horse psychology - Good Horse

Why am I struggling to train my horse?

September 17, 2021September 18, 2021 communication, horse emotion, horse psychology, training

Do you think you are using an effective training method? Why what YOU think doesn’t matter!

chestnut horse head against grey background

What does it mean for a horse to have learned helplessness?

May 6, 2021September 6, 2021 horse psychology, training

Does your chosen training method induce learned helplessness? What it is and why we should all learn to recognise it.

Two chestnut horses lying down in a field by the remains of a hay bale

The key to effective training that is surprisingly overlooked

May 6, 2021May 6, 2021 horse psychology, sociality, herd dynamics, enrichment

Do you sometimes feel like you take two steps back for every step forward? You may be overlooking the most fundamental factor in training your horse!

grey horse and girl looking at each other

Does this study really claim your horse doesn’t love you?

November 6, 2020November 8, 2020 horse emotion, horse personality, horse psychology

Journalists love provocative headlines! Here’s what this recent study actually says about horse-human relationships.

Lifting the Veil: Is Prascend making my horse depressed?

May 21, 2019June 12, 2020 care, health, horse personality, horse psychology

The standard treatment for PPID seems to have mood-altering side-effects – can science help explain why?

horse and human walking through the woods in autumn

Opportunity for you/your horse to appear in Good Horse educational videos

February 7, 2019February 27, 2019 fear, horse emotion, horse psychology, human emotion

Would you be interested in taking part in the creation of Good Horse videos? Get in touch to see how you could get involved!

Can we prevent trigger stacking?

January 22, 2019January 22, 2019 emotion, fear, horse psychology, training

We can’t control everything – but are there ways that we can help prepare our horse to stay calm under pressure and be less affected by the unexpected?

Dressage for Jumping – Part 3

January 9, 2019February 12, 2019 horse psychology, training, equestrian, show jumping

Dressage principles can help you and your horse excel in any jumping discipline. Here are just some of the ways in which all that flatwork pays off!

Trigger Stacking: how little things add up to cause a big reaction

January 9, 2019January 23, 2019 fear, horse psychology, training, stress

Explosive behaviour often has multiple underlying causes. The challenge is learning to identify these before they add up and cause a big reaction.

How do horses learn to respond to cues?

August 16, 2018April 27, 2020 horse psychology, training

Often overlooked in the horse world, a solid understanding of Learning Theory is a huge asset when working with horses.

Why do horses yawn?

May 17, 2018May 17, 2018 communication, horse emotion, horse psychology, licking and chewing

The answer to this question may seem straight-forward enough but yawning can mean more than simply that your horse is tired! Understanding this and related behaviours can help us make better decisions about how to train and handle horses.

You are ALWAYS training – whether you like it or not!

June 10, 2017July 2, 2017 horse psychology, training

We tend to think of “training” as something distinct from other things we do with our horses, but this is a very human mindset…

Is this video cute or terrifying and naive?

March 11, 2017November 8, 2020 horse psychology, natural horsemanship, pony, herd dynamics

Some will see a cute game while others will be horrified. But what’s really going on and how should we interpret this pony’s behaviour?

black tobiano Baroque Pinto or Barock Pinto stallion Dream Gait's Bizkit trotting. Photo from USEF archive.

Bad manners or lovable spirit?

February 5, 2017February 19, 2021 horse emotion, horse personality, horse psychology, training

Does this video show a horse with bad manners? Sometimes we get so caught up in controlling everything our horses do that maybe we forget some of what we love so much about horses in the first place.

Gril trying to load a horse. She has bad timing and is using excessive force. Horse is rearing. Still taken from a video.

Empathy failure: Bad timing and excessive force

January 21, 2017October 20, 2017 fear, horse emotion, horse psychology, training

This video has been circulating on Facebook recently and is a graphic example of someone failing to empathise with the

The Three Principles: Empathy, Patience & Persistence

January 20, 2017October 13, 2017 horse psychology, training

Learn about the three key principles of Combination Horsemanship that come into play time and time again: Empathy, Patience, and Persistence

Why excitement is probably not why your horse is strong under saddle

December 21, 2016February 19, 2017 fear, horse emotion, horse psychology, training

Like most animals, horses prefer to conserve their energy for those moments when their survival really depends on it. So why do some horses get “strong”?

Learned Fear

December 4, 2015January 15, 2017 fear, horse psychology, training, show jumping

What should you do when your horse refuses a jump? Why responding with a smack or a ‘pony club kick’ may not be the best way to go…

The Unexpected Benefits of Spooking

December 2, 2015January 22, 2019 fear, horse psychology, spooking, training

Spooking can be scary, funny or frustrating. But why do horses spook, and is there a silver lining (Horse: AAAGH A SILVER LINING!!!) to this behaviour?