Is it Magic?

You open the door to your horse trailer and give your horse a cue to step in. He does so without hesitation. You bring your horse out from the barn and ask him to stand in the middle of your yard while you bathe him. He is not haltered nor is he restrained by any other method. He does what you ask. Out in the middle of the 10 acre pasture, there are a number of horses grazing. You call to your horse and he comes to you and patiently waits while you groom him and pick his hooves. Neither is this horse restrained by any means. He is free to leave at any time and go back to his grazing with the other horses. Is this all magic? How on earth can this be done?

How many of you struggle to groom your horse while he's on cross ties? How many of you spend minutes, maybe an hour or more, trying to catch your horse when he's out at pasture? How many of you can't even think of bringing the hose near your horse without him freaking out? My goodness! Ask my horse to step onto a trailer all by himself? I don't *think* so! It's gotta be magic.

Nope. It's not magic. It's simple communication and training without harsh words or treatments. It's training with positive reinforcement and using the horse's natural motivational factors to your best advantage. In other words, it's ignoring the bad behavior and rewarding the good. Well, that's fine and dandy, you say. But, I can't even get my horse to come to me! How can I ignore that? Well, we'll back up even further and use horse psychology and motivation to change the horse's habitual behavior of running away when you want to catch him.

What motivates your horse? What motivates any horse? Horses are designed to eat, play, sleep and make more horses. The primary instinctual drive in a horse is eating. Without sufficient food and water, a horse cannot survive. The horse instinctually knows this. No food equals no energy to run from predators. In the wild the horse spends its life centered around grazing areas and water holes. They walk from grazing to grazing to grazing. Their entire existence is based on this. The horse will socialize and procreate only when it has enough food and water to sustain him. He sleeps only when he's had enough food and water to meet his energy needs. Everything the horse does requires energy; food and water. Given this, what do you think is the primary motivating factor in training your horse? Of course! Food ... treats. It's not bribery to use treats when training your horse. It's using the natural motivational factor.

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