Even though horses are large animals compared to us, we need to remember they are prey animals. They are very aware of their surroundings at all times and changes or things unfamiliar could be a potential threat...in their world. We know what a tarp is, they do not. Your approach to allow her to process that this 'worrisome' object is not a threat to her, won't harm her is what she needed to relax (or at least not be so worried about it) in its presence. Your approach to how to accomplish this (and remain safe) was very intuitive to you, but you broke it down for us in a way very easy to understand as well as emulate. 😍
you are spot on. Graeme is the best at breaking down what he is doing. So many trainers leave their audiences thinking that what they do is magic, unable to be duplicated. not so with Graeme. He is simply the best!
she's so curious :))) looking like 'now what are you up to again?" her snorting is adorable :) thanks for that one - you've got all the important topics so well covered and more :)
Your ability to project calm authority to every horse I've seen you work with is truly impressive. I've always been a horse lover, but never had one, now I'm learning so much about them. I really admire your love and respect for such beautiful animals. Much respect.
As a kid, I remember the way I was taught with Morgan horses. In a trailer with at least 4 horses sometimes all 5, geldings, mares and 1 stallion , and my Daddy always a farmer, military guy too, and the only man that drives his equipment. I got to be the ones to keep the horses calm in the trailer , my mother and sisters fell asleep in the truck no one in the truck navigated for my Dad. I was born in 1973. My horses never kicked me, really good at tearing up the inside of the trailer. I was in the compartment between truck and trailer that their tack, food and water were traveling too. We would always get there, but, he never understood why I unloaded each and every one separately. Separately and walked them separately. Mom, lost interest in me and horses. My sisters always looked great. Smelling like a horses was my perfume.
I am shocked & amazed at how well Maia did with the tarp. When I saw you start to unfold the tarp I was expecting her to freek out. Instead she just stood there. Her trust in you outweighs her fear of the tarp.
She is amazingly calm facing an odd situation, walking on a strange noisy ground with a special smell. Only because she trusts you "he walks on it so I can walk too". These wildies are smart, they have no fear once they realize there is no threat. 🐴
@@StableHorseTraining I think so too because they fight for survival in terms of escaping predators, search for food/water, protect their herd and territories, perpetrate the specie, all conditions to make them alert in "taking decisions".
Wow Maia is making some tremendous progress with your help. I'm not even surprized - more like exceptionally satisfied to see how snuggly and good at checking in with you she's got over the time.
These BC wildies really are amazing I expected her to freak out, but no it was ‘you want me to walk on that blue thing? I dunno what for but no problemo’ she’s such a good girl, your calmness really rubs off on them.
My goodness! How wonderful to see her so relaxed and accepting after her having bad experiences before she came to you and feeling the need to be on alert and ready to defend herself when she arrived !! It’s so heartwarming to see what can be done to soothe a troubled mind and bring out the best in her so she can enjoy life now. She’s such handsome horse. 🥰
Maia is just such a gorgeous, majestic lady! The fact that she can move away if she chooses makes her braver and more trusting of you. It removes the terror prey animals feel if trapped.
Maia is an an exceptional horse I mean her spirit and personality is just amazing, she never ceases to surprise me, the amount of trust she has in Graeme is wonderful to see as well, their bond is definitely growing stronger each day.. I love it❤️.. she is fierce in every sense of the word.
Maia is such a brave and smart girl. Being prey animals this is a potential threat. You broke this down in such a way it helps so much in training our horses to brave ...and trust in us as well. No doubt about it ....you know your stuff. Bella 💖🐎💖🦄
Maia did absolutely amazing. I was thinking when you unfolded the tarp how unfamiliar it must be to a horse (let alone a Wildie) to see an object getting larger and larger and larger as you unfolded it, let alone the loud noises it was making. Yet without any urging from you, she sniffed it, put one foot on it, and then walked onto it entirely. She looks like a remarkably brave and clever horse to me. (Admittedly I know very little about horses. I'm watching your channel in order to learn a bit.) When you first moved the tarp after that she spooked, but she immediately calmed *herself*. And she was able to repeatedly step on the bunched-up tarp even before you did. I know she was nervous, but it didn't look like she was anywhere near terrified, just a bit cautious and worried. I also saw how when she got stuck, you waited patiently for her to make up her mind, not forcing anything -- and she was able to challenge her nervousness. And then teaching her to step *off* the tarp when you ask -- actually I thought she was starting to learn that she could stop you from moving the unsettling object by standing on it, which seems to me to be a remarkably smart conclusion if she was making it. I also thought it was clever of her to bite the shaft of the flag, not just the cloth -- it looked like she realized that the shaft was moving the cloth. Maia is remarkable.
