Michaela Hempen

Hi, In the last email, I introduced you to The expanding ellipse lesson. With the two mats and two opposite cones that are moved further away from each other, this setup is a great way to increase the distance that your horse walks from one mat to the next, and it creates a balance puzzle … Read more

Hi, Yesterday, we piled through a lot of material. Today we get more practical. Remember, we talked about two strategies to teach a new skill. Response shaping and stimulus shaping or fadingDon’t get hung up by the terminology. I found both stimulus fading and stimulus shaping in the literature. Some authors seem to use both … Read more

Hi, Before we dive in, let’s recap what we have done so far. My goal is to work with Blondie at liberty in the arena (question 1). To build that skill, I went through a systematic process to identify our starting point (question 2). We identified the foundation lesson’ Standing on a mat’ as our … Read more

Hi, In yesterday’s email, I described how to use the starting point that we identified in question 2: ‘Where are you now?’ to build towards our target behavior. I decided to start in the paddock, where she is focused and calm with a trained behavior that she knows well: Standing on a mat. Using multiple … Read more