it is okay about a wombat doing the same thing. Just because a horse seems fine with other horses, doesn’t mean it is fine with a mini or a donkey.

I can even recall a horse that lived with cows its entire life since the day it was born. But when it was sold and moved to a different home with different cows it freaked out every time one of the cows made a sudden move such as standing from a lying position.

You might wonder how can this be? How can a horse learn to be okay with a tarp, but not handle a puddle? How can it be ridden in a arena every day, yet freak out if somebody leaves a saddle blanket on the fence?

I think it comes from the way people try to desensitize horses.

Let’s look at the tarp situation as an example. Most people lay a tarp on the ground and work to get the horse to walk across. But in the process, the lesson becomes about the horse walking across THAT tarp of THAT colour in THAT location. A horse does not automatically learn to walk across that specific tarp and generalize it to all tarps or all sizes and all shapes and all colours in all locations. This is because horses think in pictures. In the training, the horse learns to walk across the tarp that looks like the picture in its head. If we then present another tarp to the horse where the picture is different to the one he learned was okay, many horses will baulk at walking across the new tarp.

In the process of trying to get horses desensitized to things, we tend to focus on the specifics of the object we are working with. We struggle to turn that specific lesson into a generalized lesson that is relevant to wide range of situations.

The problem is that we assume that because we spent time teaching a horse to not be upset by the tarp or the puddle or the tree branch fallen over his fence or the whip or the rope, we assume that it now knows how to handle any tarp or whip or fallen tree. But in their minds horses can’t take a specific lesson and turn it into a general lesson. They can’t extrapolate a lesson or idea like humans can.

If we accept this, it leaves us in a pickle because it is not possible to expose a horse to everything that may bother it in life in the hope that we can get it okay with everything. It’s just not possible.

There are only 3 ways around the problem that I can think of.

First, just desensitize a horse to things that are most important to you and live with the fact that there are still lots of things that will cause him to shy or baulk.

The second concept is to flood a horse with so much pressure that it shuts down and spends its life shutting the world out. This will make the horse dull and unresponsive to the scary things, but unfortunately it will also make him dull and unresponsive to the things you want him to respond to. The success of this approach also depends on the horse never waking up from its shut down state. If that happens you might find the horse is unmanageable when all those suppressed worries surface.

The third approach is to instead of trying to desensitize a horse to an object, that we teach it to remain focused and connected to the human instead of the object. In this way a horse can learn that the path to comfort and safety lies in staying attentive and following the feel that the rider/handler presents. You don’t teach a horse to ignore the scary object, but you want it to learn that life is okay because you said so. In time a horse learns to have confidence in the human rather than in the scary object. This is important because the human becomes a constant in a horse’s life that can be relied upon to show the way to a better option of comfort and safety. Scary objects come and go, but if a horse learns that staying connected to the human always provides safety and comfort we don’t have to try to desensitize a horse to everything. The connection to the rider or handler takes to worry out of the scary object.

The first two options of either picking the most important objects to teach desensitization or of shutting a horse down and teaching him to tune out the scary objects have major flaws and problems associated with them. However, there is no down side to building focus and trust in the relationship with a human. That alone brings so many positives to our work with horses.

Of course, there are always limits to how much confidence and trust a horse can have in people. Therefore, it is vital that we never push the boundaries beyond what our relationship with our horse is capable of withstanding on that day. We must always ensure we don’t betray the try and trust our horse offers. One instance of betrayal can undo many months of good work.

This is one dinner party I would not attend.

22/06/2015

Big Congrats to my student, Lilian who won the AA High Point Saddle today at District 1's Aloha Show! I am so proud!!!

21/05/2015

Shop with us at www.pamperedcowgirl.com

06/02/2015

Reviews from my clients: please post/read here.

04/08/2014

This is the best advice I've seen in a while. Don't waste your time with a "bad fit."

It was lunch break and the clinician came into the lounge to eat. She was an experienced competitor and focused clinician with a reputation for being a bit cantankerous. A few of us were there eati...