Desensitizing is an essential exercise for all horses to learn. It teaches them to think versus react when in a scary situation or presented with a scary object. Desensitizing also allows us to gain our horses' trust and "prove" to them we are able to guide them through a scary situation. I think we all can agree that we rather have a nice ride in the arena or stroll down the trail without spooking and looking. This exercise is perfect for building confidence in all horses. 

As always, thanks again for digging deeper into the philosophy behind this exercise, you're already a step ahead of those who just watch the video. If you haven't seen it yet, be sure to check out my free full length training tutorial here. 

In the first exercise, round penning, we learned how to move our horse's feet and gain respect in the round pen. That exercise is what we call a sensitizing exercise. A sensitizing exercise is anything we teach our horse to react positively to by moving their feet or responding to a cue. In that case, we would point in the air and expect our horse to lope in that direction. When we stepped in front of his drive line, we expected him to respond by changing directions towards us. As awesome as sensitizing exercises are, there needs to be a balance. If you were to just do sensitizing exercises, your horse would be hot, nervous, and not fun to be around. He would anticipate and begin to react even when you didn't want him to! Because moving his feet is all he's ever known, he associates you and your tools with work. 

Sounds inconvenient, right? Well luckily you can prevent that all-together by doing desensitizing. Desensitizing shows a horse that he doesn't need to be afraid of our tools or us, and shows him that the right answer is to stay put and calm until we cue him to do something. As with every exercise, we use the principles of pressure and release, which we call approach and retreat in this case. The basic idea of this method is that you approach your horse with the tool, then retreat it when he calms down and stops moving. While in the video we start with our sensitizing tools, the lead rope and training stick, you can use anything to desensitize your horse! After your horse is calm with the tools, I encourage you to get creative and think of crazy/weird items to try. Things that make sounds or weird movements like plastic bags or feed sacks are a great way to start taking it to the next level. 

Desensitizing teaches your horse to stay calm and trust you in all situations; It's no secret why it's one of the first things I do with my horses. Thanks for reading through this, I hope this information was helpful and understandable to you :) I am so excited to help you and your horse establish an unbreakable bond built on trust and respect, you're already on the right track! Show me some love in the comments, be a good friend and share, and if you have any questions at all, please feel free to comment.