Giving

Many times horses are approached with the thoughts of what can I get from today's ride; this horse will calm me down, this horse will teach me things about myself, this horse will entertain me, and on and on with thoughts about what we will get. This approach leaves a lot of good stuff on the table. If we approach our horses with an attitude and behavior of giving back to them for what they have given to us in the past a whole bunch of other things start to happen. The horse gets what she needs, so there is less anxiety, more connecting, more accepting of your leadership, and a great deal of other behaviors that you might have wrestled to get in the past. Horses always give back more than they get.

Giving to Yielding: Rather than trying to figure out how we can get a horse to give us yielding behavior we can yield to the horse and give the horse what it needs which increases the yielding to the giver.