Trick Training and Natural Dressage

In this post I want to talk about trick training and a type of natural dressage. I am still doing a lot of research and studying, especially on dressage since I basically know nothing about it but I figured this could be a good learning opportunity for all of us. I will be referring to Eva Roemaat (click her name to visit her YouTube channel) throughout this post as I have recently been studying her methods on trick training, natural horsemanship, and natural dressage. She is from the Netherlands and speaks dutch, but you don't need to hear anything, you just need to watch.... I have seen several people do natural horsemanship and trick training but she does it so elegantly that it truly is majestic to watch her with her horses (Shilas, Flip, and Que-Habil). I can only hope one day I can work with horses in such a graceful way.

So what is trick training and natural dressage? Trick training is teaching your horse "commands/tricks" on que such as bow, sit, rear, paw, kiss, spanish walk, lay down, jambette, etc. Natural dressage is dressage, but in a natural way. For example, having your horse at liberty or riding bareback teaching certain movements, and head positions naturally. I am very new to dressage and what exactly dressage is.. also what the purpose is besides making a horse move in some would say,"such an "unnatural" way". But that derives from harsh training methods such as rollkur, not so much dressage in itself. Others on the other hand say that its great for the horses muscles, their flexibility, and it makes a horse supple. And it also makes a rider learn more control.

If you look up dressage it says that dressage is a french term that means "training" and its purpose is to develop the horses natural athletic ability to work making him calm, supple, and attentive to his rider. What throws me off is the word natural..... I don't find anything natural about putting a horse into rollkur to learn an unnatural position in order for a person to win a ribbon, metal, or money. When I was first coming into the horse world I seen dressage and thought it was very beautiful, but I was astonished that these horses foaming at the mouth while being stuck in such an unnatural position with extremely tight reins. I just didn't and still don't understand... Why is that necessary? Why do the judges want to see that? Why don't trainers just train them to do this naturally? I could drop Furys head by the tap of my finger between his ears...

I am hoping to learn more about the actual sport dressage and come to an understanding of the true meaning behind dressage for certain dressage riders. I understand that not all riders put their horses in rollkur so I would love to hear different types of training styles that dressage riders use. Also whether you started your horse your horse from the ground up with teaching dressage, or if you purchased a horse that was already trained in dressage. I would also like to learn more about trick training and what other peoples experiences are with this. For example: have you found trick training helpful with your relationship/bond with your horse, did they catch on quick, what tricks can your horse do.. what type of training style do you use for trick training? Do you use treats, clicker, or a praise? What type of whip/stick have you found that works best (dressage whip, Clinton Anderson stick and string, crop, stock whip)? Did you/do you use verbal commands along with your stick command? Etc!

I am hoping to be doing a lot of this type of training once we buy our own place. I have been looking into becoming a certified professional horse trainer (I can even put PhT after my name, ooooh! lol!) and getting my certification in stable management but that will take time and several thousands of dollars to pay for my courses. So that will be a long term goal for myself. All options are open at this point in time, I just know I want to work with horses.. Which I will.


**Educating equine and Training tots; Leading to Liberty**

Meeting Fury

Hey Everyone.. sorry about the lapse in time since I wrote my last post but it was my daughters birthday party and we've been extremely busy. Anyways, today I'm going to do a post on Fury. He was my first horse and I had him from September 2015 to July of 2016. I want to talk about how I got Fury, how I ended up moving an hour an a half from where I'm from to move by him, and I especially want to talk about his training and why we had to get rid of him... As I mentioned in my previous post Gabriela Medeiros featured Fury and I on her blog so I will be repeating a lot of what was mentioned in her post about us, but I wanted to personally introduce Fury in full detail to everyone on here. Lets get to it.....

In August of 2015 I went on my quest to find a horse as that's what my fiancee and I had decided we wanted for our future.. HORSES! We currently were living in the city, but our lease was up at our place and we were ready to make some huge changes to say the least.. I ended up finding a beautiful Tennessee Walking Horse.. He was 5 years old, but was still a stallion. He basically had no training as the people who had him never could work with him. I went and looked at him, and when I seen him, I just knew I had to have him. He was pretty beat up as he was in a pasture made from barbed wire which he would get tangled up in constantly because he was being housed next to another stallion. They would fight whenever the opportunity presented itself. I saw this first hand. I visited Fury for about a month before I was able to bring him to a family members house. But this was to be a very temporary thing as they really didn't want a horse on their property. So I ended up buying Fury in the end of September with never being able to work with him, or enter a pasture with him because the owners would not let me go in there just in case someone got hurt. I asked my very good friends Scott and Julie to help me transfer him as I didn't have a horse trailer.. You will hear a lot about Scott and Julie throughout my blog. Fury was transferred just fine, and handled it perfectly surprisingly.

