What liberty have done for my horses (and me)

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It's been a while since we started liberty. The very first tries came in december 2018, so now that it's April 2020, it's almost a year and a half we have done this. As it's also Ronja's birthday, i decided to reflect on our journey and which changes this has brought to us.

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Ronja

Since It's her birthday, let's start with Ronja. Before, she didn't like training. Or me, for that matter. She was constantly lame, she was stiff, the best we had done was put on muscle with loads of hillwork in hand, every day, sometimes several times a day. But I couldn't keep it up when autumn came and made the hills muddy and slippery, the rain taking my motivation. That winter, i tried something new. I started liberty. The first week straight she said no and walked away after 5 minutes or if I asked for trot. But I had nothing better to do, so that didn't bring my motivation down. We kept at it and slowly, over months of training, she started to act more alive. She was more willing to move and moved better when she did. She wasn't lame as much. I was blown away the first time trot wasn't something she did *only* for the treat, but also because she wanted to. My old, stiff pony who hated movement had started to enjoy it. Now, she absolutely love running around, she's no longer stiff and have as much muscle from a play session whenever the weather is good and I have time as from daily hillwork. And this time, her mental health improved as much as her physical. She keep herself in decent shape just by being in the pasture because she now enjoy moving so much.

She used to be unable to canter - Now, she can canter like a normal horse and will choose to do it, that way training on her own what i for the 4 years i've had her has dreaded, because I for sure didn't want to sit through the thing she did instead of canter before while having her figure out how to do it.

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Ditte

Oh my beautiful little pony who have been so hard selling or putting down have been real concerns. She have all these problems. Food anxiety, seperation anxiety, mild claustrophobia and then she can't handle not being in control. It took a while to figure out how to work with her, but through R+ and consent based training, what i think of as liberty, we found a way. For the past year food anxiety have been our major point. All her dangerous behavior came from it and it fueled her other problems. We have went from a biting horse, so desperate for food and attention she was going crazy. Trying to train normal food manners resulted in a shaking, sweating mess as her aggression was how she handled her food anxiety. I taught her new ways. Helped her handle her feelings. I learned along the way. One big thing I learned is she need an external focus to understand what i'm asking. By now, she's able to catch herself when charging at me to bite and show me another behavior instead I can reward - and I always do. Before this, i tried training her to jump and do poles, which just turned poles into a trigger for her. Now, we can do polework while still having access to her brain. The process from mindlessly attacking for treats, so desperate you couldn't train anything, to being calm and thinking around them have blown me away. She cope by moving, so she still struggle a bit with stationary behaviors, but moving she have met a trigger and kept calm. We're at a point where the things I plan to do/train to help her further along is things I never thought we would be able to do. It's so hard to explain, i wish you guys could experience the different feel of just being near her now compared to then.

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Sofie

Before this, i never trained with Sofie. I couldn't. I couldn't halter her, couldn't clean her hooves, couldn't anything. The first thing we trained was her hooves. The farrier was coming and her owner couldn't be there, so she had to learn other people could handle her feet. I did it at liberty. Later, she kept coming and asking to train while I worked with my own and that's how I started training a willing, green horse with no mental or physical problems - Very different from ponies! Since I couldn't halter her, i taught her to lead and turn tackless. However, even just last autumn, she needed a rope around her neck as a way of holding her hand in order to do things like walking over a pole on the ground. Since Sofie have always been happy and willing without problems, i never thought it would change much in her attitude. I was wrong. Being told "Yes, you're awesome!" To her ideas, praised and having a happy human around, her confidence build. Once when i had a raised pole for Ronja and a ground pole out, i asked her to go so she would be between me and the ground pole. I thought it could help build her confidence. But she turned away from me and walked over the raised pole, then came and asked for her reward. I was and still am blown away. Such a great horse already, meeting cows and tractors without problems as long as she have a horse, so willing and an all around amazing horse already - yet the basic liberty I did with her still build confidence enough for her to start taking on challenges herself and not needing anyone holding her hand as she did.

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My own progress

What liberty and this way of training have done for me is incredible. I have learned so much, also things not necesarily related to liberty work. I've learned about training different horses, working through problems, working on the underlying reason for problems instead of just behavior. I have found my way of training. I could never find anything that worked or that i wanted to stick with - But by starting liberty and learning about this completely different way of training, i found my way, how I enjoy being with horses, a way of training I can stick with. It work so well for me because my horses are litterally training themselves in the pasture through learning about the fun of movement, Ditte working on her coping mechanisms for her feelings when i'm not there too because that make her feel better. It's really impossible to describe the way this just feel right to me a way nothing else have done.

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Overall, both my horses and I have benefitted so much from this. Both mentally and for Ronja also physically. I can't wait to see where else this will bring us, which other things I thought impossible that we will achieve.

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