I continue to bond on Sampson, my body still soft, helping him to relax. It's important to maintain soft eyes, soft body language in yourself as the leader here; it helps the horse to relax, to build confidence and to trust. Note, Sampson is still not haltered at this point; my halter remains by my side. I do as much work without the halter until I feel the need for it to progress. Also note that I'm rubbing the side of his neck. Mother horses rub their foals on the side of the neck in this manner when the foal needs comfort and support, and so horses greatly understand this specific form of reassurance.

 

I start head yielding without the halter, because we'd worked on that in our last session; and Sampson remembered it all nicely. He yields his neck softly and easily. If you ended a last session on a positive, the horse comes into the next on an even higher level of understanding plane than when you left them last, and newly learned skills come back to them quickly.

 

Here I'm reviewing head yielding to the side with Sampson. I get as far as I can with the head yielding without the halter, and when I perceive Sampson has gone as far as he can without it, threshold-wise, I halter for the next progressive steps. It's important to give the horse an opportunity to succeed without outside aids as often as you can; it helps to build trust and confidence in them.

 After haltering Sampson, so we can keep progressing, I'm teaching him to yield, using gentle pressure and then quick release of that pressure when he gives the yield (timing of those releases is crucial!); I'm using the lead rope this time, instead of just my hand on his "nose handle," to yield his neck to the side. This will help him later in translating reins as simply an extension of what he's learning here on the ground.

When he succeeds in the neck yield softly, I breathe into his nose with my nose. Horses love this. Nose-to-nose breathing is a helpful "horse whispering" technique, which can work wonders on horses as a reward.

 Since I knew that one of Sampson's biggest problems was pullback, I also noticed earlier that part of the problem, besides not understanding yielding to pressure, was: he had serious rope issues. He feared the rope. So, in this lesson we are going to work on desensitizing him more to ropes. Often a horse problem involves in actuality several factors, in multiple categories, not just one, so it's important to break them all down and take baby steps to work on each facet separately. Today we're going to just focus on the rope issues. Later we'll work on the pullback problem. With my left hand, I'm holding the lead rope and rubbing his neck reassuringly as I prepare to toss the rope over his back with my right hand. If he panics, I can always pull his head towards me, which will serve to disengage his hindquarters, keeping those potentially more dangerous back feet away from me.

I toss and rub at the same time so that Sampson knows I'm not really asking anything of him, just to stand still and accept the rope. Sampson's body is tense; this isn't easy for him.

 To help nurture him through his fear of ropes, I stop to bond when necessary. It's important to try not to push the horse over his threshold, and instead to nurture him before he reacts explosively. Reward the try and you'll get there faster.

However, if he feels the need to move, to work out his fears of the rope, I let him, but I disengage the hindquarters at the same time, to keep safe during this desensitizing process. As "flight animals," horses often work out their fears via movement; so let them move if they feel the need, and this lessens any feelings of entrapment.

 I test to see if Sampson has rope-twirling issues, which with non-rope-issue horses, this is no big deal, and they stand still tolerating it. Not so with Sampson! It set him off big time, indicating to me that his rope issues were pretty big. You can't really tell by this picture, but simple rope twirling set him off to do his "pull-back" habit, and he'd spin around me out of control, trying to pull the rope out of my hand. Time to back up to something more comfortable! When a horse goes "over the top," simply return to where they were comfortable and break the lesson down into even smaller increments, more easily digestible baby steps.

After I quiet Sampson via rebonding (always return to bonding when the horse needs it to nurture them back to a better spot), we step back to work on just the rope touching his face. I keep my body soft, and my movements soft, so he knows I'm not really asking anything of him. I spent some time just wadding up the rope and rubbing his face and his body with it, and then I begin to dangle it over his face, across his eyes as you see here.

 Sampson is getting better here now. If you compare this picture to the one just above, note the subtle changes in his body language as he slowly learns to accept the rope being tossed on his face from this close distance (a baby-step precursor to later twirling the rope from a distance and eventually twirling it around his face and ears - later). It's important to pick up the "smallest try, the slightest change," in the horse so that you have an opportunity to reward. If you can't see the difference in these two sequential pictures, look again! There's a big change. That's how perceptive you need to be in Natural Horsemanship training so that you can perceive the "smallest try, the slightest change" for release and reward purposes in order to help the horse succeed and progress. He's doing nicely here, so I walk away while it's working. It is so important to stop while something is working; later when you come back to it, they are in a better spot than they were before, if you stopped while it was working and they are succeeding.

More Training Sampson Photos