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Pressure and Release- Life & Horses

Pressure makes diamonds right? In the horse world I have to disagree, pressure and release makes you your diamond. To go even further, the TIMING of your pressure and release makes diamonds in horses. Through my years of working with horses, dogs, and people to be honest, I have learned that whether it is apparent or not, we all crave structure. We all like to know where we stand. So often horse owners (especially in New England dare I say) tend to go on the soft side of things. ““Fluffy” is scared so its okay he ran me over” “Muffin doesn’t want to stand still so I am just going to let her walk around”. Now, don’t get me wrong, you’ll catch me spoiling my horse quite often but, when it comes down to it the respect is there. As easy as it is to have too much release on a horse it is also very possible to have too much pressure. Horses need healthy structure. What creates that healthy structure? Well thats where the pressure and release with great timing comes in.

The two most common ground issues that horses that come in for training have are 1. Trailer loading and 2. Tying to something straight on. I would  to say 90% of the time those trailer loading issues aren’t actually trailer loading issues at all, the are timing and pressure/release issues. Same with the tying. Horses aren’t dumb. If a horse only faces pressure it its life, why would it expect any different and vice versa. For example if every time a horse walks towards the trailer or steps away in refusal someone is whipping it on the butt (or even as simple as clucking and swinging a lead rope) how is that horse supposed to know where the release is? Where the good place is. Or on the other hand if you’re giving fluffy a treat every second he is outside of the trailer why on earth would he want to get in? That sounds like a lot of extra effort that he doesn’t need to do and he still gets rewarded. If you apply pressure to the horse every time they actively refuse or take steps backward but, immediately take the pressure off when they step forward toward the trailer it seems like the trailer is a lot more fun place to be… I repeat, horses are not dumb.

When you fully understand this theory and learn to use it, you can pretty well train a horse to do whatever you want. I think it is important to remember this theory/method of pressure and release with proper timing when dealing with people as well. If you constantly harp on your kids with zero release do you think they will respect you? Or if you don’t ask anything of your employees and let them do whatever they want, when its time to work do you think they will take you seriously?

If you are not familiar with the method of pressure and release with proper timing I encourage you to dive more into it if not for yourself then for your animals and those around you. Learning new things is hard but, rewarding. #getgritty

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