Carolyn Resnick Horsemanship: Liberty Horse Training

Thanks for your big response. That should hold me for a while. Our weather is note worthy today. Hot and cool with thunderstorms. I will not be working horses much today.

Stina is in town and looking forward to our visit. She is now a certified clinician in my method.

Apollo is always becoming a more willing and loving dog. He loves to chase rabbits. As soon as he sees one, he is off and running and I can’t do anything about it. The other day when a rabbit ran by us I asked him to stay with me and he did. Right in the middle of his take off, he stopped! My complete focus has been on getting him to change with no luck at first. I could not lead him, let him free, or expect him to stay in place while training a horse, or keep him from jumping on people at our front door. Now he is doing everything I ask him to do.

The funny thing is that his obedience came out of his disobedience with no reprimand. I gave him no consequences but expressed to him in a big way what I… Read more

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Hello again. I love working with my horses. There isn’t anything much that I get so much pleasure out of, as you might have guessed. However, there one thing that thrills me almost as much and that is seeing my students succeed with their horses using my Method.

One of the students who continues to delight me and who is always very generous with her praise of me is Stina. For those of you who don’t know her story, she contacted me about 3 years ago asking if she could study with me. As she lives on St.Vincent in the Caribbean and I live in southern California, this was pretty tricky especially considering the horses she had recently ‘adopted’ were a herd of effectively wild horses. So she started having phone coaching with me and I must say that Stina has done a remarkable job with her herd. The results she and the horses have achieved are fabulous as you will see here and on the videos on the Coaching and Favorites pages.

So I would like to take this opportunity to thank Stina for her continued support of my Method and for the lovely videos… Read more

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Picking up on our conversation from Tuesday…

My advice is once you have built your foundation when you work your horse at liberty to think of working with slow and fast tempos as a way to create the connection and partnership you are want to advance to. Stina’s and Alessandra’s work with their horses on their YouTube videos show them working slow and easy and this is the way everyone needs to start out. Be very careful on this point. Don’t jump the gun. Alessandra knows now how to work her horse at all levels of energy and Stina is now beginning to work with her horses with a little more animation too. Readers might like to take a look at her work on YouTube and watch her development.

As you start to do this, remember to vary your programs of tempo to keep the horses happy connected and enthusiastic. If you have a low energy horse, start out with asking for more speed. This will cause him to wake up and be more interested in following your lead. In the wild, when the lead horse wants to get his band to run with him, he will agitate the… Read more

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Hi. I really liked the video that Stina put up on YouTube of Panadero and me. She was visiting me for some further instruction on how to proceed with her own horses using the Waterhole Rituals. I am sharing it with you because it gives me the opportunity to explain the proper approach on how to move forward in training a horse at liberty once a clear foundation has been created.

If you cannot watch this version where you are, try the one at the bottom of the post

To keep Panadero’s performance in balance and our connection at its best, I vary his daily routines with slow work and fast work to maintain the connection and his interest. In this video, my focus is to working him with fast interactions.

I was suggesting that Stina could work her horses with a little more energy because they have acclimated and bonded with her quite well. I suggest to my students to first start liberty training using the Waterhole Rituals slowly with lots of pauses and short sessions. I will then ask the horse to work with me a little faster as this is what gives… Read more

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Hello again. The wonderful thing about the internet is that you can reach people all across the world and never have to leave home. If you have read my blog for a while, then you are probably familiar with my friend and student, Stina, who is Norwegian but lives on the island of St.Vincent in the Caribbean.

Stina got in touch with me towards the end of 2007 and started have coaching by phone and email. The results for her and her herd of wild horses have been astonishing, for which I must give Stina huge credit.

Stina was recently featured in Hesteliv, the main horse magazine in Norway. The magazine interviewed 4 Norwegian horse trainers including Stina and I thought it would be fun to show it to you and to read what Stina had to say.

*** To read the rest of this post, get Carolyn’s Blog Collection Volume 1 ***
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Hello again. Today’s post is a long one and comes from a message I received via my blog. It was a lovely letter, full of heart and I felt moved to write a response. So with your approval, here is the letter and my reply in full.

Have a lovely weekend!

Carolyn

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Hi

I just read your book and loved it. I’ve been ploughing through various horse training methods and ideas with some positive outcomes but not without feeling like a perfectionist, pushing up the pressure in getting the job done. I was left with a feeling of anxiety every time I went to work with a horse.

*** To read the rest of this post, get Carolyn’s Blog Collection Volume 1 ***
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Hi again. I’ve been told that what I’m about to show to you today is the same thing the Star Wars guy did. In other words, this post should have come before the other one, Training horses by email (Apr 28).

Anyway, several of you have been asking what Stina’s horses were like when she took them in and she has in fact produced a video showing just that.

*** To read the rest of this post, get Carolyn’s Blog Collection Volume 1 ***
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