Earlier this week, Sue spent some time talking with Jim Swanner, Internationally known Natural Horsemanship Clinician, and host All About Horses radio.

All About Horses" airs each Monday morning at 9:30 CST on WKAC 1080 AM and stream a twkac1080.com.

Some of the topics touched on are highlighted below. Listen to the whole interview here:

http://tinyurl.com/IAH-All-About-Horses

Imagine a Horse is about developing the learning power and desire for interaction in today's companion horse.

We teach six different categories of behaviors...each set of behaviors can be a starting point depending on the personality, learning style or goal for each horse. 

The 6 Categories are:

• Pedestal training
  
• Liberty...one horse or circus style with as many as you can imagine
  
• Agility...working the agility platform, rotating pedestal, target board and climbing wall and the sit down
  
• Engagement...retrieving, herding the big ball
  
• Tricks of Trust such as the obeisance, bow, kneel, lie down, sit up 
  
• Gait...Spanish walk, piaffe
  

We use lots of props such as pedestals, target boards, balls, modified frisbee and bean bags to sit on. Horses make strong associations between objects and actions which expedites learning because answers to the requests we make are obvious with no grey area.

Horses generally love this type of training. It can be used to encourage a timid horse, re- direct a horse that may have behavioral problems.

We think a smarter horse is a safer horse. A horse that will tackle the climbing wall here at home will most likely go anywhere you ask him to on the trail. 

Everything is designed to set a horse up for success. 

We acclimate horses to many, many new situations and empower them work with us . We want to develop a thinking horse that is confident. We use minimum repetition in teaching to help keep a horses mind fresh.....not dulled by repetition. 

Great for horses from weanlings to seniors. Positive reinforcement.

All About Horses with Jim Swanner is a featured radio show weekly at WKAC 1080 AM Station in Athens, Alabama.  Jim discusses topics that support the care, nurture, and enjoyment of the horse and rider relationship.  Community happenings, expert guests from all around the world, and informative programming is the focus of this thirty minute show. - See more at: http://jimswanner.com/radio/#sthash.QEKZSbec.dpuf