Voice cues you shouldn’t use.

“Egghhh, Arggh, Erggh, eh, eh, eh,” or any other buzzer sounds. Phrases like “Cut it out!, Stop that!,” Excessive clicking, clucking, kissing, etc, basically, any sound that makes you sound like that annoying dog owner that no ones appreciates, are undesirable. Sometimes people think buzzing loudly at their horse is effective because your horse hears your annoying sound and associates it with doing the wrong thing, then magically stops doing that thing. 🤔

Hint… they don’t stop doing it. All that happens is you keep making inelegant sounds. There are more elegant ways to teach. Ways everyone appreciates even more.

As a professional, we try to avoid sounding annoying. Why, you might ask, is it so important? Two reasons. Imagine being filmed as a professional and your audience can’t get past your constant ticks and twitches. Presentation matters if you want the right message to get through. (I know most people don’t have professional goals, but… most people do want to look and act practiced. Pros practice good habits.)

And the second reason it’s undesirable to make annoying sounds, besides the fact its inelegant, is your horse gets used to it and simply ignores you. This means it’s ineffective and redundant. I see it too often to misinterpret it. How you communicate matters.

Oh, and there’s a third reason. Generally, it’s useful to have your horse non reactive to sudden, loud, noises of all kind. Just ask a mounted policeman, mounted shooter, or anyone who works with livestock, cracking a whip or driving cattle. The point is we don’t want to sensitize, we want to desensitize our horses to noises. What we want instead is to teach our horses to listen to our whispers. To tune into the subtle things. It’s more effective and it’s also more artistic.

Anyway, it’s all food for thought. You can make loud noises to buzz at your horses if you want to, its a free country. This all just comes as a suggestion, not a rule. In order to seem more practiced and professional, it’s nice to dress the part, so to speak. There’s no loss of love from me if you do it differently. We all have our own things and that’s beautiful too. Thanks for listening. ​Don