Learning with games

Has your horse learnt how to learn? It is one of the most common missed steps in a horses development and one of the most common reasons (other than pain) that I see for big behaviours from horses.

In the industry we use a lot of tools to pressure our horses in to behaviours but not often are we told how to use it appropriately to mark the behaviour we want from our horse (let them know yes that is actually what I want) and motivate the horses to do it again.

In the school all our students have to do half hour of groundwork as part of their training. We do clicker training as part of our groundwork and every time I hear, wow, its so easy!! Because when we understand:

• guide the behaviour

• mark the behaviour

• motivate the behaviour

We make learning easy for our horse and giving us the right answer simple. So learning through games and positive reinforcement is one of the tools in the tool kit of the holistic horse handler.

Want more tools? Check out the free online Masterclass.