Putting Relationships First. Cooperative Training and Permission for Procedures with Melanie Watson

This presentation will educate the audience on possibilities. It’s real-time training, sometimes under challenging circumstances. The horses featured in this presentation all come from a base of trauma or suffering from PTSD. As a result, each horse holds fear, flight, or rage through classical conditioning, and all have unwanted learned behaviors in defense of themselves or in survival.
The videos in this presentation show the type of training used to change all of this and show what can be created using an approach that promotes cooperative relationships.

All the training is positive, putting the horse’s emotional state first and foremost, and each horse has been empowered with full choice.

Learning Objectives:

The audience will gain authentic information and ideas as to just what is possible when working with traumatized, dangerous, and fearful horses when it comes to cooperative care.
We will look at in detail

• Foot handling
• Injection desensitisation
• Bridle and bit fear
• Poll and ear desensitisation
• Severe wound care

Your Presenters-Melanie Watson BHSAI

Melanie S Watson BHSAI. Instinctive Horse Training is an Equine Behaviour Consultant and Trainer.

Melanie is an endorsed trainer for The World Bitless Association. Was the winner of the Equestrian Business Awards 2021 for Behaviour Trainer of the Year and is a member of The Pet Professional Guild, IAABC and IEP.

Melanie has been in business, training horses, since 1985 in Skidby, East Yorkshire. She is a leading light in the UK for modern and ethical horse behavior modification using applied behavioral science, learning theory, and LIMA principles (least invasive, minimally aversive).

Branded Instinctive Horse Training, Melanie was the UK’s very first professional training yard to adopt force-free training based on a marker (clicker) Counter conditioning and systematic desensitizing training as the base for retraining complicated and traumatized horses, ex-racehorses, as well as introducing all young horses to the world of ridden work via positive reward.

Alongside the brick-and-mortar yard work, Melanie provides home visits across the North of England to where the problem is happening. She also provides video behavior consultations remotely and mentors horse owners worldwide via Skype, Zoom, and Whats app video calling to both understand their horses’ behavior and support future behavior change with bespoke training routes and protocols.

Although Melanie works across species (zoos, dogs, and anything in between), Melanie is ostensibly a horse behavior specialist. Melanie provides talks and training seminars, presents at conferences, and runs workshops for horse and pet owners, animal trainers, zoos, and veterinary students, and regularly guest lectures at various universities and colleges across the UK.

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