Whether you are addressing a long term issue, want to start your youngster at home, or just improve your equine partnership a home visit is initially the best way to formulate a plan to suit everyone.

Dida is happy to offer one-off visits for issues such as leading & loading (biting and kicking etc....) leaving clients with a clear training plan, and providing phone or email support, or for more complex problems follow up visits at regular intervals can be very helpful.

'Prior to the visit I like to have a good chat with clients to establish as much historical information as possible, and find out about their every day relationship with their horse.  Next, depending on the problem, we need to do all we can to find the cause, and not just assume its a behavioural issue.  So I look at routine, environment, diet, work load, tack, conformation, dental history, possible muscular skeletal issues and related past experiences. Then we can move on to seeing client and horse together, and the particular issue requiring attention. By this stage, there is usually a clear direction to take, and we can format a strategy'.

It is also possible to film training sessions, which can be a useful tool for clients to refer back to.

You may also like to consider sharing a training workshop with some friends - not only will this reduce the individual cost but will increase the opportunity for learning!

Important note: Training horses takes time, re-training a horse with a problem issue can take longer.  Please allow your horse the time it takes for him to work through whatever the issue may be.  For example, if he has experienced something traumatic when loading, or being clipped etc, it can quite often take 2 or 3 sessions to re-build trust and confidence, and for you, the owner to also feel comfortable completing the loading or clipping.  As someone trying to help both you and your horse move forward I greatly appreciate being given the time and space to complete the training knowing I am leaving a resolved issue, and not one half finished.   This can easily be incorporated into short sessions allowing time for latent learning and practice.

 Tip: When introducing something new, make what you want to happen the easiest option for the horse - learning the desired behaviour first is much more preferable to trying to unlearn unwanted behaviour.