Influence as Leadership

By Mary Gallagher

Recently I have been working with a young owner whose horse is challenging her leadership. He has managed, with great skill, to make her timid. He is very sensitive to her body language and how she moves away from him each time he steps into her space. He has figured out how to get her to step away with his head, his shoulder, his teeth, his hip, and his hind feet, to gradually gain total control over her. To be sure, she is young and small, and he is big and imposing, and when he asserts himself he is daunting. But this scenario is also quite familiar to many an adult owner and rider, who find themselves pushed around by their horses.

Lesson Notes: Our Horses, Our Teachers

By Mary Gallagher


Here at Freedom Farm we have the greatest teachers, our horses. Over the years, these great teachers come and go in our lives, but even as the horse passes on, the lessons remain with us.

Trailer Loading Preparation: Going Through a Narrow Place, Part 3 (of 4)

By Jessica Crouch

Over the last two months we have developed our communication in asking our horse to step forward to an object (step on a plate) and to back carefully and thoughtfully over an obstacle (back over a pole).  Now we are going to add in another challenge - go through a narrow place. I really like to play with 55-gallon plastic barrels. They are easy to move around and reconfigure according to your horse's needs. At the Farm, Jerry's been kind enough to provide us with plenty of barrels, but if you don't have any at home you can improvise - just make sure the object is safe, even if your horse bumps into it.

Noticing: Why Hurry?

By Mary Gallagher

Third in a series about noticing your horse's body language.

When you first look at the photos in this article, you might think 'gosh, Mary wants that horse to step on the tarp', and you would be partly right. I do want him to step on it--eventually. More important are all the wonderful things that develop while he avoids the tarp. So many times we get the end result fixed in our minds and we think we should achieve it right away. However, if we slow down and allow the horse to work at finding comfort, we achieve so much more.

Here I have my rope just long enough that this horse has to work at going around the tarp. As he avoids the tarp, he has to bend his head and neck around. He is also picking
up his shoulder and reaching underneath himself with his inside hind leg stretching and loosening the hips, ribs, and back.

Noticing Your Horse's Body Language

By Mary Gallagher

Last month I began this new series on noticing what our horse is telling us through body language. I shared my belief that learning to read the horse's head carriage, ear position, shoulder direction, eyes, feet activity, tail position, weight on the rope, and proximity to our personal space is essential in our development as horsemen and horsewomen. All these signs fit together like a puzzle, telling us what is going on inside the horse's skin. We can use this information to put together a plan for how we will communicate back to our horse, ultimately improving our training and enhancing our pleasure time together.

Trailer Loading Preparation Part 1 (of 4)

By Jessica Crouch

You load your happy horse into your trailer and off you drive - to a wonderful trail ride?  A fun show? Maybe a great clinic? In real life though, horses often worry about the trailer.  A lot.  Some arrive soaked with sweat. Some bang their heads or legs in their haste to get off the trailer.  Some simply won't go in at all. But it doesn't have to be that way. Training (or re-training) a horse to trailer can be just another relaxed progression in his education.  How you approach it makes all the difference in the world. The key lies in developing trust, communication and confidence AWAY from the actual trailer. Each piece of the trailer loading equation can be broken down. I'll be sharing an exercise each month that will help your horse learn the skills and confidence he'll need when you finally do ask him to load.
 

Noticing: Seeing What Your Horse is Saying - A New Series

By Mary Gallagher

Sometimes life imitates art, or more accurately, is inspired by it. I recently received some wonderful horse sketches from artist Carolyn Guske (whom many of you know as Remy's owner), and found myself responding to one in particular. I instantly noted its body language, thinking, this horse looks pretty concerned, and is about to move away from something worrisome, maybe I need a sketch of a calmer horse. Then I noticed my own response, and realized this was a pretty fine sketch, that my usual instincts kicked in and I'd seen it like an actual horse. Then it hit me: perhaps I could use such a sketch, as well as photos, to point out what I see when I look at a horse at any given moment.

Lesson Notes: Commotion

By Mary Gallagher
 
Arianna Llewellyn of Serendipity Farms in Quilcene invited me to co-host a horsemanship workshop last month, which turned out to be a fun afternoon of motion. We started by putting motion in ourselves with jumping jacks, just to see what our horses thought of it. Some horses crowded in, while others started jumping around, themselves. The ones that crowded in ran into our flapping arms, while those that moved their feet inspired us to get even more active with our jumping jacks. But soon, all the horses settled down and found a place to rest quietly as their owners caught their breath and digested what caused the change in their horse.