Helping humans and horses communicate

Liberty Work Lessons

Please have experience with true positive reinforcement communication, perhaps with some other species, where your learner has always had a voice to be able to say No. 

My Liberty work is NOT the Natural Horsemanship method. It is force free Positive Reinforcement, utilizing the freedom of choice and consent from the learner.

The goal of Liberty Work Lessons is to help you develop a partnership with the horse, where the horse chooses to stay with you, mimicking your movements, dancing with you so to speak, without any bridles or tethers. Perhaps circling you, moving forward or back, going sideways away and toward, etc.

The horse has a choice to engage. It's all about consistent patterning and we can shape any pattern we want so long as we break it down enough for the horse to understand. As in all my work with horses, in Liberty Work Lessons there is no force or coercion. The horse makes a choice to offer a behavior or he doesn't. The burden of clarity and explanation is solely ours.

Liberty Work Lessons can be shared with my horse, at my place, to teach you the fundamentals of reinforcement quadrants.

Liberty Work Lessons can be explored with your horse if you have suitable facilities.

At first, a stall or rectangular space about 40x60' but not more than 70x 135'. The play space must be free from other horses interfering or joining in on the fun. Protected contact can be an asset or even a necessity, to give a horse freedom to choose. 

A smaller space or round pen will do for the first lessons, but will be too small to really allow the horse freedom to think he has a choice.  Ideally, protected contact is nice for the horse, if there is a space we can be inside, with the horse on the outside. It is sometimes called a reverse round pen.