MARE
FOAL
I cellular level in the nervous system, that reflect on the behavior
of the animal that has experienced it. The resulting
behavior can be out of the voluntary control of the animal,
undesirable in horsemanship, and very difficult to modify.
Horses see a leader as an individual worth following because
his behavior makes sense, and the foal chooses its
leader just as any other horse does. As with horses of any
age, foals learn from what they experience, therefore we
need to avoid making them experience fear, if we want
them being open to horsemanship and to choose to see
human beings as leaders. It definitely is a role that a foal’s
mare naturally covers at first, and it is very important that
when we interact with a foal we make sure to have the
mare’s cooperation to become a positive part of the foal’s
life. A good present, or future experience will make him
become interested in sharing time and space with us.
The focus of our relationship is not on building a “bond” but
on modulating the communication through the senses, using
social meanings, and developing the horse’s interest for
the time spent with people. Being social is a common trait
to human and horse and is always present in the horsemanship,
with a meaning that is independent from the action
that is happening. Interaction through trained behavior
uses the horse’s ability to execute a learned action in
response to a fixed stimulus that we give him, and cannot
cover every instance we live with our horses. Spontaneous
interactions are moments when the horse expresses himself,
and do not need any training, so they are a great resource
with young and untrained, or unknown horses.
With young horses, giving them the chance to develop
their social skills, and to have freedom of choice in relating
with horses and humans, is the first step to develop a
balanced mind. Ideally young horses should be all able
to share space and time with other mare and foal pairs
because it makes for their ability to be social throughout
their life.
When it comes to weaning, the process should be done in
stages, gradually letting the mare and foal experience situations
of being held apart through each one of their sensand
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Continued...
HANDLING
There are many different ways to handle
horses, and most often driven by the goals
that we pursue that are not meaningful to
a horse. When it comes to interacting with
mares and foals, in this article we would
like to bring you to do it from a relational
perspective, that you will be able to tailor to
any situation, because it works immediately.
TRAINING & Showing
In Human Horse Sensing we interact with horses always
basing it on horsemanship, which we consider as a dynamically
changing, and instantly manageable process. Our
interaction with horses is based on five social concepts
we keep monitoring throughout the interaction, and can
be reestablished immediately if they disappear. The five
concepts are natural for individuals of any age, and work
on bridging the gap between human and equine behavior
using the natural elements of space, movement, and time.
The meaning of the five parameters does not need training
because it is instinctual to the horse, which means they
are born knowing it. From birth, the senses of a horse are
his window on the environment, and they never cease to
bring information to the brain, where new data combines
also with the memories, and the personality, ultimately
determining behavior. A relationship between human and
horse begins as soon as we enter the same space, and
start perceiving each other’s behavior. Since horses do not
talk, but use movement to communicate we need to do so
when we intend to communicate with them, and focus on
what we do, and on which sense will carry our information
to the horse’s brain.
Foals just like horses of any age have an instinctual response
to movement. They move away from something
that approaches them, and they move to things they are
interested in and move away from them.
Social concepts such as coexistence, trust, respect, willingness
and attention in the horse’s mind are based on
territory (a meaningful space) and pecking order, and our
horsemanship method teaches a system to manage them
with movement on the ground as well as while riding. When
we ask a horse to do something we do so expecting a
certain response, and it is very important to take responsibility
of our behavior and consider honestly how the horse
responds. If we get what we expected we were correct in
communicating, if we do not we need to reconsider our
action, restructure it in a way that has sense for the horse
and get the response. This criteria is valid no matter what
we do with the horse.
Something Human Horse Sensing does not compromise
with is to leave force, and fear out of horsemanship. It has
been scientifically proven that fear causes changes at the
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