My approach to horse behaviour and training problems includes two essential stages: understanding the horse’s motivation for the unwanted behaviour, and as a result, devising an individual training programme for new behaviour.

Knowing how and why a behaviour problem developed in the first place is a fantastic leg-up in working out the most effective way to change unwanted behaviour. Far from excusing a horse for its problems, knowing the exact motivation gives vital clues to how the horse perceives and responds to the world around it.

When the horse’s motivation is understood, I then get to work on creating a new, easy to follow training and management programme based on the first principles of natural horse behaviour and learning. This means that your horse’s programme is unique because it is exactly tailored to him and so is more likely to be effective. But because both you and I care about your horse’s health and happiness, any behaviour therapy will also be designed to enhance your horse’s quality of life, so that not only do you learn how to help your horse to behave better, you also get a horse more able to enjoy life.

The reason why I don’t subscribe to any particular method is because horses and humans are individuals. This means that by following a set method I run the risk of letting down the horses and their people that the set method is not fit for. I’m fortunate to have learned about the fundamentals of equine learning and behaviour (that we know to date!) and this means that the principles of habituation and associative learning can be applied to training individual horses in whatever is appropriate to them and their owners. Of course I am known for my enthusiasm for clicker training! This is because the clicker is a helpful tool for employing the principle of positive reinforcement across a wide variety of training scenarios.