> It doesn't sound too difficult--is it like pushing his barrel upwards?
Sorta. The pressure is firm, but I liken the overall effect to more of a strong suggestion/ invitation to lift. > maybe > it takes more than a few times for a horse to relax to it. Definitely. I think many of them find it quite puzzling at first (especially if they've been taught to back out of a straight load with a tug-tug-tug on the tail). And sort of in response to Judy's question about how do horses communicate with us, it strikes me that a whole lot of Icelandics in particular "stop and think" when puzzled or worried or unsure. My boy gets worry lines above his eyes to varying degrees, and his ears swivel to me but get stiff. Personally, I want a critter who stops and thinks and then *calmly* and confidently starts offering me behaviors. I keep seeing horses come through the barn that are "sacked-out to death" who aren't so much naturally calm as afraid or in a state of learned helplessness such that they don't react at all. Hard to work with. I'm constantly amazed at how many people--well-meaning, caring, educated (academic and otherwise :) )--folks just absolutely cannot read their animals. I'll tell a client, "OK, he's getting stressed so let's back off for a bit and work on something else" and they'll ask "How can you tell he's stressed?" While I can certainly run down the physical signals, it's extraordinarily difficult to get folks to see the really subtle differences, especially when it's not just a matter of, say, a wagging tail in a dog being friendly or a wagging tail being part of an aggressive response. I had a woman once who every time her horse put his ears back to listen to her yelled at him or smacked him for "being aggressive." She could not see the difference between listening ears and pinned ears. :-O It did a job on her poor horse. /Roo
