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CONNECTIONS - Page 2

© Gwenyth Browning Jones Santagate

First of all, taking into consideration that the horse is a flight or fight animal of prey, how can we, as predators, convince the horse that we are NOT going to harm him? By being aggressive? By chasing that animal all around a small, enclosed area? Or does it make more sense to be quiet in our motions and try to get the horse to move its feet with the least amount of pressure and without aggression. We can be ***assertive*** in our way but never, ever, should we be aggressive. Horses in the wild move each other around by using their own, personal space bubble and 'assertive'body language. Rarely does a horse have to increase its pressure to another horse in order to make one another move. A subordinant horse would never impose himself into the space of a dominant horse. That subordinant horse knows it will not be very comfortable if he should chose to try. So using this principle of administering the LEAST amount of pressure necessary to ask our horse to move, we are asserting our leadership or dominant position within the herd. If the horse doesn't respond to us, we increase the pressure slightly. In the smallest increments possible. Sometimes this will lead us into physically leaning into the horse and causing it to lose its balance but in doing so, we still have succeeded in step one ... getting the horse to move its feet when we ask. This will help to "flip the switch" in the horse's brain to thinking of us as the leader.

Horses have natural "drive lines" ... spaces that when other horses put the pressure on this area, the pressurized horse moves. Behind the shoulder is the least offensive area; the back end is another area but this is not generally needed IF we can assertively get the horse to move by its shoulder. Just walking up to a horse at an angle from behind the shoulder should drive that horse forward. In order to change the horse's direction, we get in his way. We get ourselves in front of the shoulder and our body space/pressure/energy will turn that horse around. One doesn't need to make the horse run in order to do this. A simple walking step or maybe a trot will be all the give we need. Yes, there are times when we'll *want* a hard trot or even a canter, but not when we are trying to ask the horse to connect with us. There is a saying, "get to the horse's feet and you've gotten to his mind." Once we can get the horse to move its feet, we've started to switch that horse's thinking around to where it is recognizing us as the leaders. Once the horse is feeling that, then it is VERY easy to direct that horse and then ask the horse to join us and walk alongside of us. Once we've established this "connection", the horse will naturally follow us just as it follows the lead mare in its equine herd. This is just the way horses do things.

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