Dialogue with Dante: Wow is Right!

Barb and Dante are seriously dialoguing! Here’s her latest email.

Tonight Dante put both feet on the tire – 3 times.  He also stood on both sides of the stepping stone and also stood while I walked down his side.  And he came back to me in the pasture when the other horses went into the barn.  Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Barb

This thrills me. The last time I was there I introduced Dante to the notion of stepping up on the tire pedestal, but I felt he wasn’t ready. I saw that he got a little confused as he preferred to walk around the tire instead of stepping on it. I felt that he needed just a little more experience with targeting his feet to an object.

We worked reinforcing the verbal cue of ‘step up’ and the physical cue of tapping my foot on the object.

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Dialogue with Dante: Introduction

Up until last week most of my attraction based training has taken place with the horses I own. Each time I hear of a difficult horse for sale, I literally enlist the help of my friends to remind me that I do not need another horse. It’s the difficult horses that are my biggest weakness.

For me, their troublesome baggage carried out by bolting, spooking, kicking, just to name a few, is like an archaeological dig or a great mystery novel.