It’s very enjoyable to watch you not only train your herd but to allow us, your human herd come along for the ride. I’ve learned things I never thought about. I can’t tell you how happy I am that I accidentally found your channel. God bless you my friend. I call you my friend because I feel I know you. I’m almost positive we’d be friends. Take care & much love from NY! ❤️🇺🇸☀️
You are a great teacher to your horses with your calm and encouraging energy. Maia is a dream horse, i love her whole being, a type of horse i really would love to have to work and grow with. Thank you for sharing i really appreciated this episode.
Marvellous! She did Really Well! And your explanations, as I've said before, are so helpful. To understand what might be going on in her mind, and how to respond to it -- it's just like magic, watching you. I'm trying to take some of your attitude towards your horses over to the way I am with my grandson. I was an exceedingly anxious parent; but by taking a metaphorical step back and not getting wound up, and by trying to understand him and his emotions in the moment, I do feel I'll make a better grandparent than I did parent. It's all good food for thought, anyway. Blessings; Katherine from Kent, UK
I've seen a lot of folks talking about how if they are afraid of the moving object, is to have it set up for them to "follow" the scary thing. ❤️🌵☀️⛈️🌈☮️🐎
That's great work with the tarp. I had a horse that freaked out over a simple half filled garbage bag that was sitting at the end of a driveway. The wind made the top of the bag move and that was it. Holy cow, you would have thought something jumped right out of that bag with the reaction the horse made. Tarp training is great 👍
I often wonder of the imagination of a horse... I mean.. they must have one right? A plastic bag moves and they must be imagining it's alive or something is inside alive.. What does that thing look like? What will it do when it comes out? How will it attack? Does it make noise? Smell bad? They must have some kind of details in their head, I want to know what that is.
@@StableHorseTraining Yes I agree. It would be nice to know what they are thinking. I sometimes think it's just part of their instinct to react especially if it's something they are not familiar with. Once they feel it's not a threat they move past it.
Absolutely loved this. Going to break the ideas down into baby steps for my new anxious boy. We have been working on driving, drawing, circling and backing up with great success. When we finish a session, my head shy worrier comes to me for a head scratch and nose stroke. Why is this do you think. The rest of the time, especially in his stable, he thinks everything and everyone is going to kill him. 🥺
New subscriber to your channel and it’s such a joy watching you interact with the horses! Patience, mindfulness and perseverance to name only a few. When I started riding school back in the 1980’s that was quite different and less horse friendly. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience! In one of your earlier videos you mentioned Maia is from the Yukon area, so she’s a Yukon Wildie? Are there a lot of Wildies up there? Her blaze reminds me of the Yukon river going through Lake Laberge and coming out at the other end. I have good memories about a canoe trip there in the late 90’s. Keep up the good work! Greetings from Europe!
Graeme, sometime could you please take a picture with your cellphone of your regular camera set-up? I want to see what this Wildie mare sees - a black box on legs? Or just a box on a fence? They're all electronic now, so it isn't clicking or whirring. Whatever it looks like, she *noticed* it when you were working with her on backing-up a few weeks back (or was she following your own head movements? Maybe) Today she doesn't care a bit about the camera. I love how much more she is paying attention to you. Ed. To add Or maybe something going on in Maia's sightline behind the camera.
