Yard Life, Horsey Heaven

10/05/2023

Sleepy yard this week …

15/03/2023

New little ones now coming into a joint pen in the mornings and also now out with the herd. Katy is the smallest but is showing herself to be quite the boss lol she won’t take any nonsense from the big ones!

03/03/2023

Why are we humans so obsessed with animals being blindly obedient for us whilst we give nothing to them in return?

Why do we feel our animals owe it to us to do what we ask when we ask it if then when we provide little in the way of incentive for them to do it?

Why is it that there is so much pride in making an animal do what we want them to, without ”treats” or any type of reward to motivate them to do so?

Why is the pressure of discomfort so much more palatable to humans for use in training?

We mistake obedience with willingness and enjoyment of the task.

We take far too much pride in having obedient animals even if the obedience comes at the expense of their welfare.

We’ve created a world where people view it as more impressive to compel an animal to do something through force than we do to compel them to do it because they want to due to a history of being rewarded for it.

We’ve created an untrue narrative that animals doing tasks without any type of reward is because they’re choosing to truly be connected with us and do what we ask simply because it’s us asking it when that’s not the case.

Reinforcers are necessary for changing behaviour and for reinforcing the behaviours we want to see.

If we are not using rewards, we are most likely using aversives.

Meaning, your animal is doing a task to avoid discomfort. They may be doing what you’re asking, but they’re STILL not doing it FOR you.

Training is about compelling animals to do what we ask of them and in order to do so, we need to appeal to their innate needs.

Either their need to evade discomfort or their need to seek an appetitive stimulus like a reward.

Neither of these needs have anything to do with impressing us humans.

The human ego is an incredible thing and unfortunately it’s far too often used to frame animal training as some grand endeavour where our animals feel so indebted to us that they do what we want for the sake of impressing us instead of doing what is most reinforcing for them based off of a reinforcement history.

Your animal will do what is reinforcing for them.

Whether you reinforce it through rewards based training or pressure & release is up to you, but either way, the results you see are due to what’s been made most reinforcing for your animal — not because they’re doing it JUST for you.

They’re dynamic beings with their own lives — just like we are.

We hang out with our friends because we get mutual benefit from the time spent with them. We don’t just do it for their sake and chances are — if a friend demanded more favours than they ever returned and only ever expected our obedience and servitude, we wouldn’t stick around very long, or if we did — we’d be frustrated and resentful after not too long.

It isn’t much different with the animals we train.

28/02/2023

Exciting day at the yard and 2 new liveries join us .. ‘Ruben and Katy’ 💜

13/01/2023

Fabulous new shelters built by Jamie ..

24/11/2022

Theraplate therapy sessions at the yard today .. all the horses were so well behaved! 💕

29/10/2022

A little of today’s session... fb won’t let me post more than one video at a time and I can’t add photos with the video either 🤦🏼‍♀️

Logan less co-operative than yesterday, I just work with how he’s feeling, today he was less engaged and that’s fine, I just stay calm and quiet and work with what he offers. The walking on the tarp was great, going over stuff we did yesterday not so great and in his immature mind ... boring..I need to keep his brain working and introduce new things and go back and reinforce old ground every few days.

I think it’s important to understand there will be good days and bad days and we must just learn to stay calm and relaxed and work with what’s offered or shorten the session and return to it another day, better to finish on something positive than keep pushing for something that on that particular day is not achievable for whatever reason and leads to frustration for all involved.

28/10/2022

I want to introduce our gorgeous new baby boy on the yard. ‘Logan’ currently standing at around 15.2hh and 2.5 yrs with a lot of growing to do yet! He is a Grullo Quarter Horse and I adore him 💕

I will be documenting our journey together from now to backing and beyond.

He has been with us now about 6 weeks and in that time I have just been building a relationship with him, allowing him to properly settle at the yard and allowing the herd to teach him the ropes.

He has a routine that we stick to every day so he knows what to expect, which builds confidence in his new surroundings.

I’ve worked on the basics of every day general care of grooming and feet, some of which he was pretty twitchy about to start, it didn’t matter that he did it with his previous owner wittout an issue, he has had to get to know and trust me, which he now does.

We have been doing at least 4/5 times a week of short (no more that 10mins) ground work sessions, learning the basics of backing up without having to be physically pushed, yielding quarters, and now yielding his shoulders. Walking out away from his horsey friends to spend time with me. Lowering his head when asked and to be happy with a long rope chucked all over him, around and between his legs and to learn what my body language means and what the energy I bring to him means.

We have done some reward based training and he’s taken to it like a duck to water. He’s learnt very quickly that nibbling for treats gets him no where and the way to get his reward is to either stand relaxed in the mid line or try and do the task asked of him, I always reward the try.

He has also learned not to try and stamp on my dogs lol and that it’s just not acceptable!

He loves all things water!

He loves scratches and this makes another brilliantly positive reward!

So watch this space for videos coming soon as we move forward with his learning 😊💕

04/08/2022

Missy approves our little wildlife water hole ... grass is parched and crispy after weeks of no proper rain .. wildlife need a little help x

03/08/2022

Quiet morning at the yard 😊

03/08/2022

22/07/2022

Car park virtually finished .. will be driveable on Monday... horseshoes added from our horses past and present making a lovely feature in the concrete apron at the front 💗

20/07/2022

A thistle munching kind of day 😊

18/07/2022

Filling haynets in short boots is no fun picking fifty million grass seeds out after ... game changer 🙌🏻

30/06/2022

Happy horses 💗

25/06/2022

Playing with the tarp

25/06/2022

Lovely pony time 💕

23/06/2022

Beautiful morning at the yard... we did inspired writing with the horses who went into a complete state of relaxation and Missy laid down in her pen for the first time ever because she felt so relaxed ... was so peaceful and magical

I will be offering spiritual workshops with the horses at the yard very soon 🙏💕💫

08/06/2022

New horse at the yard today causing much excitement among the gang 🐎💗😊

07/06/2022

Another wonderful one to one meditation today at the yard 🙏
Porter totally finding his mojo in his new role 💗

04/06/2022

Meditation with the horses at the yard this evening ... such a beautiful experience, very emotional especially for Susan, who the horses chose to share healing energy with 🙏💗

21/05/2022

Porter managed to get the bed to himself this morning lol

21/05/2022

Great evenings jumping at the yard tonight 🐎

18/05/2022

Credit to Jenny Rolfe ..

17/05/2022

Aww 💗💗

17/05/2022

What a beautiful day for a cool down shower and mane wash ☀️💧

20/04/2022

Snoozy mornings ...

20/04/2022

Lovely morning .... some fun Liberty work with these 2 ... will try and get a video tmrw 😊