Why would you ‘punish’ a horse?

This came up in conversation the other day, someone told me a person had decided their horse needed to be punished for an action they did not like.

Within the Carolyn Resnick method of horsemanship you should never feel the action of punishing a horse is something you would need to do. A horse doesn’t understand that he did something you didn’t like and you ‘punished’ him for it, in fact if your punishment is to deny him his basic needs or to hit him he is really not going to understand you.

When you make fair requests, are clear and always ask in the moment your horse will say yes then there is never a big NO from your horse or a behavior that is undesirable.

When we start to work at liberty with our horse of course we need to stay safe, we need to know our horse will move away when asked, this is never a punishment, simply a request that horses make of one another all the time. We aim to grow a bond, trust, respect , willingness and focus. To do this we have to offer this to our horse as well, if we loose focus our horse may decide to barge us, nibble us basically do something to show us we are not focused. If we then punish him in some way as we think he is NAUGHTY he will not see us as a trusted leader. A leader he will choose to follow and respect would not have lost his focus. We have to stay in a state of calm awareness so that we can read the subtle communications our horse is offering.

I would like to share the story so far of Heather and her horse Marble. He does give the best kisses.

When I first met Heather and Marble the relationship between them was pretty much on his terms. Heather adores him, she would not ‘ punish’ him but also she couldn’t see that her lack of leadership and attention to addressing how he conducted himself was the not creating the ideal relationship.

He was really dangerous, mainly in his stable, he had barged out, jumped out, squashed Heather and she just loved him. Over the course of a few sessions at liberty Heather has grown into a leader Marble will respect and follow. I am so proud of her. Marble has not changed he is still Marble if lacking in the confidence of his human I have no doubt he will show them they need to pay attention, set boundaries, and reward polite behavior.

One visit I made to Heather and Marble we started the session in the stable even. Heather has remained open to following my suggestions. If I had told her she needed to punish Marble in some way I am sure our working bond would not be what it is. Of course learning to be present, aware, confident in your leadership and having the tools to do all this takes time but this has been a remarkable turn around and Heather and Marble are much happier for it.

The moral of this story really is no matter what your horse does, check yourself did you do anything to stop an unwanted behavior , sometimes simply letting your horse know you are paying attention you can steer him the right way and that is enough, sometimes you need to address what is lacking today go back a step. Our horses don’t punish they communicate.

The more we can learn about how they operate and the more we can make sense to them by entering their world the more they will offer they are incredibly forgiving and generous.

Please do share your horse and human experiences.

Love Jayne x

Are you Requesting, asking, telling? or Ordering.

At liberty your horse has a choice, you can ask, make a request or you could try telling your horse. Do you truly know which it is you are doing and why. I see my horses doing all these things. We may think it is unkind to TELL a horse what to do, however there are some situations where this may be appropriate. Actually we can all have a different association with certain words for me it is more about the intention and feel of our actions. The definition of TELL is To communicate information. Of course if the information we are communicating is actually an order backed up by escalating pressure and we don’t give our horse free will and choice it may not feel good for either of us. If we are using some form of restraint or tack very often our horse isn’t given Liberty/Free will.

So when we ask our horse this has a different meaning, we are asking so we are expecting an answer, if we ask when we feel the answer will be yes to what we are asking for, this feels great like teamwork. However if the answer is no we either didn’t ask clearly, or we may have asked for something our horse didn’t understand or couldn’t do maybe our timing was off. For whatever reason we have to change our question after all we don’t want another no, or a confused horse or us escalating pressure going into telling and then ordering.