I don't think the horses care much about the camera other than they want to knock it over... It's simply a DSLR on a small tripod on the stairs. It makes no noise and is inanimate. This is my most memorable video of them constantly trying to knock it over: ruclips.net/video/RRw8m4UqD5w/видео.html
I too think, at least in the beginning, the horses are aware of the camera. I'll even go so far as to add that they are aware Graeme acts differently when he brings one out. However, I have never moved the needle with him on this topic and, I suspect, neither will you 😊 Maybe because we're both Cranky Seniors, albeit from opposite sides of the continent, and he's still a young buck.
Hi Graeme! Maybe silly question but why is a tarp a specific thing to train on/around? Is that something in the horse world they run into or are near a lot?
Hi Aimee, I answer this question in detail in this video. It's not necessarily about the tarp that we're training for. No we don't come across tarps much, but as I mentioned at the beginning, there is one covering some bark mulch and she's worried about it. I don't want that worry there for her. The rest is about teaching a horse to come along and/or do things despite their concern and the relationship we continue to build for it, because of it, and in spite of it.
Graeme, do you immediately switch to anther new activity as soon as they stop reacting and seem calm, or do you continue a bit to ingrain that relaxed response? In other words, how do you know it's time to move on to the next thing?
I was going quick through the stages of teaching for this video. At one point in this I mentioned "it's not quite right yet and needs more work" and moved on to the next thing to give an idea for what could be next. I've left gaps which I'll fill later. These kinds of training sessions can hard to discern when to move on, I've never found that one session does it for anything and I'll loop back to sort out the missing pieces. So... I guess I'm saying I wouldn't worry about skipping a bit, stop when it "feels" comfortable to do so and move to the next bit. If that goes really south, then go backwards and sort out the gap, then try the next. Or at that point, quit and start again the next day. Does that make sense?
My theory is that domestic horses are bred for looks and MAYBE conformation. It doesn't seem like any are bred for how fast they learn or how calm they are. Wildies breed for who survives. Running around freaking out because they farted isn't a survival skill. Whenever anybody comes to me and says Arabians are the smartest horse out there, I always reply "then why does it take so long to teach them anything?" Lack of control, ability to calm and think things through are signs of intelligence, the opposite shows mental deficiencies I believe. I would put a B.C. Wildie above a "smart" Arabian any day of the week.
I genuinely wonder why on earth people do it. Can you tell me why people use a singular sound that can be replicated by many for so many things to tell a horse what to do? Have you ever seen a horse make a single basic sound over and over and over and over and over again to communicate something? I don't do it because I consider it a kindergarten level of communication that really just has no place in horsemanship.
Even though horses are large animals compared to us, we need to remember they are prey animals. They are very aware of their surroundings at all times and changes or things unfamiliar could be a potential threat...in their world. We know what a tarp is, they do not. Your approach to allow her to process that this 'worrisome' object is not a threat to her, won't harm her is what she needed to relax (or at least not be so worried about it) in its presence. Your approach to how to accomplish this (and remain safe) was very intuitive to you, but you broke it down for us in a way very easy to understand as well as emulate. 😍
I tried to, I'm glad you enjoyed this one :)
you are spot on. Graeme is the best at breaking down what he is doing. So many trainers leave their audiences thinking that what they do is magic, unable to be duplicated. not so with Graeme. He is simply the best!
she's so curious :))) looking like 'now what are you up to again?" her snorting is adorable :) thanks for that one - you've got all the important topics so well covered and more :)
Your ability to project calm authority to every horse I've seen you work with is truly impressive. I've always been a horse lover, but never had one, now I'm learning so much about them. I really admire your love and respect for such beautiful animals. Much respect.
Thank you very much :) I really appreciate that you took the time to write that to me.
As a kid, I remember the way I was taught with Morgan horses. In a trailer with at least 4 horses sometimes all 5, geldings, mares and 1 stallion , and my Daddy always a farmer, military guy too, and the only man that drives his equipment. I got to be the ones to keep the horses calm in the trailer , my mother and sisters fell asleep in the truck no one in the truck navigated for my Dad. I was born in 1973. My horses never kicked me, really good at tearing up the inside of the trailer. I was in the compartment between truck and trailer that their tack, food and water were traveling too. We would always get there, but, he never understood why I unloaded each and every one separately. Separately and walked them separately. Mom, lost interest in me and horses. My sisters always looked great. Smelling like a horses was my perfume.
