Carolyn Resnick Horsemanship Blog: Horse Training from the ground up

Carey Sweet rescued “Pony” from the race track. He was to be euthanized. She had rescued other track horses before and welcomed him into her life. In spite of her best efforts, his head shyness and jumpy reactions to movements or being touched escalated over the 7 years she owned him. She left a breakaway halter on because she couldn’t take it off without him exploding. Even unclipping the lead rope would throw him into a panic. Whenever he was loose he was nearly impossible to catch unless he was ready to come in for dinner. The situation became increasingly worse, as she didn’t have enough information about how to help him past his fears. After he panicked and crushed her mother into the wall of the stall, breaking her leg, Carey felt desperate. A respected source referred her to Robin Gates who’s work is based on my Method.

After 2 hours of trying to connect with him, Robin advised Carey to have an experienced body worker visit Pony because of the injuries he had inflicted on himself in his outbursts and then bring him to her ranch.

The first days at the ranch were spent simply being with him… Read more

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Today I am going to share another question from an Insider Circle student about some typical expressions horses have and how the Waterhole Rituals can help you understand them and work with them.

While participating in a clinic at Return To Freedom with Neda De Mayo (2007, I believe) I was introduced to your way of being with horses and have been practicing ever since. HUGE breath of fresh air! I have no words to describe the gratitude I feel.

My questions are:

1. Horse pins ears when walking toward food, with or without me walking with him. What does this mean and how would you shape his behavior, or does it matter?
2. Sour expression, pinning ears while companion walking. What does this mean and how would you shape his behavior, or does it matter?
3. Head slinging when sending away quickly. What does this mean and how would you shape his behavior, or does it matter?
4. What are your insights on mutual grooming as a herd behavior? Does it matter who initiates it? Who usually initiates it, lead, dominant or lower in the order? Is this a ritual that can be used to strengthen the bond and shape

… Read more

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Hello. It appears that some of you were a bit confused by the email blast that came out at the weekend announcing a new blog post. Mark asked me to write a quick note explaining that his tech guy was working on some testing and posted something in the wrong place, which triggered the email. When he realized what had happened, Mark deleted the post which is why when some of you tried the link in the email, it didn’t work. Anyway, nothing to worry about and hope that explains it.

However, what they were testing was a new video player using one of the Insider Circle videos and it kind of turned out to be a happy accident. What happened was that some people who weren’t in the class clicked the the link and watched the video before it disappeared. This produced a bunch of comments saying how much they enjoyed seeing me at work and learning the Waterhole Rituals almost first-hand.

So we thought it would be a nice idea to put the video back up so that you can get chance to watch it if you didn’t already do so. This is the very first video in… Read more

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Little Known Precursors to Aggressive Behavior in Fearful Horses, and How to Deal with Them.

I was watching Animal Planet with Victory Stilwell. She mentioned something about a little known fact about dog behavior. I thought I heard her say that a dog that will roll over on his back as a submission gesture in the future will surely bite you.

I started thinking of the things that most horse professionals do not know about horses. One of them is if a horse tries to look at you with only one eye with a stiffness in his body, he does not trust you. It is a fearful as well as an aggressive stance, and it comes with strong threat in the future to the person the horse responds to in this way.

The horse that will look at you with one eye or will switch his head around back and forth looking at you from one eye to the other may follow this behavior with biting, charging, kicking or striking at a later time, when you might least expect it.

Years ago, I had to clean out stalls as an every day chore when I was apprenticing… Read more

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Hi. I’m delighted to tell you about another workshop on my Method that’s taking place in September near Santa Rosa, about an hour and half north of San Francisco. The workshop features my dear friend and long time student, Robin Gates.

I’ve known Robin for more years that either of us would care to mention and I am really proud to have her represent my work, she is a phenomenal horsewoman. If you are anywhere near northern California in early September, I really recommend you go along to the clinic, especially if you can’t get down to me. If you want to bring your own horse, you’d better get in touch quickly as I know she only has a limited number of those places available. I personally love to watch Robyn at work and so even if you only go along to audit, I know you will benefit hugely from seeing Robin in action. If you never seen her train before, I can guarantee it will be beyond your expectations.

Details of how to book are on the flyer below, which you can see in a larger size if you click on it.

For those of you in the Insider… Read more

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There are segments of time when things work out magically, and there are other times when chaos is present.

Today I was dealing with an upset on the ranch. Two horses had become very agitated with one another from having been switched to one another’s paddock. They worked themselves up so much that I was going to have to put them back in their original paddocks, because of the risks of them running around and getting hurt, as they were looking for a way to get to each other over the top of the fence. They got so wild we could see that we could hardly lead them back to their original homes, because they wanted to fight it out with one another and break away for being lead. Both horses have some unfinished training in regards to getting out of control when being lead in a time that they get angry with another horse. One is a stallion and the other is a tough gelding that exhibits behavior like a Stallion. He was the more difficult of the two.

The natural order of things is harmony, and if you let chaos go through its course, it will on its… Read more

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Today’s blog comes to you courtesy of my apprentice, Lila.

Working on the ranch as Carolyn’s apprentice student I am having many opportunities to appreciate the subtleties of the Waterhole Rituals and learning what creating willing relationships with a horses REALLY looks like.

As a professional consultant and coach, working at training people for the past 25 years, working intensely with horses for the past 12 of those years, I feel that I have a good grasp on what it takes to create willing partnership in my students and trainees etc. But that being said, I must tell you that what horses are showing and teaching me is dramatically expanding that understanding.  I want to share with you the continued evolution of what my horse Sebastian and I are creating together.

Some of you may have heard about my experience with my horse Sebastian at liberty in the arena a few weeks ago; how I was playing with him looking to see what training opportunities would evolve.  We played with a barrel and I learned about the power of focus and sharing leadership though reciprocal movements.   As I have observed Carolyn with horses I see that with some horses

… Read more

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