(country rock music)
- Good day, I'm Warwick Schiller
and recently I posted some videos
about reconnecting with your horse during coronavirus,
or any time really, and the big thing with those videos
was about being a long way away from your horse
and attracting their attention.
It's not about demanding their attention,
there's no demands at all,
it's just about attracting their attention.
And I just had a little session
with our yearling the other day, Chance,
and I just wanted to show you really quickly
how if you can just let them know,
even from a long way away,
that you noticed their change in focus,
you can facilitate that change in focus
and let 'em know you see it,
that that's about all you have to do
to get quite a bit of connection happening,
like you'll see right here.
Chance is from me now.
See, he's way down there, looking out at those other horses.
Okay, so this is where I like to start this exercise.
If you watch his ears, I'm gonna wander,
see that ear flick?
So what I did right then was I started to move
and wave that flag very, very slightly.
Okay, now notice his ears aren't on me
so I'm gonna move a little bit
and started to wave my flag here.
You can't see me 'cause you're looking at him,
but I'm a long way away and I'm waving my flag very slightly
and right there, his ear flicked towards me, I'll stop.
Now you notice his attention's out through the fence,
I'm gonna start to move and I'm on his right side,
there that right ear flicked towards me.
I'll stop.
Got my trusty border collie there to help distract him.
There ya go, the ear flicks towards me, I'll stop.
So I'm standing perfectly still right now.
See his ear flicked towards me?
So he's a bit more aware of me than he was.
And see his right ear flicks towards me?
I haven't moved, I'm not moving.
I'm standing still right now.
You probably can't see me, but I'm standing perfectly still.
But you notice his ear is working a little bit?
It's not now, so I'm gonna start to move.
I'm moving my feet and I'm gonna wave my flag
just a little bit off to the side of him.
Right there, that ear flicked towards me, I'll stop.
And so what I'm doing to him is communicating to him,
so I'm not asking for his attention, I'm attracting it,
but the thing that I'm doing is letting him know
that I'm very aware of what his thoughts are doing
and that's where the connection comes from.
So right now the ear's not on me,
I'm gonna start to move.
I might wave my flag a bit.
Then his ear flicks, I'll stop.
And you might notice now that ear is flicking a lot more,
and then his head turned and he just looked at me right then
and I haven't done anything except get that ear flick.
Okay, I'm just standing still out here,
I'm not asking for anything right now.
And when you're doing this, you gotta not be,
you can't be the attention police.
You can't say, "Look at me, look at me, look at me."
Like right now, his ear's not on me, that's no big deal.
They've been off me for a little while
so I might move my feet, start to wave my flag.
It made his ear comes and his head comes.
So I just got his ear to flick towards me
and then his ear, that time his ear came and his head came.
And then what happened right after that?
His body came.
So once his thoughts were over here,
his feet came with it.
Hey, mister, how's it going?
Are you good?
You havin' a good day?
And so that right there, that's all connection right there.
He was over there looking at those other horses,
wasn't terribly interested in being over here.
He wasn't being bad or anything.
Were you, Mr. Chancey?
But he was
looking at those other horses over there,
which is, there's nothing wrong with that.
This is not about obedience, this is about connection.
And so what I did was attracted his attention
and I attracted his attention.
Oh, we havin' a lick and a chew?
I attracted his attention,
so you couldn't see me but what I basically did
was I walked a little bit and then I just took this flag
and I just kinda waved it around like this.
There was no, "You have to look at me!"
I was just trying to,
if you watch what this flag does right here,
that.
That's what I was trying to do right there
was get his attention.
I was trying to facilitate his attention coming over here.
But when his attention came over here, I immediately stopped
as soon as that ear flicked towards me.
So I'm tellin' him from, you know, 80 feet away
how I can read your mind.
I'm really, really,
I'm really, really connected to you and I'll--
(slow Western music)