Thank you for sharing your story. It sounds like you were great with horses!
I am shocked & amazed at how well Maia did with the tarp. When I saw you start to unfold the tarp I was expecting her to freek out. Instead she just stood there. Her trust in you outweighs her fear of the tarp.
She is amazingly calm facing an odd situation, walking on a strange noisy ground with a special smell. Only because she trusts you "he walks on it so I can walk too". These wildies are smart, they have no fear once they realize there is no threat. 🐴
Wildies are the smartest in my opinion and experience.
@@StableHorseTraining I think so too because they fight for survival in terms of escaping predators, search for food/water, protect their herd and territories, perpetrate the specie, all conditions to make them alert in "taking decisions".
@@martineinfrance...not just alert in making decisions but confident in their decision making.
@@pennywebb867 sure, you are right👍
Wow Maia is making some tremendous progress with your help. I'm not even surprized - more like exceptionally satisfied to see how snuggly and good at checking in with you she's got over the time.
Very interesting! Even we humans can be startled by a big tarp suddenly rising up and crinkling loudly. Maia did great.
These BC wildies really are amazing I expected her to freak out, but no it was ‘you want me to walk on that blue thing? I dunno what for but no problemo’ she’s such a good girl, your calmness really rubs off on them.
My goodness! How wonderful to see her so relaxed and accepting after her having bad experiences before she came to you and feeling the need to be on alert and ready to defend herself when she arrived !! It’s so heartwarming to see what can be done to soothe a troubled mind and bring out the best in her so she can enjoy life now. She’s such handsome horse. 🥰
She is such a beautiful strong intelligent horse and one of my favorites as well as Gracie. She's such a pleasure to watch
Maia is just such a gorgeous, majestic lady! The fact that she can move away if she chooses makes her braver and more trusting of you. It removes the terror prey animals feel if trapped.
Yes, exactly. Too many people have a death grip on the lead rope and the horse feels that.
Maia is an an exceptional horse I mean her spirit and personality is just amazing, she never ceases to surprise me, the amount of trust she has in Graeme is wonderful to see as well, their bond is definitely growing stronger each day.. I love it❤️.. she is fierce in every sense of the word.
Maia is such a brave and smart girl. Being prey animals this is a potential threat. You broke this down in such a way it helps so much in training our horses to brave ...and trust in us as well. No doubt about it ....you know your stuff. Bella 💖🐎💖🦄
The amount of trust the horses have in you is so incredible. Ugg, I just love this so much!
Thank you :)
I like Maia a lot. She was very curious and brave. She shows how much she trusts you. You know what you're doing for sure. Thanks for sharing. 🐎❤️
LOL! I can’t believe this girl. And your response was priceless. She’s absolutely fearless under your leadership.
Maia did absolutely amazing. I was thinking when you unfolded the tarp how unfamiliar it must be to a horse (let alone a Wildie) to see an object getting larger and larger and larger as you unfolded it, let alone the loud noises it was making. Yet without any urging from you, she sniffed it, put one foot on it, and then walked onto it entirely. She looks like a remarkably brave and clever horse to me. (Admittedly I know very little about horses. I'm watching your channel in order to learn a bit.)
When you first moved the tarp after that she spooked, but she immediately calmed *herself*. And she was able to repeatedly step on the bunched-up tarp even before you did. I know she was nervous, but it didn't look like she was anywhere near terrified, just a bit cautious and worried.
I also saw how when she got stuck, you waited patiently for her to make up her mind, not forcing anything -- and she was able to challenge her nervousness. And then teaching her to step *off* the tarp when you ask -- actually I thought she was starting to learn that she could stop you from moving the unsettling object by standing on it, which seems to me to be a remarkably smart conclusion if she was making it.
I also thought it was clever of her to bite the shaft of the flag, not just the cloth -- it looked like she realized that the shaft was moving the cloth. Maia is remarkable.
