No Reins

6:36 PM, LtheL

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

These are Lady's LtheL cups* that I made to help assess where she needs the most help in building her confidence.

*Confidence cups were briefly talked about in an article Linda wrote for the Savvy Times. I was then told that charting your horse using LtheL is a really good idea but I thought that it'd be much simpler to chart my horse's confidence using the cups and LtheL combined.This is the LtheL concept for those who are scratching their heads and thinking "what?":

“ LtheL” is the acronym for the 5 Confidence Cups or Areas of Confidence.

Leader (confidence in you as the Leader)
Themselves (self confidence)
Herd (how confident the horse is in a Herd environment)
Environment (how changes in Environment changes the behaviour of the horse)
Learner (how confident is the horse as a Learner - in a situation where he has to figure something new out).

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(Thanks so much to Lucy for sharing all of this with me!)

Lady has gained a lot of confidence in herself and in me as a leader since our journey began.

When she first came here she was all nerves but, now she really trusts me and is letting her true self shine! Relaxed LBI that she is.

The small amount of time she has spent meeting new animals (herd) she's dominant, pushy and downright mean! So I've pegged her as a super confident wanna-be alpha.

When she came here and the few times I have walked around with her outside of the fence, she turns into a massive RBE. Bracy, reactive and walking all over me. So her environment really has an effect on her confidence.

As a learner she goes RBI mostly. Needs lots of time, repetition and comfort.

So the areas that need the most work are environment and as a learner. I want the good areas to become the great areas! You know what Pat says:

"Good, better, best, never let it rest, get your good better and your better best."