I know the current trend is for shorter, shorter, shorter posts. I get it. There are so many posts, so many videos, we need short and sweet. But some things just need more time. Teaching your horse to lower his head is one of those topics.
There is a quick, easy way to get a horse to lower his head. Have him follow a target to the ground. There. I’ve done it. Short and sweet. Done in 80 words. Not bad. Except . . .
Except one of the training principles is: there is always more than one way to teach every lesson.
Having a horse follow a target to the ground is a great starting point. But we need more. We need backing in a square into head down. To explain why this lesson is so important, what it does for your horse, and how to implement it, I need about two hours of your time.
That’s how long it takes at clinics to explain the lesson. It’s also how long the original head lowering DVD is. That DVD is now an on-line mini course. I won’t take two hours of your time right now to explain this lesson. Instead I’ll just say:
Head lowering is not a forward-moving exercise.
Eight words, but my goodness there’s a lot packed into those eight words.
Look at the images of “Day 1 before” and “Day 3 after” for this horse.
In the “Before” image he looks like his back hurts. Look at the way he’s standing, sort of crouched under behind. And he looks so grumpy. Something you can’t see in the picture is he was so tight the muscles in his shoulders and girth area were in spasms.
On day three he looks like the sport horse that he is. His back has relaxed, and he’s lifting up from the base of his neck. Head lowering played a major role in the changes you see.
In this sequence he starts out very grumpy. Once he’s standing on a mat, I ask him to lower his head, first using simple food delivery. Once that’s working, I can ask from the lead.
As he leaves his head down, look at the head-to-tail stretch that gives him. This sounds so simple, and really it is. Food delivery is such as easy way to get a horse to lower his head. But where you place the food to get this full body stretch is something you learn from the backing-in-a-square-into-head-down lesson.
Backing in a square into head down can create other types of changes.
This four year old warmblood knew he was big. He knew he could ignore handlers and barge over the top of them. He threw a lot of energy into pushing people around.
He’s trying really hard to use his height and his size to push forward over the top of me.
I’ve turned the lead into a “t’ai chi wall”. It’s like throwing a ball against a wall. His energy is the ball. When he runs into the lead, he bounces back off it. As I feel him starting to drop his head, I release the lead. Click and treat.
All that barging-over-the-top-of-you energy is redirected by the “t’ai chi wall” of the lead. I don’t have to get tougher with him. I don’t have to scare him to “show him who is the boss”. I just need to know how to slide up the lead into the “t’ai chi wall”, so I can redirect his energy out of my space.
He backs up. I direct his hips through a turn, and his head begins to drop. Pretty soon I can release this once bargey horse into the same full body stretch that so helped the other horse let go of years of body tension. Head lowering can help this young horse start his working life without that kind of crippling resistance.
Backing-in-a-square-into-head-lowering transforms pushy and potentially dangerous behavior into polite head lowering. This lesson shows us that there’s so much more to head lowering than simply getting a horse to lower his head.
Curious?
Check out the Lesson Three: Head Lowering Mini Course.
I’ve broken the original two hour DVD down into twenty-seven chapters. Instead of sitting down to a full length movie, you can watch the lesson in shorter segments.
The course includes the original DVD Lesson, plus new teaching material. I take you step by step through the head lowering lesson. You’ll learn how to set your horse up for success by teaching the precursor behaviors first. I’ll show you why head lowering is not a forward moving lesson. I’ll explain what that means and how to put those words into action.
Head lowering is a power tool that can enhance your horse’s physical and emotional well-being. This mini course explains the changes it creates. The detailed instructions and demos show you how to put the lesson to work in your own training.
Visit theclickercenter.com to learn more.
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