Blogs

Just a reminder that no matter what exercise or behavior you're teaching your horses, the emotional state that was present when they learned it, will carry forward.

If your horse learns to load onto a trailer while he is anxious or fearful, his brain attaches those unpleasant feelings to the trailer, this sensation is often carried over to hauling and even adding to the emotions once you arrive at the new location. In the future, even if he seems compliant, that underlying stress will remain part of the behavior because the emotional state present during learning becomes part of the memory and the new, developing neural pathway.

But as long as they do what we want, isn't that what matters most? In our experience, this kind of thinking comes back to bite us as we are always proving or disproving to horses that they can trust us. When the chips are down, the horse who has learned to trust humans will try hard. The horse who has learned the opposite will struggle.

Another example... think of the horse who gets too quick/erratic about learning a lead change or jumping fences. When this happens, there is something in this process that the horse finds worrisome.

If we can slow it down and explain each building block of the behavior so we are certain there is clarity, the likelihood of building relaxation into the behavior is far greater.

Your horse is developing neural pathways one way or another so be intentional and thoughtful of the emotional experience created in this process.

By prioritizing a calm and relaxed state, you ensure that the behavior is built on a foundation of safety and confidence. This makes the training more reliable and durable because the horse isn't just performing out of necessity; he is engaging because he feels confident and good about the task.

When you focus on the horse's internal state first, the external results follow much more naturally and with far less conflict.