Thankfully there is a method all at liberty where we give our horse choice My teacher Carolyn Resnick changed my world and I truly believe there is nothing else like her method. We can choose to help our horse to make decisions, allow him to lead as well as follow, we create a dialog, a conversation. We also have our strings of connection The Bond, Trust, Respect, Willingness and Focus. I sometimes find when I explain this as 5 mobile phones ( after all we spend a lot of time on them these days) they are all connected to your horse to build a conversation. If one phone has a weak signal you loose connection and you have to work on that weak signal. This takes learning and practice, I can tell you it is so worth it. Sometimes there may be more than one that needs charging up, when we work on maybe the weakest first , sometimes the others fall in line. We share territory to form a bond, say hello to create trust, take territory for respect and lead from behind for willingness, use eye contact for focus. Of course this means we may create more willingness and also be given more focus or respect. We are working with the nature of our horse and no two are alike.

What about making a request, this means we are asking politely for something, if we are at liberty we need to make a request when our horse is willing, understands our communication and there is a good chance of a yes. This all sounds very methodical and thought out however we learn to go with the flow between us, use instinct and feel. When we learn to read our horse and how they are feeling that is when a truly harmonious relationship appears. I have found at liberty I can create this as my horse can tell me the truth about how he/she feels and if they tell me something is a bit off it is up to me to work out what it is this makes us a better horse person.

Take your horse for who they are today keep building the relationship, respect how they feel today they may not be the same as yesterday, so…………check your strings of connection.

If you have not worked with Carolyn, Nan or myself this may all sound confusing hopefully intriguing. I wish you the very best relationship with every horse you meet and if you want to learn more Carolyn and Nan have an online program and clinics and I teach public clinics and privately in the uk.

Love Jayne x

Co-operation.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we had our horses Cooperation in everything we do?

When working with The Resnick Liberty Horsmanship method that is something that comes as a result. A result of building the bond we share with our horse. Trust which of course has to be mutual, Respect…Mutual of course, Willingness big one in Cooperation and Focus of course if we are not focused on each other we may not find Cooperation.

Cooperation what is it? partly a feeling of togetherness and oneness for me but also defined as….The action or process of working together to the same end. Well here it gets interesting what are you working towards TOGETHER. Horses seek harmony so cooperation would need harmony and I have discovered that creating more cooperation creates more harmony!!!!

Cooperation is also about working together, a combined effort, teamwork, mutual support, partnership, synergy, unity, and being able to understand each other and what you are both working towards.

When I met Maya she was very slow to let go of her past, she was not interested in humans I don’t think they made sense to her. This made her first response to most things a resounding NO. We always want to make requests our horse can say YES to so this was limiting. We built on this and she has taught me many things. She is still grumpy towards the other horses and they give her a wide berth but are still are very bonded to her. She is rarely grumpy with me and we trust each other.

Maya was difficult to halter and like everything said NO, we resolved this, if the flies came out she wouldn’t allow me to put a fly mask on in the field. When I put one on in the stable she would put her head up as high as she could and not COOPERATE at all. This is a small everyday task through the summer but one day I thought WHY? It was not nice for either of us so I started to make it part of the ritual of putting a fly mask on that we would COoperate. Here is the result. She lowers her head and it is so much easier then standing on tip toes to reach her. ( She is a big girl )

If you can build harmony with your horse and pay attention to the things that would go better with more cooperation then why not make it a game, a training exercise something that you can teach your horse and reward them for. Of course for me this has all come as a result of liberty horsemanship where our horse has a choice and we have to rise to the challenge of being the guide, the leader for them and the solution to making life harmonious.

Why would we desire a Working Bond with our horse.

When I re-homed Chester as a project pony from World Horse Welfare I had no idea how our future together would look. All I knew was that he looked very wonky but seemed to want to be with me.

I spent a long time sharing territory with him this is the first of Carolyn Resnick’s rituals she developed from her study of wild horses. We would spend time in the same area, him with hay and water me with a chair and a book. This grew a bond between us. I needed to have boundaries around him exploring me as he used to be a biter, I let him sniff my boots but I was always ready to move him away before he got tempted to bite.

As he became more settled and we grew more and more bonded I took him through the whole program of The Resnick Liberty Horsemanship method, it was good for me revisiting the things I teach others in clinics with a new horse myself. He became very willing to please and I enjoyed thinking up new ways to work with him at liberty. Trailer loading at liberty.