She was very trusting, it was impressive to me too. I've had a few horses drag me to the other end of the arena at the sight of a tarp... it's insane.
It’s very enjoyable to watch you not only train your herd but to allow us, your human herd come along for the ride. I’ve learned things I never thought about. I can’t tell you how happy I am that I accidentally found your channel. God bless you my friend. I call you my friend because I feel I know you. I’m almost positive we’d be friends. Take care & much love from NY! ❤️🇺🇸☀️
Thank you very much Pat, I'll take that as a big compliment!
@@StableHorseTraining and your acceptance is a very big compliment to me. Hugs ❤️🤟🏼
She did great. Enjoyed this video very much.
You are a great teacher to your horses with your calm and encouraging energy. Maia is a dream horse, i love her whole being, a type of horse i really would love to have to work and grow with. Thank you for sharing i really appreciated this episode.
Thank you so much!
She is so smart. 💓😊
Tarps are magic! They are small then they get really large and scary!
Very good girl Miai ! She did amazing with the tarp ! She just a gorgeous horse 🐎. She looks very tall big girl ❤️ I just love her.❤️🐎❤️🐴
Marvellous! She did Really Well! And your explanations, as I've said before, are so helpful. To understand what might be going on in her mind, and how to respond to it -- it's just like magic, watching you.
I'm trying to take some of your attitude towards your horses over to the way I am with my grandson. I was an exceedingly anxious parent; but by taking a metaphorical step back and not getting wound up, and by trying to understand him and his emotions in the moment, I do feel I'll make a better grandparent than I did parent. It's all good food for thought, anyway.
Blessings; Katherine from Kent, UK
That sounds wonderful :) Thank you for letting me know I'm having a positive impact in your world. I'm humbled to be a part of it.
That was a very good lesson. Mia is really a beautiful and smart horse.
I've seen a lot of folks talking about how if they are afraid of the moving object, is to have it set up for them to "follow" the scary thing.
❤️🌵☀️⛈️🌈☮️🐎
Fantastic job she was like u on it I can too as long as u give her a response of calmness checking in on her will go along way she's doing 👍
That's great work with the tarp. I had a horse that freaked out over a simple half filled garbage bag that was sitting at the end of a driveway. The wind made the top of the bag move and that was it. Holy cow, you would have thought something jumped right out of that bag with the reaction the horse made. Tarp training is great 👍
I often wonder of the imagination of a horse... I mean.. they must have one right? A plastic bag moves and they must be imagining it's alive or something is inside alive.. What does that thing look like? What will it do when it comes out? How will it attack? Does it make noise? Smell bad? They must have some kind of details in their head, I want to know what that is.
@@StableHorseTraining Yes I agree. It would be nice to know what they are thinking. I sometimes think it's just part of their instinct to react especially if it's something they are not familiar with. Once they feel it's not a threat they move past it.
You are so good at what you do!!
Thank you Kathy
Absolutely loved this. Going to break the ideas down into baby steps for my new anxious boy. We have been working on driving, drawing, circling and backing up with great success. When we finish a session, my head shy worrier comes to me for a head scratch and nose stroke. Why is this do you think. The rest of the time, especially in his stable, he thinks everything and everyone is going to kill him. 🥺
Maia is a beautiful horse.
New subscriber to your channel and it’s such a joy watching you interact with the horses! Patience, mindfulness and perseverance to name only a few. When I started riding school back in the 1980’s that was quite different and less horse friendly. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience!
In one of your earlier videos you mentioned Maia is from the Yukon area, so she’s a Yukon Wildie? Are there a lot of Wildies up there? Her blaze reminds me of the Yukon river going through Lake Laberge and coming out at the other end. I have good memories about a canoe trip there in the late 90’s.
Keep up the good work! Greetings from Europe!
Graeme, sometime could you please take a picture with your cellphone of your regular camera set-up? I want to see what this Wildie mare sees - a black box on legs? Or just a box on a fence? They're all electronic now, so it isn't clicking or whirring. Whatever it looks like, she *noticed* it when you were working with her on backing-up a few weeks back (or was she following your own head movements? Maybe) Today she doesn't care a bit about the camera. I love how much more she is paying attention to you.
