Getting Into Your Horses Head

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[Brian Hale] So have you ever wanted to get inside your horse's head? Here's Dr. Steve Peters with more.

[Steve Peters] Horses have an optimum range just like humans do of comfort in which they can learn. Now if they're too comfortable they're in a part of their nervous system where they're just not going to pay attention. You know they're going to look over the fence at their buddies, they're going to graze, they're going to have their heads down. A little bit of arousal, what we call sympathetic arousal, make them alert. But if you go beyond that you're going to start to kick in self-preservation and they'll tune you out. Well I think for years what we did is that we didn't pay much attention to that and as the whole, you know like Granddad said don't let that horse win, you know go back there and make them do it, that horse just pretty much did it but it tuned you out and it really wasn't learning. You know and so Martin got in the habit of really saying okay this horse is not really where I want him right now and it seems like we're reaching a point of diminishing returns. Heck I'll just pick this up in the morning. 

[Brian Hale]  That was equine psychologist Dr. Steve Peters on the Horseman's Corner. There's more on the web at horsemanscorner.com including our long version of this interview and more. And you can also do a search on our agricultural search engine for more information at Agsearch.us. Two great websites for more equine information horseman's corner.com and agsearch.us. That's it for today's horseman's corner. Thanks again for listening and may God bless. I'm Brian Hale.