Habit forming - improve your bond with your horse
Aug 18, 2026 · 22 min · 9 segments
Equiteam's Liz Daniels chats to Gill Birrell as they look at habit forming and how it can help your relationship and journey with your horse…
Aug 18, 2026 · 22 min · 9 segments
Equiteam's Liz Daniels chats to Gill Birrell as they look at habit forming and how it can help your relationship and journey with your horse…
Lou GillingsHost
So habit forming really matters because those tiny little things that we do or don't do, um, can create habits-
... that are either good or bad, because we communicate subconsciously with them the whole time.
So Frank, for a while, would load perfectly when we were going away, and now, he, he was a bit tricky before we sorted it.
Um, and I'm always really careful that I walk beside his shoulder all the way up to the, up the ramp, trying to get him in the horse box.
Um, but he still stops, and he refuses to walk further forward, and then I lift the lunge line, and he walks straight in.
And actually, it's become a habit that actually he now knows when I'm going on the trailer, if I pick up the lunge line.
But the other part, in terms of the communication, is that when he's naughty, or when I think he's being naughty, putting human emotions on it-
So he stops at the bottom of the ramp, and I give him a row and tell him off for not walking up the ramp.
And actually, I'm now making it somewhere he doesn't want to go, and then he waits for the, the lunge line.
No, that is true, and it's interesting how when I think of habit forming, I think of it as a positive set of guides-
And it, I suppose it makes total sense what you're saying about the horses, and they're, they're so good in lots of different therapy settings because they're so good at reading emotions.
So habit forming really matters because those tiny little things that we do or don't do, um, can create habits-
... that are either good or bad, because we communicate subconsciously with them the whole time.
So Frank, for a while, would load perfectly when we were going away, and now, he, he was a bit tricky before we sorted it.
Um, and I'm always really careful that I walk beside his shoulder all the way up to the, up the ramp, trying to get him in the horse box.
Um, but he still stops, and he refuses to walk further forward, and then I lift the lunge line, and he walks straight in.
And actually, it's become a habit that actually he now knows when I'm going on the trailer, if I pick up the lunge line.
But the other part, in terms of the communication, is that when he's naughty, or when I think he's being naughty, putting human emotions on it-
So he stops at the bottom of the ramp, and I give him a row and tell him off for not walking up the ramp.
And actually, I'm now making it somewhere he doesn't want to go, and then he waits for the, the lunge line.
No, that is true, and it's interesting how when I think of habit forming, I think of it as a positive set of guides-
And it, I suppose it makes total sense what you're saying about the horses, and they're, they're so good in lots of different therapy settings because they're so good at reading emotions.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
