 And what happens is it becomes a buildup and we lose the horse. After a while, this becomes like a conditioned response. It's in the little things. It starts right now. Actually, it started when we were setting up our camera and he was looking at us. What I'd like to do is walk up to him in a way that is approachable, non-threatening. I'm aware of the other horses around me in case they come over and cause my horse to get pressured to move away. I mean, with me I'm in his bubble. No trouble in the horse's bubble. I can keep him bending. Well, then he's not going to be in a position or a mindset to go up or to bolt or do any of those things. So as I work with him, I'm looking at the other horses. Now you can see I'm already insignificant to him. He's sort of looking over the top of me. But we'll see if we can redirect his attention and try to get him feeling for me and focused on me. So this is looking pretty nice right here. It's looking pretty nice. It's decent. See if I can get him to look over at his buddies. We'll see if the eye and the ear can go over and sort of look in that direction. We'll see if we can have him look over here. This is where he normally would leave people, I think. And it's a little bit like a trigger. So at some point what happens is his energy level comes up enough that all of a sudden he just sort of takes over. And it may not even be that he wants to take over. At this point, it's almost become a reflex, for sure a reaction. So I need to keep his mind in a state of mindfulness, awareness, feeling for me, and not just this reactive, nervous, nervous state. I would like to become his little herd. Just me and this horse. Instead of him looking at these other horses, could he key in on me? This is looking good. And do you notice how I'm patterning this idea of nose between the shoulder and then bringing his head down? And when I reach up, I'd like that head to come down. It's like a handshake. If I reach out for you, do you reach out for me? Same thing with him. See, here he's already starting to take over a little bit. We brought his life up. And now he's excited. And he wants to go a little bit more. When he brings his head down, his feet will work better. So instead of tripping on that right hind foot, what he'll do is he'll start to cross it under in a functional way that actually works for him. I don't know if you can hear his breathing at all through the microphone. There's a little reaction there. He'll tip his attention. Good. It's looking nice. What I'd like to do is take his energy and his life, put it to work for me. Put it into something. Get smooth on the feet. And above all, forward. That's looking nice. It's better. I'll encourage him. Look to the right. Get soft. The head will come down. There's a little licking and chewing. He's definitely taking more pressure and encouragement than I'd like to have. But I can tell he's tense. He's more tense inside than he looks on the outside. That's pretty typical for many, many horses. It's a good change there. I'll walk away. In fact, we'll bring his life up and come with. A little bit more. We'll halt. Obviously, sort of an overreaction to my halt, but at least he's not bowling through me. When I turn and lift, that would be my backup. The halt is a place where horses think. They can look around, tune out. This is something that the humans taught the horse. A halt is really important. When we halt, he needs to be on standby and be ready. That's looking quite nice. Let's get back to a little bit forward, but then maybe stepping the shoulder and the barrel and the hindquarters over. Now I'm going to add to this a little bit. Notice I'm trying to work on that hindquarters. It's his choice to step the way he is and to move with the amount of energy he has. He wants to latch onto these other horses. And I'm going to say, you need to stay with me. Be mindful of me. Good. It's looking fine. Now this other horse, what if I step in and move his friend off? And so the idea there, and I'm a little insignificant to his buddy too, but the interesting thing here is now this horse, he's in more of a leader position. Now I'm not sure which horses are the most dominant in here, but either way, it's sort of a confidence building thing for him. And we'll see if we can get these horses a little more responsive to move off. Now I'm doing this for a few reasons. One, he's already winning for his buddies. One, the goal is that he clings to me and latches on, hooks on to me. The other thing is, it clears space for me to get out of the gate without the other horses pressuring me. Now notice he's looking at me and the other horses. In my peripheral, I can see him and he looks pretty good. Now my horse has to split his attention between me and his friend, so this guy learns to split his attention a few different ways so that he's not just a one track minded guy. So even under pressure, he'd look to us. It will help me leave the gate more successfully to have the other horses out of my area. Great. Wonder if that horse is going to. Not just training one horse. When you go out to catch your horse, it's the whole herd you're working with. He's coming back at us. He's got to leave, though. He wants to instigate movement of the other horse. The other horse goes, are you crazy? Just eat. Use that a little bit and say, hey, you know what? Split your attention back to me. Look at that, so that right ear comes to me and his left ear might be on wild man. See, same thing here. So maybe he could split his attention. Don't get crooked. He said there's a bug on my side. I said, I'm more important than a bug. Look at me, head between those between the shoulder. It's better. Interesting. Now at this point, as I approach, it'd be really nice to see this one bring his head down. I'm encouraging it here. Good. There. It's nice. All right, so now let's work this gate a little bit. Now I notice there's some barrels here, which is sort of a nice, so maybe there was water in there, sort of a nice little thing. Because what if I were to set up a little doorway, take a look at those barrels? What's up with those? Get curious. It'd be really nice. Don't get so fast with me over here. Be mindful of me. There, let's come through with some feel. And I'll be soft if you're soft. Forward motion. First, we'll have him come through. Take that hind quarters. You have to multitask working with horses and keep just like they need to split their attention. We need to be able to split our attention. It's a little claustrophobic, I notice. So that's going to make a difference taking them through the gate. And what can happen is you can have sort of a buildup. So let's say it's nighttime, and the bugs are bad, and there's grain in the stall, and the horse knows