He had grown a strong work ethic and enjoyed new challenges we call this a working bond.

I had some help on the ground and started him in riding, this he found a little exciting and he was prone to a spook. I continued to work on his focus ( One of the five strings of connection we grow with our horse) This was always and sometimes still is his ritual that needs returning to.

I helped him become straighter in his body and build up strength using liberty, lunging and in hand work. Had we not grown a working bond through time spent in the Waterhole rituals first I think this would have been much harder I was able to keep my boundaries around nibbles and work with him in a soft way. Force never works with horses we want to have them say yes to our requests so we must develop a working bond together if we wish to train them or ride them. I have had lesson with Joyce Mulder for many years and when I heard she was coming over to teach a clinic I jumped at the chance to take Chester. His least favorite thing is in hand work and I have had to take it very slowly with him I was looking forward to some pointers.

I had not taken him away from home since before Covid struck and never to a big busy yard. We would also be working in an indoor arena something we had never done.

He found it all very exciting but soon settled enough for me to get some nice lateral moves in hand and even some nice ridden work. I think going slightly out of our comfort zone and finding a way to work together in a strange environment has grown our working bond even more.

If you wish to have a harmonious relationship with your horse and build a strong ‘work ethic’ time spent building that at liberty where your horse has a choice may seem slow to start with but it makes everything take far less effort and becomes far more fun. Chester showing he can stay focused enough to offer some quarters in.

Love Jayne x

A weekend break in Dartmoor.

My Husband and I had a weekend break in Dartmoor recently and on our last day headed further north to stop for lunch on our way home. We drove past a stream surrounded by open moor and thought it looked a good place to stop. We took our dogs with us and they love a paddle. We headed uphill looking behind us for landmarks as it can be easy to get lost on Dartmoor across the road was a large tor with some sparse trees at the top I looked at this Andy looked at farmland beyond the moor.

We crossed over the lane we had driven down at one point and as we headed away we spotted some Dartmoor ponies in the distance, they looked a long way off so we didn’t think we would make it all the way uphill to the high point where they were.

As we got closer we heard a loud whinny and a grey came charging over to the group of bays. He headed straight for a bay on the edge of the group and they both made aggressive noises, turned and kicked, the intruder retreated quickly. Of course this all got my interest and I had to see if the grey was the stallion I suspected he was.

He was and we sat on a rock some distance away letting them get used to us and the dogs, who luckily are very well behaved and will sit and wait when told to. It was so lovely and peaceful so we were in no hurry to leave. The stallion had a look at us and positioned himself between us and his mares moving them to where he wanted them.

Thanks to Carolyn Resnick and all I have learnt from her and indeed the many horses I have been fortunate to meet teaching her method I could easily see how the interactions between these wild ponies relates to her methods on bonding and being accepted by horses.

I wasn’t planning on any more than enjoying watching them, however they seemed relaxed and I slowly moved closer. If the stallion looked at me I stopped, he would then go back to grazing. I didn’t retreat as he seemed happy so long as he could stop me. I knew if I went too close too quickly he would move his mares on. This all took some time with me stopping and pausing a fair bit.

Two mares close to the stallion even started grooming near me. They all looked very well and not thin even in the harsh surroundings and lack of grass.

Eventually I managed to be right in the middle of the herd, there was one mare who was well away from the main group and I wondered if she might let me close but she went to leave so I left and she continued eating. They seemed a very harmonious band and were all relaxed.

I had been in the middle of the herd for some time and the stallion seemed interested so I approached him getting closer he almost looked like he might come over but didn’t seem aggressive or worried. It was a wonderful feeling to be that close to him and his mares. I truly do believe animals are so much more tuned in to our intentions than we are. I knew he was no threat and he knew I wasn’t I think if I spent longer he would have become more interested which could be wonderful but also he was a wild stallion so I would always be prepared. He gave me a great feeling looking right at me and me at him It felt like mutual respect which of course is what we wish to develop with our domestic horses. It is an important part of a relationship. With that in mind it was getting near lunch time and with very patient dogs and a hungry husband I felt very lucky to have spent time here.

