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The Sneaky Instructor
The following is an excerpt from Never Trust a Sneaky Pony, and Other Things They Did Not Teach Me in Vet School, by Dr. Madison Seamans, DVM. College for most people is about four years. While most...
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Let’s Watch a Calf Sorting
Twice so far I have shared True’s experiences with cows. In my first article about it a couple of weeks ago, he produced a spectacular display of equine fear upon the approach of three enormous black...
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True Sorts Cows
I’ve been training True to observe, approach, and accept cows as described in my last few Horse Network articles. The sequence offers a concrete example of training a young horse to accept something...
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The Foundations of All Training
Too often, we forget to consider the basic building blocks of a horse’s training. I’m not referring to signals for “whoa” and “go” or to direct reining left and right. I’m referring to basic health...
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Why I Don’t Use Fly Masks
A lot of people ask me what sort of fly mask True wears and whether I leave it on at night. The answers? None and no. But you might be curious about the reasons for those decisions. Clearly, no horse...
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Transcending Time Pressure
Brain-based horsemanship offers a thousand reasons to slow down with horses, to give them more time to assimilate new knowledge. But every now and then, my human prefrontal cortex tells me to get...
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“Hey! She Belongs to Me!”
My own horses watch closely when they see me riding a horse in training. One of my former horses ran the fenceline whinnying for an hour the first time he saw me ride a usurper. Cory was hot and...
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Jumpr 2.1 Is the Greatest Update We Never Knew We Needed
If you’ve logged into Jumpr App recently, you may have noticed things look a little bit different. A crisper, cleaner interface, for one thing, and new rider photos and timelines that make it even...
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Reducing Separation Anxiety
True fell in love with the little bay mare in an adjacent turnout about six months ago. “Fell in love” is a human phrase, of course. True stood as near her as possible every day, riveted his eyes on...
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Complex Aids, or “You Want What?”
Mr. True North outdid himself this week! With a series of calm attentive rides, he finally mastered the art of distinguishing between aids for the leg yield and aids for the canter depart. This marks...
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Dapples!
A friend and I were walking along the other day with our horses. I had just rinsed True with water and a jelly scrubber—I rarely use soap because it strips the natural oils that create shine—and he...
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Indoor Arenas
So much of brain-based horsemanship depends on forming a bond of mutual trust between horse and rider. Every day, I am reminded that my methods of teaching a horse a given maneuver have two purposes....
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The Butter Canter
True is progressing nicely in many ways and is still sticky in others. I’ll write a full assessment for you soon, and we will go back to the topics of flying changes and jumping soon as well. But...
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Turnout Turmoil
Turnout is a risky proposition for performance horses: it’s great when everything goes well, but it can lead to serious injuries when there are problems. I insist on it for my own horses, to improve...
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Ghost Noises
“Ghost noises” is my term for sounds caused by agents that horses can’t see. For example, the other day someone was stacking pallets next to the outer walls of the indoor arena while True and I were...
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Quoth the Raven: Arena Wildlife
We all have our quirks, right? One of mine is the belief that arenas are for horses and riders. Period. Well, all right, ground handlers or instructors are tolerated if they don’t back into a horse’s...
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The Deeper Lessons
In Horse Brain, Human Brain, and in all my columns and posts, I allude to layers of lessons for horses. Too often, we think of only the surface aspect of what we teach. For example, we might teach a...
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Encouraging Equine Motivation
I advocate training by non-edible reward as often as possible. It’s effective and long-lasting, and it encourages a horse’s motivation and builds his trust. But training by non-edible reward means...
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Soothing Anxiety or Rewarding Relaxation?
Let’s chat about training by non-edible reward a little more. It’s more effective and longer lasting than most other forms of training, motivates the horse to perform, and enjoys scientific backing....
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Back to Jumping
Some of the early articles in this brain-based training column were devoted to teaching True to jump. I got away from that goal temporarily for many reasons. Most important, I prefer to save jumping...
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