UK summary

Ena the super model at the clinic

I have just returned from another fun clinic in the UK at the New Horse. This is the first year I have done two clinics across the pond. We did one in the Spring and one in the Fall. This helped me really progress the people who went to both clinics and gave other people the opportunity to attend one or the other. The people I did see at both clinics really impressed me with their progress they made from June to September. They did their homework! Others had real breakthroughs in the second clinic working with the tools I gave them.

I also had the pleasure of visiting Lucinda McAlpine's farm and chatting with her about the state of horse sports and other things. The most fun was meeting her 11 generation family herd she keeps for her study of Natural Horse Management. Another refreshing outside the box horse person! She is doing interesting work on her horse path if you'd like to learn a bit more http://www.lucindamcalpine.com/.

I met some excellent new horses and played with some that I know well. We will be focusing on the upcoming year dates and will keep you posted on 2014.

For those of you in the US or willing to travel. The next FDH clinic is October 18th-20th at Back Acres Farm in Plainfield, MA. Fiona Habershon (http://www.fionahabershon.com/) will be back demonstrating at the clinic and taking appointments in Self Selection and TTouch while she's here. Mercury will tell me what he wants to show off in his only personal clinic appearance of the year. He's a Diva but he loves his public. For info and registration go to this link http://www.eventzilla.net/web/event?eventid=2138987660 
Thanks as always to Natalie Bouchier Photography for her beautiful photos http://www.nataliebourchierphotography.co.uk/Natalie_Bourchier_Photography/Welcome.html

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Upcoming Clinics:
Oct 13: FDH one day workshop
Greenville NY 
Oct 18-20: FDH Horsemanship Clinic: Plainfield, MA
Oct 27: FDH Building confidence for trail riding workshop Granby, CT
Nov 10: FDH Building confidence for trail riding workshop
Middlefield, CT
Nov 22-24: FDH Clinic in Australia Strath Creek, Victoria, Australia
Nov 30-Dec 2: FDH clinic in New Zealand: at Taralee stables, Carterton, NZ
Click here to go to my Events http://www.fdhorsemanship.com/#!calendar

Zoopharmacognosy: My experiences

Here is part 1 and 2 of my first sessions with my horses and Zoopharmacognosy. Fiona Habershon is coming to the US to show us the full method in the fall. Once I started doing this with each horse, they all started clamoring to have their turn. The overwhelming feeling from the horses was like a huge "THANKYOU for giving me what I REALLY need"
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Links
Part 1: http://youtu.be/fKImTO4C7cU
Part 2: http://youtu.be/kTO1SOYHzeM
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Upcoming events
9/31-10/2 FDH Horsemanship Clinic: Plainfield, MA
11/30-12/2 FDH clinic in New Zealand: at Taralee stables, Carterton, NZ
11/22-11/24- FDH Clinic in Australia Strath Creek, Victoria, Australia
for more info and registration
Calendar:http://www.fdhorsemanship.com/#!calendar

UK Clinic overview

Anki and her horse building connection on the lead.

I have just come back from the UK and another super fun clinic! I got a great mix of horses and people which really provides the spectators with a widely varied experience. Everything from very green to highly schooled. As always, I was able to showcase my Liberty-Line-Mounted approach and tailor it to each individual combinations needs.

I really enjoyed watching people through the 3 days make progress forward and apply the information to themselves and their horses. Topics covered started with a review class on the Waterhole Rituals with a herd of 5 horses, applied Liberty FUN!damentals and Ground FUN!damentals, Seat Awareness and Communication, and finally Mounted Skill builders. It was a lot!

I wanted to speak particularly about some horses I was seeing for the second time. I was so proud of the progress they had made especially since some were very difficult horses. I really get a kick out of seeing people learn to connect to the challenging horses proving that it can be done with gentleness, love, and patience. Horses that a lot of trainers would be scared to touch and if they did, it would be with a lot of nasty gadgets and force.

Fiona and a "client"

On this trip I also had the pleasure of meeting Fiona Habershon a Zoopharmacognosy practitioner and healer. Her work was right in line with all that I believe about Natural Horse keeping. Here is an explanation from Fiona's site:

"Zoopharmacognosy is the offering of essential oils, aromatic plants, algae, clay and other natural remedies for self-selection. This innate ability allows the animal to select what it needs to bring itself back into balance both physically and emotionally; looking after itself as it would have done in the wild."

 I watched her work with clinic participants horses and it was super cool. She had a wide variety of herbs, essential oils, supplements and oils that represented what horses would "Self Select" if they were in the wild. She would offer the horses different things and by watching for specific body language and communication she would get a profile of the horses health by what they would or wouldn't take. The horse almost diagnoses himself. Fiona's work is inspired by Caroline Ingraham's work. I was so impressed, I asked her to come to the states to do a workshop and visit some local farms. We are looking at October 26-27th if anyone is interested contact me. Details are still being worked out but we will have limited space.

