Category: Positive Reinforcement :: Clicker Training

“Horse training is about building confidence one step at a time. It’s not about confrontation or respect or being the boss or winning fights.” — Neil Davies

“New things must be introduced one step at a time. Remember, you’re building confidence, you’re not “desensitising”.” — Neil Davies

“When teaching your horse never increase the pressure unless you KNOW the horse understands what you want. Wait for the understanding then release the pressure and reward. Give the horse the time he or she personally needs to process your request and make sure your request is perfectly clear.” — Gwenyth Browning Jones Santagate

“Working horses is a little like being married. Sometimes you need to adjust and change your plan.” — Buck Brannaman

“Work with the horse, not against him. Always listen to what the horse is trying to say. And always think for yourself.” — Mark Rashid

“We all make mistakes and by doing so we discover something about our limitations, but if someone or some horse suffers from these mistakes, then we must do our utmost not to repeat them. May every rider strive for a better connection with his or her horse by observation, closer understanding, and patient groundwork. It matters not what discipline is pursued, only that there be a perfectly balanced union between the two—man and horse—so the two become one.” — Frederic Pignon/Magali Delgado

“One of the primary ways horses communicate with us is through their behavior. Again, it is my belief horses don’t distinguish between how they feel and how they act. So if they act a certain way, their actions are reflecting the way they feel. A horse’s body then becomes a mirror for their emotions. So the body informs us of what is truly going on internally.” — Mark Rashid

“Once I quit fighting with him and began rewarding his efforts to respond to my cues, he became extremely willing to do what I was asking. The fight and confusion just seemed to melt away,” — Mark Rashid

“Do you stop breathing when you pick up your reins?” — Leslie Desmond

“Consider yourself from your horses point of view. Not many people do that. But we should.” — Leslie Desmond

“You don’t take the journey. The journey takes you. “~”Travels in a Stone Canoe”, Harvey Arden & Steve Wall

“Listen to the horse. Try to find out what the horse is trying to tell you. All we are trying to do is fix things up to where he can find them; then it’s the horse’s idea.” ~ Tom Dorrance

“Horses are intelligent and they can make decisions. This is the reason that they can sense what a person wants them to do and will try to understand a person’s intent. Through his natural instinct of self-preservation, a horse will respond to two kinds of feel that a person can present. He will respond to a person’s indirect feel, which means that he will either react to or ignore a person’s presence – and how a horse responds depends entirely on the person. This indirect feel is what you have out in the pasture or corral, when you don’t have any physical contact with the horse, like a halter or snaffle bit. A horse will also respond to direct feel, which is when you have a physical connection with the horse through some part of your body, the halter or the snaffle, or a rope any place on his body, even if it’s connected to the saddle horn.” ~ Bill Dorrance

“Pride and ego get in people’s way, it gets in the horse’s way.” ~ Ray Hunt

“Horses don’t do wrong things – horses are never wrong.” ~ Ray Hunt

“I will not change my horse with any that treads but on four pasterns…When I bestride him, I soar, I am a hawk. He trots the air, the earth sings when he touches it, the basest horn of his hoofs is more musical than the pipe of Hermes…When bestride him I soar, I am a hawk…”
~ William Shakespeare

“For what the horse does under compulsion, as Simon also observes, is done without understanding; and there is no beauty in it either, any more than if one should whip and spur a dancer.” ~Xenophon

“God forbid that I should go to any Heaven in which there are no horses.”
~R. Graham

“A technique can have a “Here, horse, let me help you” feel behind it. Or it can have a, “You better do this or else” feel behind it. The feel behind the technique can be the factor that decides whether the technique is effective or not.” ~Mark Rashid

“It would take years to train Templado,” Pignon said. “He forgave me nothing. The slightest error, the slightest faux pas on my part, and I was made to pay dear.” Whether ‘man was training horse’ or ‘horse was training man’ was unclear, the result however was a new relationship was forged, horse and man as a collaboration of equals.” ~Frédéric Pignon, Cavalia

“Isness is the glorious state of God manifested in His entire creative spendor here and on all planes.” — Liz Mitten Ryan

“It is the active form of being, more a becoming, an awakened journey carrying one towards the adventure of vibrant aliveness, L.I.F.E. (love in Finitie Expression) forever. “~Liz Mitten Ryan

“It’s all about what’s in your heart and how you use it.” — Jeanette Baldwin

“BREATHE!”  “EXHALE!” “BE!” — Gwenyth Browning Jones Santagate

“Something we were withholding made us weak, until we found out that it was ourselves. ” ~Robert Frost