they're going to come back to a happy place inside. There's this buildup. And it might not just be one thing. It might not just be his herdmates. It might be the fact that he's walking through a gate or a narrow space, and he's going then into the barn. And what happens is it becomes a buildup, and we lose the horse. After a while, this becomes like a conditioned response to where the horse doesn't think about it anymore. That's nice. Now, can you look to me? Well, I'm insignificant. So you get your feet moving. Since I can't get your mind coming down towards me, then we're going to put that life, that energy, into something like movement. I'm really helping him. This is where I'd rather his head be when I'm leading him out of the gate. Then I'm not going to have memory lapses and airs above ground. So that looks pretty good. Look at his friend. He's persistent. It's good. It's good. I'm really helping this one, since it gets soft. You don't have to be tense around me, but you do have to be mindful of around me. And if I need to become more interesting than the other horses, well, I might have to work a little bit. And there might be some high energy going on sometimes in my work. But eventually, they understand, oh, Jack's pretty calm. Just be calmer on that guy. Good. Just feeling pretty nice. Just trying to see if I can get him to get soft. And the bugs kind of overreactive to bugs, I notice. Sometimes that's just like the final straw. A horse is already tense, and then all of a sudden the bugs just kind of put him over the edge. But either way, they need to be mindful of us. Pressured at the gate with other horses. Now I can take my time getting my horse out. So it also takes the pressure off of my horse, because he's not bottlenecked there at the gate either. All right. So I can open this gate in, which is interesting. Sometimes people are just worried about getting their horse through and not letting the other horses get through. And so then it's like a high pressure type situation. What if I could send him through a few times, take that hind quarters, back him up. If his head comes down, I'll let him stay. I'll let him stay there. That's fine. If his head is up, and if I'm just not significant to him then we don't need to fly in so fast either. All right. Oh, this is a really nice expression. I've convinced him that I'm the one to pay attention to. Maybe we're the herd, just us two. It's looking good, except for he's just a little stuck. But trying to keep it calm and just keep a little bit of a feel on there and see if he'd come forward off of that contact there. That's looking better. All right, so now we work outside. The good news is it's not much different than what we did inside the pasture. So now we're out here. And actually his head's down. So that's a good, that's a great little default would be for him to drop that head down, look at me, see if we can step that shoulder over. It's looking all right. He wants to scratch at a bug, but he's keeping me in the picture. So that's a good thing. That's looking nice. My horse, if he drops his head down, he's then in a mind state to work for me. We first have to become significant to the horse. We can't just be invisible. Notice I'm moving shoulders and hind quarters and taking them over to the side. So I'm preparing him, ideally in a calm way, preparing him to cross those hind legs and look to me when you're under pressure. And we might just transition our way to the arena. That's looking pretty nice. Or maybe we'll go in the barn a time or two and come back out. In fact, we'll see in a minute. I'm going to go back in the barn and we'll come out. Now, nose between the shoulder. Right here, I'm a little bit out of his radar. And I might say get back because it's not just getting him there. It's how we get there. So if we just worry about getting him there, over time, that's going to erode. And pretty soon, it's not very mindful. Yeah, it's OK. What if I had an injury and I couldn't walk very fast? Would he wait for me or would I have to be holding him back? Hopefully, he'd wait. Good. Nice and easy. What we'll do is we'll just go in the barn, bring him back out, try it again. And I might move a little faster as we go. So in, and there's the goat. And bring him back. Take his forehand over, chase the danger, bring him back in. We want to make sure that that doesn't become sort of a conditioned response or reaction where we come out. He's going through a tight, narrow doorway, and then all of a sudden spooks. We don't want that. So let's make sure that we could bring him out slowly. All right. And not rush. I might even be able to, say, take a foot back. Good. That's it. Here we go. Little energy, little life, sort of. Want to know that I've got him? I don't need any sliding stops yet. Let's work on. He's still looking at his goat friend. So going back in. That's interesting. Now a good thing we worked with his buddies on moving away. Because again, I don't want to get bottlenecked in here. And actually, they're being quite polite so far. Send him in. I don't want to lose him here because that could very well happen. Now at this point, send his buddy out of here. And you know, really, by moving his friends away, I'm helping the next person handle this horse. But see, it takes the confinement. And he's less compressed coming in and out. Now, I might go in and out a few times, but you get the idea. That's how I would work with this. And if every time he goes out, he runs, you take the halter off, he puts his head up, and he runs away, pretty soon that becomes the build-up. And this is this excited thing where we reach up, we take the halter off, and they run away. So pretty soon the next day, you bring him out. And before you go in the gate, he's ready for this. And what I like to do whenever possible, send his buddies away, bring him in, have him turn. He'll face us. I'm not going to completely let him go, but I'll show you this is good practice, too. Some horses that run off, you can put a roper on their neck or whatever. But what I would then do is I would drop the halter, keeping his nose tipped towards me like we started, not letting that horse get straight, and I'd slip the halter off. Then when I walk away, I would want his nose and his mind sort of to stay with me. Now, I won't fully release him here, but if I were to walk away, I'd want him to think about me, maybe stay for a second, and then leave slowly, not just bolt away. This is pretty important. And by contrast, if I were to bring him in through the gates, line him up with his happy land, his happy place, the pastor and his buddies. Right now, you can see, and now if I were to take the halter off, he'd be running away. And that would become a new habit or behavior.