Contemporary Horsemanship

18/04/2024

Castor working on standing tied while I walk away for a minute. Next I’ll tie him with a hay bag to help associate tying with positive things.

15/07/2023

The reason that so many people have issues when feeding horses hand-fed treats is because they are doing it wrong. What usually happens is the trainer is using too high of a value food reinforcer. For example, store bought horse treats, peppermints, carrots, apples. Some horses may even be too excited when being fed hay pellets. When the food is too high of a value the horse has a hard time focusing on what you want him to do and gets too excited about the food. You need to be able to reward or reinforce the horse with the lowest level of food your horse will work for. You need to figure that out first, before you begin training. Set out different foods around the horses’s stall or in an arena. The horse will tell you which foods he likes best. Once you found the lowest value of reinforcement that your horse will work for, you should begin training in protected contact. Protected contact means putting a barrier between you and the horse so that you both have a safe space to learn. A safe fence or stall door works well. Then you can start training. You can teach your horse to touch a target, this is a good way to begin. The key is to only feed your horse with his head where you want it to be. For me, I want his head right in front of his chest. He only gets food in this position in the beginning. I do not withhold the food to teach him to do this though. I will talk about that in another post. I outstretch my arm and feed him with his head straight in front of his chest, every time. Soon the horse will expect that he will receive food in this position and will stay in it. The horse is never reinforced for checking my pockets or mugging. With the use of protective contact, I can just step away from him. Later on, if the horse sniffs or touches my pockets or treat pouch I don’t let him get any reinforcement from doing so. I instead ask for a behavior like standing still, backing up, or targeting that I can then reinforce with him in the correct position. Eventually the horse knows that coming to you for food doesn’t work and will stay in the position you want.

13/07/2023

Atlas has a stromal abscess in his left eye. I have been giving him eye medication four times a day for about a month. This is the process of how I give him the medicine and how I maintain this behavior.

04/07/2023

Sebastian won 🏅 1st place in his June horse agility class.

02/07/2023

23/06/2023

https://anchor.fm/chandra0/episodes/What-Shaping-Is-and-How-to-Be-a-Good-Shaper-e21qpf9

Shaping is done when using both negative and positive reinforcement. It is more often associated with positive reinforcement though. Shaping is when you reinforce small steps toward the behavior that you ultimately want. By reinforcing behavior that is close to what you want, the horse keeps trying and will be less frustrated.

11/06/2023

https://anchor.fm/chandra0/episodes/The-Myth-About-Bombproof-Horses-e21dn8f

I want people to have realistic expectations with horses. Everyone loses when a horse is promised to be bombproof and will never spook. I’m going to talk about why I think this is so dangerous and give some tips on what to really expect from a horse, bombproof or not.

10/06/2023

Sebastian got first place in his March pony agility class 🥇

29/05/2023

https://anchor.fm/chandra0/episodes/What-to-Do-Instead-of-Riding-or-Training-e20fppl

We all get burn out and just need a break sometimes. There is a culture in the horse world that you must work with or ride your horse all the time, no matter how you or your horse feels. But instead of working just to get something done, there are lots of other things we can do while still getting a mental and physical break from working with horses. I’ll cover some of those options and why they are beneficial.

11/05/2023

The importance of the horse’s tongue.

From the Horse’s Mouth... Actually the Horse’s Tongue

11/05/2023

My mare went fine in a shaped girth and the straight one. But I could definitely feel pressure points on one similar to the one on the top, so I don’t use it anymore.

Equivalent to taking a shoestring and tying it around your rib cage, offset girths while they're marketed as being able to help horses with forward girth grooves, actually fail to properly distribute the tension across the body and show localized pressure, with sometimes zero contact in the offset portion. That means a 4" wide girth may only exert pressure across a 1" width, leaving the rest hanging there.

Using a simple ballpoint pen, you can run the pen tip just along the edge of your girth, lying it flat against the horse so as to not poke them) to check the tension. We typically find offset girths have a large gap on one side, while being so tight on the opposite side we cannot even slide the pen underneath.

Also, to clarify, anatomical or shaped =/= offset.

