AIM horsemanship

Changes we may experience in our horses as the seasons change and ideas to work with these changes.

Feed time hadn't always looked this calm.

One of my biggest challenges around Penny (being an energetic young horse) is her over-arousal, frustration and resource-guarding behaviours around food.

A common misconception (that I used to believe whole heartedly) is that if you are "too soft" with your horse they will become "pushy" or "rude" (quotation marks because these are human contructs that horses can't opperationalize). I especially used to buy into this myth when I did alot of what I thought was "natural horsemanship", which I now know used escalating negative reinforcement and was based heavily in dominance theory, which has now been disproven by behavioural science. Perhaps one of the reasons that I thought this when using these methods was that when a behaviour is suppressed, and then the behaviour is *no longer* punished, your likely to see a dramatic recovery of that behaviour (the opposite is true when you stop rewarding a behaviour, ie- extinction).

HOWEVER, I now see things in a whole different way. The truth is, to address behaviours that we perceive as "rude", we need to investigate the function of the behaviour, change antecedent arrangement, set the animal up for sucsess, work in small approximations and reinforceme the desired behaviour that we perceiveas "polite" or "manners". When we work this way, we can actually use the food itself to *elimate* the problem behaviours associated with food as oppose to exacerbating the frustration.

The next step is to create a positive association with other horses (Izzy) bring fed and eventually get her to the point where I can ask her to back up away and "stay" whilst Izzy is fed before her. I hope this will help her with her resources-guarding. I just want to clarify that I'm not an advocate for bulk feeding, and I trickle-feed forage throughout the day. However, Penny still had some unwanted emotions around feed buckets which is what we are now working on.

This episode discusses LIMA aswell as the humane heirachy, and explores steps to take when dealing with undesirable behaviour.

An introduction/brief overview of using start buttons in training to give your horse a voice and a choice... Aswell as some tangents discussing other interesting topics related to ethical, science-based horse training.

Instagram: @_.a.i.m._horsemanship_ Facebook: @Creations Of Cornwall YouTube: AIM horsemanship Thank you for listening! As mentioned in the episode I am always learning so apologies if I made any mistakes but I hope this is helpful or interesting. All shares applicated xxx :)♡

Discussing strong fears in horses and how to work through them.

The foundation of knowledge I find helpful for everything to do with horses ♡.

Instagram: _.a.i.m._horsemanship_ Facebook: Creations Of Cornwall

In this episode, I discuss how I spend time outside of formal training sessions, using body language without reinforcement. I talk about lots of different signs horses show us, and what they often mean. Communicating and training through body language is also discussed in this episode. Covering displacement behaviours, calming signals, stress signs and distance increasing signals . . . This podcast is all about talking horse language! ❤ Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed, please share the episode as it's a great way to get the podcast out to other people who can relate and learn it. ♡ YouTube: AIM horsemanship Instagram: @_.a.i.m._horsemanship_ ●Please check out Creations Of Cornwall on Facebook if your interested in handmade, recycled and personalised art and craft!

❤My first ever podcast episode! Here is a snippet of what I've learned so far, and I can't wait to share more with you. If you enjoyed the episode, please share it. You can find my Instagram @_.a.i.m._horsemanship_ and YouTube Channel @AIM horsemanship. If your interested in personalised, handmade art and crafts please check out @Creations Of Cornwall on Facebook. I hope you enjoy this episode, and don't forget to tune into the next one if your interested. Until next time, enjoy your horsemanship journey! ❤