As we headed back down hill we came across the other band of ponies that the intruded had been chased back to. They seemed much braver and were closer to the road, although still on open moorland. My husband managed to get really close to them too and he commented ” This stuff you do does seem to work” He has obviously been watching me!

I do hope you enjoy the ponies as much as we did.

Love Jayne x

Connection and Relationship.

I recently received an email from a long time participant of many of my clinics. She was talking about the nuance between the two words Relationship and Connection.

This is some of the email she sent. The lady in question is an artist.

hi again. I’ve been thinking about the nuance between the word ‘relationship’ and the word ‘connection’. You use the word ‘connection’ in your headings and your ‘name’ so to speak.

Well. in Art the concept of ‘relationship’ is central to all art and image-making.

And inside that bigger picture lives a magical special jewel, a priceless and fugitive grace, which we may support but cannot  control. That loves invitation but we cannot ‘make’. That we can dispell in a moment, but cannot pin down, cannot Will into existance and will shy away at the merest wiff of force, co-ercion or hidden agendas, at the slightest hint of deception, betrayal or even mechanical action devoid of presence. If relationshipping happens in a generally sound and trustworthy way, then only a fractional moment of internal shying away, a glazing over or a moment of blankness or dismay or other such may come about. If relationshipping gives signs of unsoundness and unreliability, then this mutual, free, equisite and fugitive visitation may not easily appear no matter how one may yearn unknowingly for it. 

But it starts within. How can a relationship be found with another living being, without a ground of depth in relation with one’s self? 

Horse interests herself in truth, in what she can trust. Not interested in concepts of perfection, or how things look on the surface. She concerns herself with how reliably she can be safe enough to offer more –  so exquisite and fugitive that the word ‘connection’ does it no favours. But the word will have to do despite its failure to even begin to evoke the timelessness and ego-less-ness of the thing.

This honesty may involve declaring to the Horse that, for example, I’m affected by something that happened earlier in the day and making it clear that I don’t want to make this her problem, and that it doesn’t belong to her, these feelings. 

That ‘my’ agitation comes not because of something that I can see outside the arena and she can’t. I feel agitated, I work to regulate myself, I recognise this state in my body, working through (or will deal with later, etc). And I will leave if need be.

In other words, I know she will see and feel my state anyway, and if I’m trustworthy I will inform her of the source of it and not try to ‘leave it outside of the gate’ as so many well meaning folk might advise. (Suppressing something makes me less trustworthy and reliable, not more so, in my opinion). 

So .. this is my musing and wondering, about how ‘relationship’ and ‘connection’ might interact. I think there are many forms of ‘connection’ and some of them are highly toxic and others are exquisite. When the self relates compassionately and with understanding within the self, then a quality of relating can arise toward others, and a horse being the ‘other’ in question, a field starts to form. And arising within that field may form what we cannot ‘make’ but can allow. And we call that ‘connect’. And I may call it Grace should a word be necessary for what has no word, nor shape, but lives between two beings – both of them and more than them. H

I am still reading this and will respond more in time. This is my reply so far.

Just like people some horses want to connect and form a cross species bond others don’t so much. Also just like people we find ourselves more drawn to some animals than others all these very simple things play a part. Knowing how to be transparent to a horse is part of allowing the connection to happen. I use that word because to me I can feel an energetic bond when a horse connects with me. Sometimes it will be fragile, it will ebb and flow I have to bare my soul and be transparent a horse can ‘feel’ who we are. We can use time sharing territory to help reset ourselves if we have worries or feel agitated. It is time well spent, there is never a rush to ‘do’ more. of course when we come transparent and honest we will be more attractive to a horse and if they are looking for a relationship with us it will be more appealing when we have an inner peace and a calm quiet mind. We can share territory and wait for the bond to form until we feel ‘at peace’. Without this I think our communication with our horse will be fuddled and unclear. We will be missing that elusive grace and gratitude.

