do you have lucky sorry that i've been playing games do you really have what it takes
hello everyone i'm amelia and today i'm going to give you a few little
ways that you can enjoy spending some time and bonding with your horse and
i think that there's definitely a balance of you know everything we love our horses and we want to
enjoy our horses and that's really an important part of having horses and riding and all of that
however it's also really important that when you think about bonding with your horse that you're
always clear that you're still in charge and that you're still the boss i think that the big
difference between like your horse versus your dog is that horses are big and horses can hurt you so
it's really important that while you're bonding with them while you're enjoying time with them
that you're still having direction in that time and that you're still clearly in charge so
give this video a thumbs up if you're excited to learn a few ways that you
can enjoy spending some time with your horse this is kensington he's my seven-year-old and
he's a very special horse so be sure to also check out in the description box and join us on patreon
patreon is a way to help support these free videos that we make for you guys and we also have a lot
of behind the scenes footage there so be sure to check that out so the my probably my favorite way
to spend time with my horses is just grooming them and kind of currying them and really figuring out
where they enjoy being brushed but it's also really important that while you're doing this
that your horse is like respectful of you and that your horse is not coming into your space
so i'm gonna ask him to move over and again like right there that was just a moment where
i took charge i asked him to move over and now i'm gonna take my curry and kind of just start
currying him a lot of horses i would say one of the most favorite places that horses like being
curried is right up here on the withers because this is like if you know when horses groom each
other in the field they always groom each other like right here on the withers and you can see
how kensington with his mouth is kind of like chewing as if he were grooming another horse so
he's kind of like if he had another horse to groom he would really be grooming the other horse but
you can just really watch your horse's expression and figure out where they like to be groomed where
they don't like to be groomed you can tell by what he's doing with his mouth that he like really
enjoys this so i can you know go a little deeper here and another place that horses a lot of times
like to be groomed is kind of up here in their um shoulders and underneath between their front legs
so just kind of take some time and and really curry your horse it's also really good for their
muscles and for their circulation if you take this time to get the blood
flowing um you can also notice like see if i can get a place where he's a little sore
and there like i don't want him to look away from me i want him to stay always looking a
little towards me so you could see right here he's a little sore so this muscle here in his low back
stay looking towards me you could see him kind of arch away like that area is a little bit sore
for him so i might just back off the pressure a little bit there but still kind of think about
getting the circulation and getting him a little bit loosened up in that area good boy good boy so
um this is just a great way to feel your horse's muscles give them a nice little massage figure
out what they enjoy it's really important though when you're doing this don't allow your horse to
come into your space so i'm gonna go into his space and give him a nice rub down but he's not
allowed to step towards me because you don't want to you don't want your horse to think that they're
ever allowed to push into you or to come into that pressure because what could happen is if they
start doing that they could step on you they could hurt you and then if something were ever to scare
them they're just gonna come running right on top of you so that's the first way that you can enjoy
spending a little quality time with your horse is just figuring out where they like to be
curried where they like to be brushed the second thing that we're going to do is we're going to
do a little hand walk just kind of around the property and again i'm going to show
you some tips that i use when i'm hand walking my horse to make it enjoyable but also to stay
safe so hopefully our camera person can follow us around um so when i'm leading my horse
i kind of like to be in between my horse's shoulder and my horse's head so i would say
like this is the ideal place to be leading your horse but again i want to have a little
bit of a healthy different distance a healthy distance between my horse and i
because if you're like right here and your horse is shoving into you all the time then
to me that's disrespectful so when i'm leading my goal is to stay between the shoulder and the head
if he's not leading with me i can always use the tail of my rope to kind of send him a little
forward and ideally like you can see here how there's a little bit of slack in my lead line
he's not pulling on me so this is what i would say is like a respectful and healthy distance
for when i'm leading my horse around the property and i'm just kind of always sensing his energy
another really good thing to do when you're leading your horse is to practice halting
so halting getting your horse to kind of put their head down and pay attention to you so again i'm
going to walk forward ask him to come with me and then i'm going to test if i stop he should stop
if i back up he should back up if i walk forward he should walk forward
so that's really important is that your horse has to be paying attention to you and that when
you stop they stop when you back up they back up this is really important so that when you're hand
walking that your horse isn't like dragging you around and isn't looking for things to spook at
another thing that i really enjoy doing with my horses is letting them have some grass so
there's some nice grass over here when you're hand grazing a couple of things one is that notice how
i let him go to the grass he didn't drag me to the grass and that's really important again
it's a sign of respect that you should never allow your horse to just drag you over there
you should always they should be waiting for you to allow it and when you're hand grazing
again even though you're bonding even though you're enjoying the time with your horse you
have to be really aware of a couple of things the biggest thing is that the horse doesn't stand on
the lead rope accidentally because if they step on the lead rope and then pull their head up it can
really scare them so you always want to just kind of keep the lead rope a little up like you don't
want to let the lead rope just be like dangling on the ground in front of your horse's foot because
then they might step on it so you always want to just have like not be pulling on your horse but
just kind of keep the slack out of the lead rope and then the other thing is that even though he's
grazing i'm still really aware of him and making sure that he doesn't jump on top of me because
i've had horses where they're grazing and then something will scare them and they'll kind of like
come and jump on top of you so if you see like something scary over there that might scare your
horse then you might want to ask them to pick their head up ask them to back away from you
before they get afraid but don't allow them to come on top of you
you're a good boy but and you can you know sometimes when i'm hand grazing i'll
give him some little scratches brush out his mane a little i think that horses of course
they enjoy getting to have a little bit of grass and it's just a really nice time
to spend with your horse but again it's important that they do it respectfully so
i'm gonna practice like i've let him graze here a little bit it's really important that when i
decide like okay we're done that he listens to that so what i'm going to do when i decide that
that we're done i'm going to get my lead rope organized i'm going to kind of bump up on the lead
rope get him to pick his head up and then say come on we're done with the grass walk away good boy
good boy and then i might just go back to you know leading him around the property making sure stop
back up walk forward good boy stop back up walk forward another thing you can do when you're
leading your horse around is kind of ask them to put their head a little bit down the thing
that's really important to remember is that you're always training your horse
so even when you're just enjoying spending time kind of bonding with your horse you
always really want to be aware of their energy aware of their focus and make sure
that they are paying attention to you and respectful of you so that you can really enjoy
the time that you have with your horse like here i might say come on walk a little more
forward have a little more activity stop back up walk forward again good boy and
then of course remember to reward now don't look away stay looking towards me good boy good boy
so let me know in the comments what you do to bond with your horse enjoy spending time
with your horse these are kind of some of my favorite things that i do with my horses
and again i think the most important thing hey back up is that anytime like even
here when i'm talking to you guys anytime when you're spending time with your horse
you're always training your horse and it's really important that they know that you're in charge and
that they are super respectful of your space and your request because we love our horses
but they're also big animals and they can hurt us so it's really important that we have
clear boundaries and that we are always enforcing those boundaries
and clear about those boundaries so that we can have really a good relationship with our horses
and you know if you're worried about like oh i don't want to be too hard on my horse because
then they won't like me that that logic doesn't really make sense because horses enjoy having
clear boundaries they like knowing who's in charge and if if they think they're in charge
it's not going to go well so you're the one in charge you make the clear boundaries and then
you love on your horse and you enjoy your horse in between i hope you like this video and thanks for
watching uh
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