Toward the end of March Dominique and I met for an afternoon’s conversation. I’ve divided up into three episodes. In part 1 we talk about puzzles. So much of training success revolves around a handler’s ability to set puzzles which engage the learner. You want to make the puzzles easy to start out with to build the learner’s confidence that this is a puzzle he can solve. Then you gradually add elements so the training progresses.

In this episode we talk about treasure hunts and why some people grow up loving puzzles and others want nothing to do with them. We explore strategies for developing both eager, confident puzzle setters and eager, confident puzzle solvers.

Dominique talks about how she is realizing that many of the strategies that she uses to teach her horses she’s also using on herself. She shares a story about back chaining which I think will help many people understand the difference between back chaining and forward chaining.

We begin a discussion of rope handling which will continue into Part 2 of the conversation.