Words like Relationship and Connection are never enough to describe some of encounters we can share with horses.

We can learn to use interactions that horses understand and we can learn how to use body language that they understand but to truly feel an offered not trained or fake connection with a horse you and the horse have to want it and be open to feeling it and allowing it to flow between you.

Please share your thoughts and comment below.

Love Jayne x

Intentions

When we come to our horse we normally go to him for a reason, maybe to cater for his daily needs in some way, maybe to work with him in some way.

What ever the reason, I would highly recommend that we check in with ourselves first.

I always get reminded, when I meet people and horses in clinics about the basics of our nature and our horses nature, we are after all very different. It must be very difficult sometimes for our horses to understand how we operate, especially when we can be unsure ourselves sometimes.

I think we can be clearer for our horse if we truly know our intentions, even if it is our intention to share territory with our horse and find a neutral state. We may still have to be clear, if our horse comes to investigate us and gets pushy, if we need a boundary around our personal space, we must know what our intention is and how we will go about communicating this clearly but fairly to our horse , in a way he understands.

Being present and mindful to his needs and communication is key. If our horse can see that we will first listen to his slightest communication to us, he will trust that we may be worth listening to as well. He may feel more secure with us and seek our leadership. Enjoy interactions where we share a language that we both understand. It starts with clear intentions and knowing how to communicate them to our horse, without confusing him.

Maya here in the picture is very clear in her communication and if I respect that. She knows I understand her.

Know what your intentions are, be flexible in your plan but always listen and be clear, we can always walk away at liberty and pause, give ourselves time to sort out our intentions.

Love Jayne x

Trinny and Tonto

My daughter has two ponies. My grandaughters both love them very much, they have done some groundwork and a little liberty with them as well as riding. I see them sometimes when I bring them in on occasion and when they come over here to ride in the arena. They are very different in character and of course Tonto is a gelding and Trinny a mare.

While the girls were away with their Dad my daughter Giulia bought them both over for a little play at liberty. Trinny is very bonded to her, Tonto is too but not so much as 12yr old Maisie is his main human.

We took one each and seeing it would be harder to create connection with Tonto I worked with him a little bit. He is a great first horse for Maisie and they have a good ridden relationship as well as on the ground. He can be lively, but also sceptical and takes his time to trust. He can also makes his opinions very clear and likes people to be clear with him. He takes his time to make his mind up sometimes and you can see him thinking. I worked a little bit on trust and willingness, his focus was good and he is very polite. He started to offer me more companionship and connection. At the end we decided to work them together a little bit. I think they would be great working together at liberty and would enjoy the team work. For a first time I could not have asked more. I will work on Tonto not getting ‘stuck’ and once he understands more I feel this will vanish quickly. Here they are, not my horses and first time at liberty with me and both together. Horses are so generous.

If you never try something new you will never know if you should have tried it! However always bear in mind you ask when your horse is willing and you have a fair chance of them saying YES even if this takes a while.

Good luck experimenting.

Love Jayne x

The Working bond and Posture at Liberty.

Creating a ‘Working bond’

By encouraging a strong work ethic in our horse and a working bond which comes through the relationship we share, we can indeed influence our horses posture at liberty. Our relationship with him needs to be one where we make requests that are fair, clear, and in the moment when he will say yes! With total freedom the horse then has a choice, if we make requests when he is willing and focused he chooses to give us his very best effort. When he trusts his mind, body and spirit to us we form this ‘working bond’. The Waterhole Rituals have lead me to seek this bond with my horses before anything else. When our horse gives this freely there is no tension and we respect his wishes. We listen to how he feels about the training that we are doing. We reward his efforts and thank him for them. Of course building this working bond takes time and every horse is different. I love to see my horses proud and using their bodies in a healthy way with correct posture.

