August 2020 - Bernhardt's Journey

August 29, 2020October 29, 2020

Body Read – Body language and Expression

THE BODY READ – understanding BIO-MECHANISM, BODY LANGUAGE and EXPRESSION Yes he is WINKING at us in this picture because he is so happy and proud of himself – or is there more to this. Are his emotions and intellectual expressions meant to communicate? The answer should read something like -ok, either he PROTECTS his eye from being hit by the blue string or water drops or it is caused by the shake of the head during the grab or he has already a small water drop in the eye or…..pragmatic after all.

It is a very essential fundamentally important portion of training to learn THE READ. Whether you have direct body contact (horseback riding – BODY FEEL) or indirect through ongoing OBSERVATION – you must be intuitively sharp all the time. You have to learn the body of your partner and have to know the features required for success. Become aware of even the smallest resistance and tension areas, the ear play, the eye expression, back hind and front end activities, neck displays – EYE EXPRESSIONS.. tail positions and activity, licking and or tongue displays, grinding teeth, neck and head positions. proper rhythm and gait regularity, elasticity, stride length and ground cover, elevation and push, even body use, hesitance, shying, fear versus joy versus play versus defense or aggression or resistance.

An animal is not to be HUMANIZED in its behavior, intellectual processing or its ability to express itself on a ratio level that we just take for granted. It has its own way of talking. It is trainable because it can follow PATTERNS that are given by nature to be able to exist and survive. We than convert those patterns into activities at OUR LEISURE. We make decisions at times they normally would not even make – like placing them into distances towards jumps that will always force a half stride departure, an unwanted add on or a hop or even a stumble. Those than lead to reactions and performances that are for sure NOT FULL POTENTIAL and at times being so UNCOORDINATED even a DANGER of injuries.By just knowing the correct stride length, choosing the correct distance to place and take off, feeling/seeing the correct rhythm we can create security, COMFORT and NATURAL outcomes and make our decision making A GOOD and SAFE ONE.

There truly is way to much to say about this topic – way to much to do it any justice in a small write up. But as we all know a tiny intellectual seed planted can turn into a very strong tree.

August 23, 2020November 2, 2020

Defeat or Victory – humans emotions showing animals

This is a brief type up about HUMANS DISTRESS and ANXIETIES performing in MEN MADE outings with their ANIMALS

.Most people are perfectly capable to enter a basic or even advanced training relationship with their animal. They find rewarding emotional feedback in it, lots of their techniques are rather intuitive and feel based, rational responses based on their own observations knowing what works and what does not. They keep working with their partner, experiment in playful ways, even try new things and some day they decide to enter a show, attend a clinic or consult a trainer – either to see how they rank or to receive feedback to improve or to get the missing piece of the puzzle. They – the humans – volunteer to invite a third party – another human – into their team – to judge, to measure, to set conditions, lay out rules, oversee their work. And – the animal that day, that moment, that scenario, that quest, REFUSES to COMPLY. Not that it has not worked before, you had it of course tested, prepared, properly imprinted, it had even been shown before. It just won’t do it and NOW WHAT ?

No matter how bad or sad that feels the one thing you must know is that your animal really has no clues about how embarrassed you might be so – Stay calm,assess the conditions you are under and do never let your partner know what you think. By pointing it out you will create a very NEGATIVE training condition you will turn into someone very strange, scary, uncomfortable – a pool of negative energy one either runs away from or shuts down to.Do not surrender towards changing your training that got you here that same moment. Do not try to fix it right away. You can revisit after the show is over if you must.

So if possible wrap up and walk away calmly, excuse yourself skillfully to not sour your partner. Than check – Soundness, Environment(Lighting),Training and or Teaching Style, Time of Day, Length of outing, Work amounts applied, Stress Factors (Shipping,Weather) Familiarity and think of any other that will come to you. Clear every position.Make a plan to replicate something very close to the conditions you had faced when things did not work and enter it by KNOWING IT WILL WORK. If you than had fundamentally trained correctly and your performances have some substantial references that it did work before – it will work again.

Victory in animal training means to conquer your emotions and stand up for your friend that trusts that you make good decisions.Sometimes you just didn’t and they will tell you so – all you have to do is LISTEN and eventually you can even see them WALKING on WATER.

August 13, 2020November 2, 2020

Interactive and Spiritual Control

or why CONTACT does not mean CONNECTED

By working in depth with animals that are meant to perform you eventually come across the most amazing and fulfilling training scenario. You begin to realize that your spiritual energy transmits from one body to another, that a tiny whisper, a wink of the eye, a gesture of your hand cause performing energy to the eventual maximum of possibilities. All you did was a whisper to begin with. A tickle, A thought. And that delivers a piece of art very powerful yet enjoyable for spectators to look at wondering how did this just happen.

Lately i ran into a scenario in the horse world where a rider in desperate ways of wanting to learn was willing to spend a financial fortune to discover something as simple and individualized as it can be – FEEL and SPIRITUAL ENERGY. On a made horse. The rider liked the Connection – meaning the head of the horse dropped on picking up the rein. Nothing else just that part seemed most important. The submissive part of that animal was intriguing. Now – that is not what one truly should look for nor something one should throw gigantic sums of money at. One must be aware that animals have feelings they sense any emotional irregularity or negative energy but also find great comfort in the opposite. They can quickly emotional turn away from you and all there is left is mechanical SUBMISSION almost without spirit.

What needs to be worked on is the WHISPER, formation of an equality in spiritual energy , enticing signals clear and easy to understand, so that the outcome of the training is a consistent one that does not need any reins, any gadgets, any leashes, spurs, chains, collars or whatever instrument of human creation.Animals are a society too, they have their own rules,laws and tribal roots and their own evolutionary imprints they follow. We have the responsibility to discover, adopt, understand and support them in OUR desire to compete – we follow those principles and they give us the greatest gift and miracle there is – they give us SPIRITUAL CONTROL .