A Must Watch Video

If you’re feeling at all discouraged, this music video is guaranteed to warm your heart and cause you to hug the nearest being with a heartbeat.

In my humble opinion, it clearly shows the awesome power of positive reinforcement (force-free, pressure-free, creating an atmosphere where folks can feel good way of relating) in a world desperate for some new energy.

I’ve seen the power of this new energy transform even the most difficult of beasts. This video shows the ultimate transformation.

Enjoy!

-cw

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Positive Interrupter

Here’s a fantastic video by Emily Larlham in her Dogmantic training series. She offers a complete selection of free positive reinforcement clicker training videos that are IMHO, priceless. Although the videos are targeted for dogs, simply insert the word horse when she says dog, and you’ll experience the same valuable results.

This particular video teaches what I think is an invaluable tool that I’ve used in a similar capacity with my horses if I see their attention begin to wander.  For groundwork, I’ll make a type of kissy sound and then click/treat for eye contact with me, and under saddle, I click/treat for a flick of the ear in my direction, either from a voice cue, or a rein aid.

I love her explanation as to why a verbal no-no, or eh-eh, is ineffective.

Enjoy!

Cheryl

Seal with a Kiss

I double dare you to watch this video with out letting an “awwww” or even a tiny tear escape. On so many levels I love this video. The first level, is the intent. Both participants appeared to want nothing other than to be in each others company. The other is the dynamics of the attraction-based communication. Individually, they were simply attracted into interacting with each other. No force, no tension just pure looking forward to what pleasant thing would happen next.

For Every Action there is an Equal and Opposite Reaction

Here’s a video showing exactly why I’m in favor of force-free, pressure-free, joyful, attraction-based interaction that feels good for both horse and human.

Note the angry face on human. Note the angry response from the horse. I think it’s safe to assume most horses don’t like pushing, jabbing, shoving, smacking gestures as means of communication. And here we have a horse that took the bull by the horns, or the human by the hair and said, enough.

I lump this video into the category of “Don’t Give Your Horse a Reason for Bad Behavior.”

It’s my sincere hope that there were no injuries and this young force-full horse handler may experience the beauty and simplicity of attraction-based work with horses. I have a sneaking feeling she’ll be a fan of helmets.

-cw