Ask the horse when the horse is willing.

Once we have his trust and willingness then we can  learn how to influence his body without force, either at liberty or with tack. We need to understand why we would want to do this after all we have developed an amazing relationship, what more could we want?

If we desire a ridden partnership which also embraces trust and willingness it is mutually beneficial to help our horses feel good in their posture.  even if we don’t ride, we can still help our horses to experience less strain on their bodies, to feel proud and to enjoy their ‘work/ Play’ time with us.

A ridden partnership which embraces Trust and willingness is mutually beneficial.

When our horse finds physical balance as well as the mental and emotional balance we have built up at liberty , it makes riding easier for us and he carries us more comfortably and with less effort. He trusts us and gives us his focus this makes riding almost telepathic, aids can be  minimal and a true two way conversation emerges.

 If you don’t think Liberty can help improve a horses posture on the ground or in riding, I would love to share this message, it can. As always it depends on us, we need to aquire the knowledge to do these things, we need to know what our intentions are and be clear for our horse. Time spent as the student is time well spent, it is never ending. Ultimately if we start with ourselves and our relationship with our horse, what may have seemed impossible becomes possible.

When we make requests of our horses in the flow of connection we know how and when to request something to which he will say yes. This is the art of dressage, this creates a leader our horse will wish to follow. We do not encounter resistance as we orchestrate the dance to be one he wishes to perform.

Dressage for the horse will always consider his feelings. Will never involve force and requires a calm mind for horse and rider. Often when we are in this state of oneness together, my horses will offer far more than expected.

We can use our horses natural pride in himself when moving to encourage engagement. When it becomes a dance instead of  ‘ training’ the flow of energy between us can truly allow his expression to shine through.

From Reflections on Equestrian Art, by Nuno Oliveira.

“ Never ask more than he is capable of giving. Make him a companion, and not a slave, then you will see what a true friend he is.”

A little bit of bitless, bareback and liberty riding. Mutual Trust and connection. We have a truly 50/50 relationship and a working bond together.

Love Jayne x

Kent clinic.

On the 12th of July I eventually got out of the house, I was waiting for the heat to subside. I packed my reeds and carrots and I set out for Sevenoaks it was a three and half hour drive so I was very pleased I took the advice of the amazing organiser Kas Fitzpatrick and left the night before the clinic.

I had met Kas when she came down to Somerset. Lots of people were asking if I would go to Kent but nobody stepped up with a venue or to help organise. Kas saw this on social media and stepped in having experience in running clinics for other trainers, she did a fabulous and professional job. She filled the clinic with people she was in contact with and what a great group they were!

We started sharing territory with a lovely horse who lived at Great Dunton Green farm Liveries ( the venue) it was the perfect venue and Rachel who runs it as a track livery was great allowing people to camp with their horses! One even had an umbrella for shade as this was one of the hottest weekends of the year.

After sharing territory as a group and a short explanation of the Waterhole Rituals and the method we got started. During the weekend we worked on settling a horse who was not happy in the environment. He was a young horse and not experienced at going out. I did a short session with him and we put him away, bringing him back later at the end of day. This meant he was much more settled.

We worked on reading our horse in the hello ritual these ladies knew what they were doing! I also bought in Focus early on when it was needed as we need this to say hello. We introduced and discussed working with food, how to use the reed, one pile of hay exercise and some leading from behind when appropriate.

It was great to chat over dinner and relax afterwards at the venue in the cooler evening air. Finding lots of common ground and enjoying the conversation.

Day two we introduced some to 5 piles of hay, lots of these horses were very connected to their humans and we had lots of connection when we built it up with the first 5 rituals. Companion walking and even liberty with two horse’s in Leading from behind and companion walking. Even some trot.

I have had some wonderful updates already from some who took part and it sounds like they are really running with it.

Here is a little snippet of our clinic.

Huge thanks to all who took part, and Kas for her organising , gazebos for shade and ice lollies even!!

Love Jayne x