We teach things a little differently here at Equestrian Movement.

One of things we prefer to do with spooky or anxious horses is to teach curiosity rather than desensitisation.

The key to developing confidence through curiosity is, once you have cued in the word with an object that isn't scary and you're ready to ask them to be curious, give them the patience and space to investigate of their own accord. You can't force curiosity. You have to allow the horse to find the courage to investigate it themselves.

This provides 2 big advantages over desensitisation (other than just shutting them down and flooding them)

🦄 it teaches them the emotional agility to shift out of fear in to curiosity so that in other situations when they get scared we can ask them to get curious instead.

🦄 once they get curious and investigate and realise its not that scary, they get really proud of themselves, which creates a positive experience for them to want to try again.

This is one of many emotional agility skills we cover inside our Trainability Program, because the hard part isn't the cue training it's the emotional coaching and relationship dynamics