Approx. 4 weeks after buying Fury
(Stallion)

This then brings us to October and I started Furys training immediately as a stallion because no vet would geld him until spring. I was learning while training Fury just as much as he was. I have really struggled with what direction I want to go with my style of training maily because there is such scrutiny against the words "natural horsemanship" (the style I wanted to learn) and what they mean as a whole but also to each individual person (refer to my previous post) but besides not knowing what direction I wanted to go, I also basically had no experience either. Fury progressed very fast and teaching him things was a breeze.. all of his disrespectful behaviors went away almost immediately. After his hooves not being trimmed in 3 years, we were picking up his hooves, he was able to walk with a loose lead respectfully, he was learning how to lunge correctly and respectfully, we even set up small jumps for him to walk over, and we were able to ride him bare back with someone holding the lead.. And this all happened within about 8 weeks.  During this time we were driving an hour and a half (ONE WAY) so 3 hours of total drive time, every other day to work with Fury. The place where we were getting hay from were people we talked to of course on a regular basis and we all became pretty good friends (or so I thought) and offered us the place next door to rent that had a trailer and a few acres on it. We of course accepted! So we made the journey of moving and uprooting our whole lives and family an hour and a half away to be by our HORSE! There was of course some contingencies upon moving in, and one was to get Fury gelded before moving him to the property, so that's exactly what we did…

In March of 2016, we got Fury gelded at an extremely reputable vet in our area, specifically for horses. So keep in mind that Fury was a stallion all throughout his training thus far. Surgery went well, and we moved him to the property with us. Fury was showing typical stallion behaviors as the landlord/neighbor had 3 mares and 1 gelding that he could see from across the fence (our fence and their fence on 1 side had a 12ft gap between them). This was not very alarming to any of us as it takes time for all the testosterone to leave his body, especially since he was gelded late. During this time I had very strict instructions to keep him moving, to work with him at least 3 times a day for a minimum of 20 minutes per session. 

Story goes on and my friend/landlord/neighbor was able to see me work with Fury a lot to say the least during his time of healing. As everyone should know by now, I have since figured out what type of training suites me and what I have gravitated towards (again, my previous post) and my landlord/friend/neighbor was not impressed with how soft I was with Fury. She asked me if she could work with Fury to try to give me some "pointers". I unfortunately agreed. She uses a lot of force when it comes to training her horses, and she believes that you can "break" a horse and I mean mentally, which basically means the horse has no other choice but to listen out of fear or it gets beat. But this was all coming to my knowledge as time went by. It's not like she held a sign to her forehead that said, "hey I beat my horse if it doesn't listen". Lol. After only 2 times of her working with Fury and me watching my horse run circles around her out of fear, I had enough. I told her she was no longer going to be working with Fury and I would train my horse my way, no matter how long it takes. She was pretty damn irate to say the least. Sad thing is, is that in just 2 times of her working with him, whenever he would see her, he would freak out. And when I say freak out, I mean he would pace the fence so bad he would put a path from beautiful green grass and turn it into dirt. He would challenge her across the fence as he would another stallion. He would also rear, buck, strike, kick etc. It was awful to see…. Fortunately I could go out by him, and get him back into a clear state of mind as he never really challenged me any more than a typical pushy horse and he especially never attempted to maliciously hurt me in any way!

Fury was never with another horse for 5 years, and every experience he had with a horse was bad thus far so when he kept showing stallion like behavior from across the fence towards the neighbors horses, SHE of course thought it was me and my training that was the problem. I knew otherwise, but I didn't have the change to figure it out.. But I'll get to that soon. 

Anyways, about 6 weeks or so after his geld he broke out of the fence after we expanded his pasture and he of course high tailed it over to her property to her horses. He ended up biting her gelding and then we were able to break them up about 2 minutes after he broke into her fence. During this process she was screaming for her husband to shoot my horse, and it was just a crazy situation. She just simply didn't like him, and that was a great excuse for her to put an end to that horse (in her eyes). I was then 2 days later served with a 10 day notice to get my horse off the property and I was very upset. I thought she should have been an adult and talked to me about it, and we could have resolved it. She didn't have to serve me with a 10 notice. BUT I did understand because I would be upset if another horse bit my horse too. I felt as if it wasn’t about that situation in itself, it was the whole Fury situation. As mentioned before, he didn't like her, she didn't like him, so perfect for her.. Now she can make me get rid of him because she knew we didn’t have the means to be able to board him somewhere.

