Teatime with Elsa - Episode 90

Chatting about: Offered behaviors…

In this episode I talk about understanding the behaviors that our animals naturally find important and do freely and voluntarily. One of the things that I find the most gratifying, when working in freedom with horses, is taking that horse as it is, not asking them to be or do different and seeing what the horse will offer on that day and reinforcing the offered behaviors that I enjoy the most. This not only helps us learn more about the horse, but the horse learns about us. They learn about who we are, what we do and don’t like, and what we appreciate the most in our partnership in a low pressure, low stress way. The more that we reinforce naturally offered awareness, focus changes and thinking, yielding and playing behaviors, the more the horse will offer creative behaviors that feel good in our relationship and benefit the engagement and enjoyment between horse and human.

Originally aired on: April 27th, 2021