Pressure

Use as little pressure as possible; as much pressure as needed.

Recently I've been reading books on horse training and psychology. One if the main concepts is how you view pressure; an interesting thing both physically and mentally.

The books I'm referring to are "Nature in Horsemanship: Discovering Harmony Through Principles of Aikido" by Mark Rashid, and another book written by one of Rashid's apprentices (I can't remember the title; sorry).

We all know what pressure is; either in the form of being dragged across a slippery grass field by a horse, or that mental feeling where you *must* get something done and can't ignore it.

So, let me give you a tip for understanding pressure in relationships and also training. This is: Use as little pressure as possible; as much pressure as needed.

There you go. I've recently re-discovered this after the horse I have decided she would stop lunging by turning towards me; a position you can't drive a horse from. The solution? Watching the horse's hip *very closely* and getting after her with the lunge whip and strong verbal commands.

I didn't really like it. As folks who know me will say, I'm pretty softhearted and not very aggressive. But sometimes it takes aggressiveness to reach the point where both parties are safe and compliant.

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I'm double-posting this on my personal blog, take a look.

Heads or Tails?

Or, rather, heads or shoulders? Lately it has seemed Feather would prefer to give me her shoulder than head, which isn't all that awesome when I'm trying to halter her.

MiniOwner suggested I try something new: spend a training session or two without the halter; showing her that I'm not out to hurt her and she doesn't need to be head-shy.

Today I didn't have the time or light to work with the filly - instead I helped clean most of the stalls in one of the barns! Which wasn't bad; it's nice to muck some stalls! Not all the time, of course, but occasionally. :)

Anyway, I was able to do this with Feather last Saturday. She moseyed over to me as usual, and after a few minutes of scratching she let me gently hug her head towards me. I had one hand on the far side of her face (not squeezing the bridge of her nose), and as soon as she gave in to the slight pressure I would release some of it. The other hand kept scratching her and encouraging her when she gave the right answer. After a few moments her head would  wander away from me, thus I would gently cue it towards me again. We did this back and forth for about 20 minutes.

I'm hoping she'll remember it the next time we work. I don't really like returning to the basics, but at the same time I know it is important and for a horse to be head-shy is not cool, at all.

I'll let you know as more things progress. 'Night :)