Working With A Horse Is A Constant Conversation 

I agree strongly that it's communication, from my experiences. I've actually used a stare to tell another horse, not to come in on me when I was stood with another horse. He was approaching, we met eyes and I stared, with the clear thought don't come in on me. (Which I tried to allow to show in my expression and demeanour.) He immediately changed direction and left us alone. Experiments have shown horses can read facial expressions in humans. (The horse in question tends to be a bit boisterous and shoves his nose in when it's not wanted. At the time I was stood with a mare, who was basically sleeping.) I don't think a definite answer can be given, because it seems most communications with horses are extremely contextual. If it's a first meeting, my general sense is, it's like going, "Hey!" to the horse, and him looking back at you is pretty much, "What do you want?" I've observed my horse and others, using stares to get the attention of other horses and me. They often blow a couple of times and then stare at whomever they want to 'talk' to.

Hi Caroline. The closest I teach to Albury is Canberra - so not very close. With regard to your horse. I am assuming she has been taught to lead and her drag is not because she doesn't understand. If this is true, then ask quietly for her to move forward from the feel on the lead rope. If there is a heaviness or drag then apply pressure behind the shoulder or slap your leg or cluck or something to motivate her to try a different response. Keep the feel in the lead rope while you do this and don't quit the feel or the driving pressure until she makes a better effort to follow the feel of the rope. The driving pressure tells her to do something and the lead rope feel tells her what that something should be. My guess is that she has been doing this a long time, so it will take constant repetition and consistency to overcome the problem. Every time the lead rope gets heavy you must do enough to entice her to change. In time, she will follow on a light feel always because her mind is more with you. Good luck.

Sorry but the reference to Alice is a personal tribute that I don't like to talk about.

I don't have an answer to that question. I guess you have to do your research. When you find somebody that peaks your interest read everything they have written, watch everything they have videoed and go and watch them working. Not only find somebody who is smart, but check out their teaching and ability to answer questions and explain their principles. It is a better investment to work with a 2nd shelf horseman who is a brilliant teacher than a brilliant horse person but a 2nd rate teacher. Best of luck.

We should always eliminate physical problems as the cause of behaviourial or training problems. However, most resistances are mental/emotional It is surprising how once a horse is in a better emotional state and can follow the feel with his thought how many problems like crookedness, heaviness on the reins, leaning against a rider's leg etc dissipate. So I can't recommend any videos for you, but suffice to say that if you are convinced the inside of your horse is calm and relaxed, its focus is concentrated on you and you can direct it's focus as you want, but it still continues to show resistance etc then you should be looking to eliminate physical causes as the problem.

Holding under the chin gives me more information about my horse. I can feel everything the horse is thinking. And it allows me to influence my horse with very minor changes in the position of my hand or very small alterations in the pressure on the rope. The more rope there is between the horse and the hand, the more exaggerated the pressure and position of the rope needs to be to be clear because so much energy gets lost when the rope is longer. The horse is not hindered to go forward because my arm allows it and is not blocking the forward of the horse. However, if you don't have the skill to convey a clear message when holding the rope close to the chin, then you had better hold the rope further away from the horse. But this is not a problem in this video.

Haha. You've got to be kidding. When you hold the lead rope that close you can feel more, be more subtle and have a closer communication to your horse - just like a rider's seat being close to the saddle. The more rope between you and your horse to cruder and more coarse the communication because energy and feel gets lost along the rope. To back a horse up from 2 metres away I have to wiggle the rope a little to produce maybe 200 grams of pressure, but to back it up from 10cm I can use 1 gram of pressure.

If you know how to effectively communicate with the horse (the way horses communicate with one another) you will just use your body language. No need to use the cheats.

Oh Gerry. I don't know where to start to help you understand communication with horses. You need feel through contact of lead rope, reins, seat, legs etc because when a horse loses focus and body energy/language becomes ineffective or less effective the contact of ropes, reins etc becomes the primary means of communication. For most horses and people, body language alone is an incredibly crude form of communication. It often results in on/off responses rather than minute changes in responses. As an example, when working a horse in a round yard I like to have my energy influence the output energy and gait of the horse. But if I can't have my horse listen to a feel on the lead rope it makes it almost impossible to distinguish a collected trot or extended trot or working trot for a horse. Furthermore, if something suddenly distracts my horse subtle body language changes are totally ineffective, but feel through contact can easily bring a horse's attention back to the handler/rider. In addition, feel through contact is so important to prepare a horse to be better when ridden. A horse in training needs to understand the meaning of the reins, seat and legs and without that nothing of quality is possible. Lastly, if you watch the video you will notice how the close contact I have not only allows me to transmit a message to the horse, but it allows me to feel and receive back extremely small message from the horse. It's a way a horse can talk to me with a whisper without having to express their thoughts with large and hard to control movements. The point of the video is to help people be aware of the the very quiet communication than goes on between horses and people. The close I am to the horse the quieter that conversation can be. A horse needs to be able to respond to body language AND needs to be able to respond to a feel of the lead, reins, seat and legs. Having only one is very limiting and results in poorly educated horses who only understand cues and not feel. You may need to come to a clinic if you are missing these points.

Ross------It depends. It depends on where you and the horse are in the process. Higher degree of pressure is likely needed on an inexperienced horse to do a given task. As the horse becomes more aware of what the human wants it will take less of the physical to get the desired result. One mind is a lifelong goal well worth chasing.

I agree with your last comment. However, you started this thread with "When you hold the lead line so close to the halter.............that shows your inexperience.". I challenge that assertion and completely disagree with the idea that working close is bad or a mistake. Working close and working from a distance should both be available and if a person can only do one of them and not the other, then the training is incomplete and more work needs to be done so that both are possible.

My words are a personal tribute to somebody and I wish to keep it personal and private. I hope you understand.