Train a horse

RETREAT:

The Art Of Non-War
And Produtive Horse Training

"Retreat" is a word used in war that's kind of cowardly. (But it's what we will use to teach horses with psychology.)

It's used if you see no hope and you better run like you're being chased by fire.

But in horse training, how do you train a horse with retreat? 

Here's how retreat can be useful as seen from the human perspective.

Say you were just minding your own business, and a big, mean-looking bully who you thought was going to pound your ears was coming toward you.

You may say to yourself, "....uh...time to leave!!!"

So you start to walk away. Plus, you're ready to run like the wind if he comes at you any faster.

But you notice just as you make a slight twitch to move away, he stops coming toward you.

Hmmm....

Suddenly, you don't feel threatened.

Still, you watch him because you just don't trust it.

For a while, he stands there. And he doesn't even look at you.

In fact, you don't feel a threat at all. But again, you have at least one eye on him.

Then he slowly turns toward you and comes toward you again.

But since you've decided he's not as threatening as you first thought, you're not as apt to take off.

Still, you aren't sure.

He gets a little closer and you get uncomfortable and you take a step to get away from him.

Just as you do, he retreats.

Hmmm...

You're beginning to think this scary looking guy might not be as bad as you thought.

But had he come right at you and didn't stop, you might've decided he's someone to stay away from-period!

Here's another.

Let's say you're teaching a horse to let you pick up his feet.

As you start to teach it, he'll feel funny about it because horses don't like their feet picked up.

Since it's their defense to predators, they get a little uneasy about having their feet locked up thank you very much.

But as you handle a foot, you feel the horse start to get uneasy about it.

Rather than "GRAB THAT FOOT AND HANG ON FOR DEAR LIFE AND BY GOLLY YOU WILL GIVE UP THE FIGHT UNTIL YOU LET ME HAVE YOUR FOOT..." ...you simply let him have it back.

You retreat.

Then you keep at it until you get a little more. Each time you'll likely have to retreat a little.

It's the retreat that talks the horse into giving you what you want. It's when you "insist" that it can backfire on you.