If you are interested in the September 20-22nd UK clinic at the New Horse, please contact me. Though several people who attended the June one are signed up, there are still some spaces left. Anyone interested in the new Classical Western Dressage training that is sweeping the US right now should definitely attend. See how Liberty-Line-Mounted Applies to English and Western. Below see a short clip of our work with Taz Carolyn Bourchier's Lusitano. See full video on Sign up for http://fdhvirtualclinic.vidmeup.com/

Other upcoming events
9/31-10/2 FDH Horsemanship Clinic: Plainfield, MA
11/30-12/2 FDH clinic in New Zealand: at Taralee stables, Carterton, NZ
11/22-11/24- FDH Clinic in Australia Strath Creek, Victoria, Australia
for more info and registration
Calendar:http://www.fdhorsemanship.com/#!calendar

Goings on

For those of you who don’t already know, I am in the UK this week for clinics at the New Horse in Motcombe. I’ll be sure to share photos and updates as always.

I am pleased to see that this year’s clinic sold out and that people are really taking a keen interest in not only building stronger bonds with their equine partners, but training their horses in empathetic, fun ways as well.

I finds myself globetrotting yet again to new places and new and familiar equine and human faces. I will be in Kent, WA October 5-7 at Reber Ranch, I am going back to Carterton, NZ for another fun clinic November 30^th-December 2nd, and going to Strath Creek, Victoria, Australia December 8^th-10th. This will be my first visit ever to Australia and I am super excited to meet new horses and their humans and assist them on their journey and bond. I didn’t forget about people on the east coast. I have been to Charlottesville, VA, Schoharie, NY and Plainfield, MA. If you missed those, I have another weekend possibly coming up in Virginia in the fall (check my calendar for dates TBA). I also have a 3 day clinic at Backacresfarm.com (Plainfield, MA) coming up Labor day weekend in September that is about half full now. As always, the broad topic will be Liberty-Line-Mounted, FUN!damentals and Bitless/Liberty riding for those interested. As always, the clinics are shaped by the participants and highly customized to meet the needs of those who attend. If you’re interested in attending a clinic or would like to organize one in your area, contact me or Check my calendar link for details and more info here fdhorsemanship.com

I was thinking a lot this year about what my job is and the true purpose of my work/play. The answer is, I help horses and their people find more joy and fun. No matter what the surface goals or issues may look like. I help people and horses communicate better with each other. Growing up, I worked with a dog trainer who used to say he was an interspecies communicator. I often feel like this is what I do as well. He actually helped me on my path to animal training. Believe it or not I worked with dogs long before horses even though my passion for horses started at a very young age. In the past few years, I added Dog Training back into my services. Dog training clinics anyone?! The interesting thing is I brought a lot of what I call Natural Dogmanship to the horses and Natural Horsemanship to my Dog Training. I find the two species quite similar despite one being prey and one predator. Their social culture is similar because both naturally live in groups. Sometimes I am called upon to help horses and dogs recognize each other as fellow family members for their people. I have to explain to them that people often include many different species in their family when they have a love of animals and that they should look their people to help them all understand each other and feel safe and friendly.

One of the things I bring up in my clinics when I am teaching Connection exercises inspired by Carolyn Resnick is the reason dogs are so bonded and connected to us naturally is because we “Share our Territory” with them all the time. It helps illustrate the importance of the first exercise we do with our horses to develop the same strong bond. For that matter, this exercise strengthens the bond with any species or person. Hope to see you soon at an upcoming clinic. I love meeting all of you in person!

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One of my favorite UK friends

Day 2 of the UK clinic

Another fun day in the UK! A little typical UK weather din't stop us from playing with our horses! Enjoy the pictorial!
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UK Horsemanship Clinic day one

Today was the first day of the FDTH Horsemanship clinic at The New Horse in beautiful Motcombe. First of all it is a gorgeous area. Beautiful english farms and rolling hills as far as the eye can see. oh and Stone Henge which I've never seen until now!

The day started with an Andalusion that I quickly saw was quite alert, a bit tentative, reactive and easily distracted. We worked on a session in the morning and one in the afternoon. In the morning, we worked with some Liberty exercises based on Carolyn Resnick's method. The horse was a bit shy about being approached so we worked on Saying hello and reading his body language to build his trust up. By the afternoon, after a nice break in the second session we worked using Eye Contact to help him and his person focus and they did beautifully. Even got a nice companion walk at the end. This horse is a good candidate for how Liberty work can help with mounted issues as I came to find out that no surprise, he was tentative, distracted, and reactive in his Dressage work. It is very interesting how I can usually see the mounted issues come out in the Liberty work and as such set about changing the patterns in a nice connection and trust building way.

I had a pony in another session who was quite food obsessed and I used Carolyn's food exercises to get him focused on first me and then his person more than food. In the second session, his person brought him in and we addressed his pulling away while leading issues by working with him on line and teaching him to follow a feel and watch his persons body language exactly as he did at Liberty. The equipment merely becoming an extension of the Liberty body language.

I then got to work with a 2 year old filly who was not handled too much and the focus was just on her having a positive experience in the arena at liberty and having her feel comfortable leaving the herd and "Being with us" We used Carolyn's Treasure Hunt game and when the filly was calm, happy and relaxed, we rewarded her further by taking her back to her friends.

My favorite horse of the day was a resident rescued Lusitano who I affectionately name "Taz" I met him in the morning in his herd and was instantly drawn to him. He clearly loves connecting with people and is just the kind of fiery, spirited "Dancer" I love. He was offering so much so quickly, it was like he had been doing Liberty work all his life and they had only had him for a very short time.

Anyway, we had a great day as usual with the horses leading the way and I look forward to tomorrow!
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