I then sold Fury to what I thought was a trainer.... I was supposed to get a buy back option after his "training/ being with other horses was fixed" but this guy went and sold him to someone else a week later making a 1,000 dollar profit off my horse for some lady to be calling me asking me why he's mounting mares and to tell me that his testosterone is testing as a stallion. She got my phone number from the vet I took Fury to. Well, I of course didn't know that he still tested as a stallion. That explains why he did what he did by me... The woman was in her 60's and was told Fury was trail safe and child safe, which he is neither. So after a few phone calls back a forth she decided to sell him. The next owner then was calling me and telling me she didn’t know the situation was this bad with him, and that within 2 days of them buying him they got a notice to vacate the boarding facility. She also is rehoming him. I have told every person I've talked to that this "trainer" was supposed to give me a buy back option, and I was told his training would take a minimum of 6 months.. So in the meantime we moved out of where we were renting and got a different place that doesn’t have land. 

Every person has said that the issue is not when Fury is by himself. That Fury is an amazing horse by himself. The problem is when Fury sees other horses. If someone would be okay with having 1 horse forever, Fury would be that horse. He lunges, walks, plays, yields, backs, etc. All at liberty. and apparently also knows how to bow now. He is the perfect gentleman, he doesn’t crowd, he isnt pushy, he's amazing!!! It's unfortunate that his geld went wrong, or whatever it is… I still of course have days where I feel as if it's all my fault. But I know damn well I did everything I could for him before I had no other choice but to rehome him… I did my best, and I pray every night that he knows that.

I will keep in contact with every owner who gets him until we buy a place. I will hopefully be able to buy him back, or maybe he'll get lucky and will find the right someone and stay with them forever. Whatever it may be, I just hope that he gets the chance to live.

Below I will attach a video I made of my journey with Fury... You will be able to see plenty of pictures, and video clips of us together. I hope everyone watches and enjoys. 
Click this to watch my YouTube video of me and Fury

**Educating Equine and Training tots; Leading to Liberty**

Horsemanship in my eyes

In this post I want to talk a little about the terms that I will be using when I write future posts about horses, and horsemanship IN MY EYES. This is solely my opinion based off of my experiences with horses. I would love to get feedback on what people think, and I'd love to answer any questions one might have in regards to my training with Fury (you will meet him in a future post) and or anything else. Lets begin...

When I train a horse, I will always want to use the least amount of pressure to obtain my end goal. The widely known and respected horse trainer Pat Parelli states, "The more you use the reins, the less they use their brains", and in my opinion I agree with this statement. BUT I also say that just because I can do something doesn't mean I necessarily will. In other words, I may always train my horses with natural horsemanship (We will talk about those words further into the post), and they may know how to respond to my seat and leg cues, and be able to ride with no tack but that doesn't necessarily mean that I am going to go out on an organized trail ride tackless and etc. Reins and bit (if being used) should be used in my opinion, as minimal as possible. A horse should not be controlled by its mouth, a horse should be able to read my body language and feel the pressure from my body cues and move as horses naturally move away from pressure.

There is another quote that I want to briefly talk about and that is,"There's not really a guide through Liberty Horsemanship, you have to discover it yourself with your horse as a guide". 
I believe in this statement in a lot of ways but it has to do with more than just liberty horsemanship/training. I believe each horse is an individual... Each individual horse needs different attention and possibly methods.. Lets talk about a back up for instance, If you are working with a horse that is difficult to back up and it seems like your not making any progress think about changing the method of how you're asking. I actually had this happen to me with my horse that I used to own named Fury. I could get him to back up but he was very sticky. I had to put in a lot of effort for a little movement on his behalf. Two amazing friends and mentors of mine and my fiancee Anthony named Julie and Scott suggested trying a different way, and I was kinda dumbfounded, like a different way? Who knew? I always used a shake of my stick and string along with body language to ask for a back up, including a walking forward motion if he did not respond (Clinton Anderson method), but then it came to find out that all I had to do was shake my finger! A shake of a finger was more effective than all of the energy I was putting into it before. So that's my short story, long. (Face palm! lol) Bottom line, each horse is one of its own, as are we. It should be about time everyone start opening their eyes to that in the equestrian world. Having a method is fine, as long as it's not a one thing works for all method or I beat you endlessly with a whip.... One trainer who has some pretty amazing methods is Clinton Anderson. In his training DVD's he shows several ways of how to get the horse to complete the task at hand. 

