The basis of teaching my horses to paint came out of my quest
to see if horses can be trained primarily with positive
reinforcement.
I’d heard many trainers say that negative reinforcement or
pressure/release is your line of communication with your horse.
I wanted to try something different.
I saw the vast contrast between working with my horses
using methods of attraction and using methods of pressure. It
became a question: Was I like a predator using pressure, or a
provider using attraction? By
training with attraction, my horses were relaxed and focused without using
any force.
Pressure can be communicated to a horse with a
shout or a whisper. I like what I see in my horses when they
respond because the choice feels good, not because they're
avoiding something that feels bad.
-cw
Blog & Comic Strip Now Online
See the latest news with my painting horses and
stay updated on my adventures in training with
attraction at my new blog,
I Feel Good, My Horse Feels Good, The Beauty and Simplicity of Training with Attraction.
And to balance the more serious side of
my training posts, I've
also created a comic strip,
Horse Pucky, also posted at the blog.
Teach Your Horse to Paint Cheryl Ward
Since 2004 I have been collaborating with my
horses to create what I call 'interspecies
collaborative action art.' My horses paint with
brushes in their mouths and I choose the colors,
brushes and direct the canvas. During this time
we’ve appeared at festivals, horse shows and art
shows. We’ve been on national TV and I’ve
written articles for magazines both here and
abroad. The overwhelming response to what we do
has been:
How in the world do you
teach a horse to paint?
Before I could answer that
with any authority I had to make certain that
Romeo, a formerly troubled Paso Fino and my first
painter, wasn’t a fluke.
We then we welcomed
Juliet,
a bold and curious Paso Fino mare, who seemed
to learn simply by watching Romeo.
Shortly
after that we found a sabino pinto gelding
suffering from post traumatic stress disorder.
We thought teaching him to paint would help him. It turned out that DaVinci learned
to paint before we could even touch him.
And
if three painting horses weren’t enough, I
really wanted to see what a yearling could do.
As luck would have it we acquired not just any
yearling, but a Clydesdale yearling! Raleigh's
zeal for painting tops the other three.
The Sum of My Experience So it is with these experiences with four
diverse horses that I offer you the tutorial
below, Teach Your Horse to Paint.
I hope you find my method of 'Training by
Attraction' helpful in teaching your horse to
paint and in other valuable skills.
Teach
Your Horse to Paint By Cheryl Ward
Free Download
Learn how to teach your horse to paint
PDF Format, 10 pages
Print, share with friends and enjoy!
"Teaching your horse to paint is not so much
about teaching your horse to wield a brush as
much as it is understanding pressure-free,
attraction-based training..."
March 18, 2009 Launch of "Horse Pucky" Comic Strip
To balance the more serious side of her new blog,
Cheryl has created a new comic strip, Horse
Pucky, (also found on her blog).
March 6, 2009 PaintingHorse Blog Now Online
Stay updated with new articles,
posts, videos, photos and more at Cheryl's blog,
I Feel Good, My Horse Feels Good.
January 1, 2009 New Directions
Cheryl is hanging up her brushes and will no
longer be creating new paintings for the
gallery. And, as of January 2009, the current
paintings will no longer be for sale. She's directing her focus on
rehabilitating troubled horses,
like DaVinci, and
expanding her alternative training method. She
will continue to post new articles and videos of
her work in hopes that it may help other horses
find healing.
PAINTING HORSES STAR IN
CHILDREN'S BOOK
By
Cheryl Ward
Home Sweet Home with Romeo & Juliet
Imagine a pair of 900-pound
horses photographed in a furnished, carpeted
house eating cake with a Chihuahua
Before I could answer that
with any authority I had to make certain that
Romeo, a formerly troubled Paso Fino and my first
painter, wasn’t a fluke.
We then we welcomed
Juliet,
a bold and curious Paso Fino mare, who seemed
to learn simply by watching Romeo.
Shortly
after that we found a sabino pinto gelding
suffering from post traumatic stress disorder.
We thought teaching him to paint would help him. It turned out that DaVinci learned
to paint before we could even touch him.
And
if three painting horses weren’t enough, I
really wanted to see what a yearling could do.
As luck would have it we acquired not just any
yearling, but a Clydesdale yearling! Raleigh's
zeal for painting tops the other three.
