Clinton Anderson's Walkabout Tour!

The truck parked out front!

Well as you guys know I went to the Clinton Anderson Walkabout Tour on Saturday! I learned very much and it was so very interesting. I am going to be using a lot of the things I learned on Beauty when I get her. I think it will help her in the long run.

First up was Doc. Clinton uses "problem horses" from the area. Anyway I wasn't really paying attention *I was taking more pictures than paying attention at that point in time. I couldn't really hear what the owner was saying either* so I don't really know what this horses "problem" was.

Clinton got in the roundpen with the horse and he didn't really let the horse (Doc) get close to him. He said I don't want this horse in my personl space till he respects me. I thought that made sense. So he sent him around the round pen. His cues were point (in the direction you want the horse to go) cluck and then spank (first the ground then the horse if he needs that) This horse didn't need that. He uses the spanking as an incentive and eventually the horse went with just the point and cluck then just the point. Pretty impressive =D

Well here you can see him pointing and it was so that the horse would go into a canter.

Here he asked the horse to stop then using his finger, he *asks* the horse to come in by pulling on its imaginery lead rope (it made sense..If I am not making sense it is because I am not either remembering something right or skipping something). He used this to get the horse to turn directions. He wanted the horse to change directions toward him than toward the fence. He (Clinton) says two eyes are better than two heels. Anyway it took a bit for this horse to figure everything out but he got it eventually =)

Clinton's goal was to get the horse to WANT to be with him. Well what he said was he wants the horse to catch him not the other way around. The key was to ignore the horse. You know when you WANT to catch your horse they don't want you to but when you ignore them that is almost more than they can stand =D

One of the last things he did was he desensitized the horse to the rope. He talked a lot on sensitizing and desensitizing. It was all very very interesting and I enjoyed listening to him a lot. I know I didn't say or cover near everything he did but it would take forever to do so. I just covered what I pictures I put up =)

This was the next horse Belle!! I do know when she came in the areana (this next session was how to do all do the same things outside the areana as he did inside) she was a very jumpy horse. She wouldn't stand still as she is in the pictures she was constantly moving!! Not good.

First thing first was she needed to learn to respect his space. She wanted to be by him but as for the first horse she needed to learn respect first. So she would follow him but he would make motions with his elbows and that would keep her out of his space.

Now for the fun part. She was nervous whenever we as a crowd laughed or clapped. So what we did was we would clap till she showed one of the five signs of relaxing (lowering her head, licking her lips, sighing, cocking her foot, or blinking her eyes). Then when she would put her head up again we would clap again. It was so cool. It didn't take her long to figure it out!

Here she has her head down. She would put it up then down then up again and she was like wow I can get these guys to stop clapping =D

Here he was getting ready to send her off to lunge. It was interesting to watch and I know I learned a lot. It is all in your body launguage and such!

Here he was stepping in front of her because she wasn't changing directions like she should have been.

Then the owner came out and did some of the things that Clinton was doing. Again this was very intersting although I liked the second demonstration a ton better than the first!

It was a wonderful day. I learned a lot, laughed a lot and over just had fun. A great experience and if you ever have a chance to see some of his things in person it is an awesome experience!