Ed. To add Or maybe something going on in Maia's sightline behind the camera.
I don't think the horses care much about the camera other than they want to knock it over... It's simply a DSLR on a small tripod on the stairs. It makes no noise and is inanimate. This is my most memorable video of them constantly trying to knock it over: ruclips.net/video/RRw8m4UqD5w/видео.html
I too think, at least in the beginning, the horses are aware of the camera. I'll even go so far as to add that they are aware Graeme acts differently when he brings one out. However, I have never moved the needle with him on this topic and, I suspect, neither will you 😊 Maybe because we're both Cranky Seniors, albeit from opposite sides of the continent, and he's still a young buck.
Fascinating.. she is super smart huh?❤
Very nice. Have a good day
Thanks! You too
Very cool.
It's not tedious it magic beautiful amazing gentle lovely.
Could it be because you showed it to her folded up first and she saw what it was? Maybe if it just „appeared“ she would approach differently?
Could what be?
Hi Graeme! Maybe silly question but why is a tarp a specific thing to train on/around? Is that something in the horse world they run into or are near a lot?
Hi Aimee, I answer this question in detail in this video. It's not necessarily about the tarp that we're training for. No we don't come across tarps much, but as I mentioned at the beginning, there is one covering some bark mulch and she's worried about it. I don't want that worry there for her. The rest is about teaching a horse to come along and/or do things despite their concern and the relationship we continue to build for it, because of it, and in spite of it.
@@StableHorseTraining oh ok, I did rewind it and caught that. Thanks!
She looks so big next to you, I think of her as being a small horse, but she's a good sized girl 🙂
Yes, she's a big horse.
Graeme, do you immediately switch to anther new activity as soon as they stop reacting and seem calm, or do you continue a bit to ingrain that relaxed response? In other words, how do you know it's time to move on to the next thing?
I was going quick through the stages of teaching for this video. At one point in this I mentioned "it's not quite right yet and needs more work" and moved on to the next thing to give an idea for what could be next. I've left gaps which I'll fill later. These kinds of training sessions can hard to discern when to move on, I've never found that one session does it for anything and I'll loop back to sort out the missing pieces. So... I guess I'm saying I wouldn't worry about skipping a bit, stop when it "feels" comfortable to do so and move to the next bit. If that goes really south, then go backwards and sort out the gap, then try the next. Or at that point, quit and start again the next day. Does that make sense?
@@StableHorseTraining Yes, thanks!
Is your DIY mosquito spray as helpful as you first thought?
yes
Tarp fine. Go broken...Great video.
Wildie's, ay. They've been through the school of life and had to THINK to survive, not just react.. That's my theory, anyway.
I agree with your theory and now she’s thinking “this guy’s okay, there’s no reason for me to be afraid “ 😊
My theory is that domestic horses are bred for looks and MAYBE conformation. It doesn't seem like any are bred for how fast they learn or how calm they are. Wildies breed for who survives. Running around freaking out because they farted isn't a survival skill. Whenever anybody comes to me and says Arabians are the smartest horse out there, I always reply "then why does it take so long to teach them anything?" Lack of control, ability to calm and think things through are signs of intelligence, the opposite shows mental deficiencies I believe. I would put a B.C. Wildie above a "smart" Arabian any day of the week.
@@StableHorseTraining Interesting! Natural selection and natures intelligence wins out yet again..
@@StableHorseTraining "Freaking out because they farted isn't a survival skill." Guess that explains my long life.
I watch alot of horse training videos. I notice you do not cluck or "kiss" at your horses and I wonder why?
Seems you don't need to. Interesting.
I genuinely wonder why on earth people do it. Can you tell me why people use a singular sound that can be replicated by many for so many things to tell a horse what to do? Have you ever seen a horse make a single basic sound over and over and over and over and over again to communicate something? I don't do it because I consider it a kindergarten level of communication that really just has no place in horsemanship.