Horses naturally desire relationships and connections with other beings when they find the experience reinforcing. How does your horse "feel" when it's with you? It matters to your horse and can make all the difference in your relationship. 

"Being with your horse versus doing something to it ~ it's very different from the horse's viewpoint."
Melissa Deal

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 ...

Ears back often? Should I reward for ears forward? This is a question that I'm commonly asked. What we want to reward is positive emotions in our horse. The softness of the face, muzzle ears, topline and body in general are indicators of how a horse is feeling. We don't want to trick train a horse to put their ears up, per se, so that they can get a reward. We would like to reward a horse for having positive emotions especially in situations where they have not had positive emotions in the past, and the ears can be an indicator of how they are feeling.

If you are wondering about the philosophy and methodology behind this Reward Based Training program that helps you enjoy your horse like never before, schedule an appointment for a complementary consultation, Compassionate Horse Click Style. Can't wait? CLICK HERE for more information about our online program or call 910-471-5445.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Melissa Deal ~ Compassionate Horse Click Founder

P.S. We encourage ...

Welcome to one of the kindest, most effective methods of horse training! My name is Melissa Deal, founder of The Compassionate Horse Click (CHC), Certified Riding Instructor and Positive Reinforcement Horse Training Coach and I appreciate that you are interested in exploring how to get your horse to say YES to your requests and LOVE it. 

How many times have you thought, 

“If only this horse understood what I was asking???” or 

“Why can’t my horse understand what I want?”

We often end up confused, frustrated and disappointed when we can’t effectively communicate with our horses. Sometimes we even get mad or want to give up on a particular horse or even give up on horses altogether. Worse, we’ve ended up feeling like we and our horse are not enough: not smart enough, not skilled enough, not fancy or talented enough or we are told we must instill fear or pain to get our point across. In the process, we often find ourselves and our horses subjected to harsh criticism and coercive techn...

FOCUS ON WHAT YOU LIKE AND WHAT YOU WANT TO SEE MORE OF IN YOUR HORSE AND YOURSELF. Remember to be gentle on yourself! Compassion and understanding include self-talk and self-analysis. Be as kind, forgiving and gentle with the person in the videos as you are with your horse. 

The process of videoing and reviewing videos may sound daunting at first, but it is SOOOOOO WORTH IT and like any new skill becomes super easy with repetition. The best way to do it easily is to just do it often. Here are a few tips.

1. All you need is a smartphone and a minute or less.
• Prop up the phone against the stall wall 
• Or sit it on a bucket against a fence post
• Or get a friend to video a few short clips, or just one (short clips load easiest)
• Avg. total length of video submitted per lesson is 5-10 min. Send as much as you want though. We’ll get through as much as we can during your lesson time.
• Or get an inexpensive phone tripod from Amazon or at Best Buy. You can go as simple or fancy as you like...