Vary Activities Each Day and Turn Training Into Play

This is an old video made years ago that we pulled from the archives and the behaviors are not yet finished. But It's a real life example of how to keep changing things up/introducing variability to maintain the horse's engagement. 

Stay and Play

Variability is something that we want to work into our horse's training in many ways. This video shows how a basic foundation behavior we train in the Compassionate Horse Click Online Course, the stay, can be turned into a new and challenging exercise. It also shows how we can include other behaviors like the kiss, which is one of Eclipse's favorites, as we play/train to help the horse enjoy the process and feel successful when doing something new or challenging. 

The tone of the sessions are just as important as the content. We do our best to make sure that our time together with our horses is light-hearted and fun, which helps ensure it's rewarding for both.

Second portion of Video

My husband is addicted to Port City Java (local coffee shop) French Vanilla Lattes and for years has been giving them, Eclipse, who has always been attracted to the smell. It's ridiculous - this part of the video - but important to keep an element of fun in our relationships with our horses. Teaching your horse to take something yummy from a cup or bottle can be a great game and is another way to introduce variability. All work and no play makes for a very dull day - no danger here!