Re: Join Up ? Love it , Hate it ?
Great thread post, Gem.
I'm in two minds when it comes to Join- Up, I see the benefits from it, i.e how it has helped your relationship with Psycho develop, but you know my reservations and my questions about it anyway.
My questions were;
If the horse wants to be with you, why do we send it away?
In the herd, do the mares only send the foals away as a punishment or for a certain reason, therefore can Join-Up be punishing to some horses?
It didn't work for Shadow and me, I perhaps did it wrong, but we've got a way which works and it is following how horses learn and train, applying learning theory in order to understand why he behaves. I think dominance is another subject in it's own, and there are so many different views on it, for example, KFH uses the word dominance a lot, but perhaps this is the language barrier, meaning he cannot entirely interpret the word, and dominance is a similar word. Secondly, it depends how we view dominance. Just like some people see horses taking the pee is naughty, out of spite and malicious, whereas others, term it into the catergory of horses having a sense of humour.
I agree with the latter, horses have a sense of humour, and I think they enjoy the attention received from a certain behaviour, for example, Shadow used to eat his headcollar when he put it on, and I would talk to him, sometimes I would laugh and other times I would be like 'oh Shad!!', he got a bit of attention from it. I lacked consistency, but I have now, successfully extinguished this behaviour, although the odd extinction burst does occur, but if I keep consistent, this will soon enough, disappear altogether.
Join Up is something which I do not fully understand, and I have not fully studied it. He gave a brief outline in his book and on his videos, but these questions still gnaw away at me!!!
xx
Our lives begin to end; the day we become silent about the things that matter.