03/05/2023

I want to educate people to make horse’s lives better. This is not cute, this is not snuggling, the horse is not enjoying this. The horse has a bridle with a figure eight noseband which is designed to keep the mouth shut so he cannot open his mouth to escape the pain of the bit. He also has on a lip chain to ‘control’ him, which is also very uncomfortable and runs over his very sensitive gums. The horse’s tongue is sticking out not because he is posing for the camera but because it hurts to have it inside his mouth and he is trying to escape the pain. You can hold on to a horse and make them do all kinds of things like ‘cuddle’ when you have all of this stuff on them. But the horse has no choice. What would happen if you took all of this off? The horse would not choose to stay.

13/04/2023

*Turn on the sound to tell how close it is*
Eating out of the hay net is scary but the airplane spraying the next field is totally fine 😌
I am surprised Atlas wasn’t afraid since he was rounded up off of the range by helicopter.

11/04/2023

This is the next day after the previous video, where I worked on leading with Atlas. He improves quite a bit from the last time. He stays with me better, sto...

09/04/2023

https://anchor.fm/chandra0/episodes/Horse-Agility-e206qgj

I’ve recently started participating in equine agility and I have really enjoyed training my horses through each course. I love that whips are not allowed, taking slack out of the rope takes points off of your score, and you are allowed to use food. I will expand on why I love these things and more reasons why I think horse agility is a fantastic sport and a step in the right direction for the horse world. To check it out for yourself visit https://www.thehorseagilityclub.com/

04/04/2023

Sebastian got first place in his first horse agility class. I talk through the course about things we did well and were we can improve.

03/04/2023

I’m teaching Atlas how to lower his head to touch a target. Then I show the process of how I put a voice cue on this behavior.

I am using R+ to teach Atlas to lower his head in response to a tactile cue of my hand on his poll. Once he knows I am wanting him to put his head down, I st...

01/04/2023

https://anchor.fm/chandra0/episodes/Start-Buttons-e1vfm5d

Start buttons are a tool used in clicker training where the animal performs one before to let the handler know he is ready for another behavior. I have found start buttons to be very helpful in horse training. I’ll talk about what start buttons are and how to use them.

31/03/2023

On my Patreon there are hundreds of full length videos chronicling my training with all different kinds of horses. This is essentially a detailed horse training diary. I show my journey of gentling mustangs using mostly positive reinforcement, plus much more. I also answer questions and offer online lessons too.

Become a patron of Contemporary Horsemanship today: Get access to exclusive content and experiences on the world’s largest membership platform for artists and creators.

31/03/2023

Dakota showing off her 2nd place ribbon from last month’s agility competition. She did well for her first time.

24/03/2023

I love horse agility!

One week to go for course closing date. Calling all Starter to Advanced one star, Equagility, Young Horse, Junior and Liberty classes!

Don't forget you can enter walk only versions of our classes if you or your equine have any mobility limitations (recovering from injury or life long)

Good Luck everyone. Looking forward to watching your videos 🥰🐴

PC Gaia Horsemanship

21/03/2023

Introducing a horse to new things can be as easy as rewarding them for approaching and investigating the object. Paying attention to body language is important so that I don’t ask the horse to approach something when he isn’t ready. But if the horse remains relaxed, this is the process I use to teach my horses to cross the tarp.

17/03/2023

I’m working on the curtain obstacle with Dakota. I want to make sure she stays relaxed while approaching it. Then she can touch my hand and get reinforced for doing that near the curtain, then I ask her to touch the curtain and reward her. Also pay attention to the way she feels about having the curtain behind her.

15/03/2023

I’ve taught Castor how to tie using R+. He is now ready to start tying for longer periods of time and in different locations. The whole time I want to keep standing tied very reinforcing for him.

14/03/2023

Lunging can be taught using positive reinforcement and a target. I get Castor to walk forward by having him follow the target, then add a cue to it. I slowly increase the amount of steps he takes on the circle. And I reinforce for him maintaining a good distance between us.

09/03/2023

I’m increasing the amount of time Castor can stand in the trailer. I do this slowly so I can build his confidence.

08/03/2023

I am rewarding Atlas for coming up to and touching the new objects. I keep the flags wrapped up at first so that they are easier to approach and I can unfurl them as he builds confidence.