I like to say that I use natural horsemanship and that I do liberty training so here is where I will specify what those words mean to me. "Natural horsemanship" is not a method of 1 thing fits all for everyone. We all have our own opinion of what is okay vs. not okay, soft vs. too soft, hard vs. too hard, natural and not natural. "Natural" may mean different things from one person to another and that’s 1 main reason why I believe natural horsemanship is so widely misunderstood along with people not knowing how to do things differently. I believe every horse is able to do natural horsemanship, it truly is the handler that needs to learn how to do something that they've never done before. 

There are usually 2 words associated with the other when looking one up and that's "Natural Horsemanship" and "Liberty Training". 
The definition for liberty in the horse/equine world is slightly different from the actual definition for liberty but they both come down to freedom. Liberty in horsemanship, basically means free to not cooperate if they choose to (can run away), and free from tack; a halter(in some cases) and most definitely free from a lead but generally the handler will still use a stick/crop/whatever you choose to call it. Natural horsemanship IN MY OPINION works off of pressure by using the horses natural instincts, not by using fear or force. Liberty training and "natural horsemanship" tie together in the sense that they both want the horse to be in their most "natural state of mind" as possible. 

I personally am NOT anti bit, tack, halter, lead rope, etc. But I do not agree with the majority of those who use bits and restraints to control/force the horse... 
But I do believe it is VERY IMPORTANT to start working on the ground with a halter, lead, and usually a stick (to clarify a request) before starting ANY liberty training. In my opinion I believe it helps you and your horse get to know eachother, for the HORSE to become familiar with the tool (stick) that you will use, and as a result that gives you and your horse a great foundation together. My blog name is "Educating equine and Training tots; Leading to liberty" because I believe you have to educate a horse before you can lead with liberty. And in my eyes being at "liberty" is my end goal.

As my blog continues, I will write more about my training techniques and discuss other peoples methods. I am not here to change anyones mind on their horsemanship. I am here to help educate the ones who are willing to TRY something different. There are MANY methods of horsemanship that works (and many of us disagree on what one works best) but it's just a matter of what method works best for YOU and YOUR HORSE... that is for you to decide. That to me, is horsemanship. Let's end this with a quote from Pat Parelli "If your horse says no, you either asked the wrong question, or asked the question wrong.." 


**Educating equine and Training tots; Leading to Liberty**

My next post will be about my journey with Fury and introducing him to everyone. I will also be featuring
{Gabriela Medeiros (google+)/thegalloptogreatness.blogspot.com (her blog)}
because she featured my story with Fury on her last blog post. I will go into a little bit more detail when I write my next post.

A little about me

Selfies=hate

About me

I was born April 17th, 1990. I am from Wisconsin. I am a full time stay at home mom of 2 kids... my eldest is a boy that's 7, and my youngest is a girl that's 2. I am engaged to my "high school sweetheart" We lost touch for several years, but got reunited. I am an avid horse lover. Next to my children and my fiancee, horses are my life! Besides horses, I love fishing and technology. I am not your average girl to say the least... Right now we only have 1 dog, she is a black lab, 3 years old and weighs 100lbs, then we also have a kitten, she is about 17 weeks old..

I am currently a stay at home mom. I had some medical problems a few years back that could have potentially made me unable to have any more kids at the age of 22, so I got surgery and after a long 9 months of trying, we finally got pregnant and I had my 2nd child. We don't want to have someone else raise our child 10+ hrs a day like I did with my son and for me to work just to pay for daycare, so I stay at home right now.. Don't get me wrong it's a struggle with only having one income, and we have sacrificed a lot but we have decided that raising our children was the most important thing for me to do right now.

In this blog I will be talking about my everyday life as a stay at home mom, and about my equestrian journey. Our goal is to be buying a house by Feb of 2018. We are hoping to be able to do so before then, but that is our goal date. We will be applying for a USDA Rural home loan to help us out with that process as we are first time home buyers. I will also talk about the journey I've already had with horses and the horse we owned named Fury. One of my good friends named Julie and her husband Scott will be helping us (my fiancee and I) get some miles under saddle since we no longer have a horse (will explain in a different post), so I will be blogging about that experience as well.

Being a SAHM (stay at home mom), I have had many days where I feel like I'm all alone, that I don't have anyone to talk to, and no one understands that staying home is just as equally hard as working everyday, Just because I stay at home doesn't mean I sit here, watch soaps, and eat twinkies all day. This is a real job. I take raising my children very seriously.. And despite of the sleepless nights, endless pile of laundry, dishes, and meals that need to be made; oh and don't forget the never ending momma momma mom MA! Daddy, where's mommy? I'd wouldn't have it any other way!

My goal for this blog is to simply give people someone to relate to, and to know that everyone has up's, everyone has down's, but if we all stick together and be kind, then we can achieve anything..

**Educating equine and Training tots; Leading to Liberty**