I wrote this article in 1998. It appeared that year in the New England Dressage Association’s annual “Salute” publication. It is interesting to read it back 11 years later. Although I’ve grown a lot in those years the core message remains true....
I get asked this question a lot: What is this clicker training business and what could it possibly have to do me? My goal in this article is to dispel some of the more common myths about clicker training that have emerged over the last several years as the method has...
Let’s be pragmatic. Compared to horses, we humans can’t compete if the test is one of brute strength. We need to enter the training arena with our wits about us and use our brains to get to the horse’s brain. The more we can get the horse to want to...
Let me start by highlighting the fact that clicker training in of itself is not a complete system for training, as dressage is. It is not intended to be. Clicker training is a means for reinforcing behavior. It doesn’t dictate what behaviors should be trained....
I just added a link to Leslie’s blog, to my Links page. Here’s the description from the site: “In this blog you can follow how Leslie’s approach is helping horses coast-to-coast and gain insight about how to work with horses through “feel...
The other day I was behind this woman in line at Walmart. She had a little 3 yr old boy with her who was working quite hard to get her attention. And it was working although it was mostly her saying “Now quit that,” and “Stop it,” and...
I’m often asking people to ask themselves, where is your horse, mentally? Is he here with you or is he mentally back at the barn or with his buddies in the pasture? There are a number of things we can look at which give us clues as to what the horse is thinking...
Recently, on the Yahoo Classical Dressage group talk has turned to how to deal with ‘bad’ behavior such as biting and kicking. Absolutely all agree that this is not something that we ‘wee humans’ can really tolerate since our bodies are pretty...
A few weeks ago I wrote about a mare I’ve been working with. I’d only had a handful of sessions with her at that time. We’ve since had a few more sessions together. Each time the mare has improved dramatically. I just love seeing these kinds of...
On the DressageDisgrace.com site there is a discussion about some videos which have been posted as representatives of the ‘right way’ to do dressage. The idea is to identify riders who are not using rollkur as a regular part of their training program and...
