I think that natural horsemanship and clicker training help with a horse's focus, which is to be on the owner / rider / trainer.
When we talk about natural horsemanship, it's not about sending your horse out to a trainer to have him do "NH" with your horse. It's about the owner learning natural horsemanship to have a bond, a common language, with the horse. Clicker training helps to solidify the bond. Christine used positive reinforcement a long time ago, showing in her book, The Joy of Icelandics (More Joy), having a horse stop when the pad falls off his back, in preparation for him learning to stop if his rider comes off. She used treats on the pad which encouraged the horse to stop, and get his reward. We always want the horse's main focus to be on us as riders. Dr. Deb calls this the horse's "birdie". If his "birdie" flies off to some other location (meaning his mind is elsewhere, other than on his rider), he is not *with* us. A horse should be comfortable enough to give the control of his body to us for the time that we are riding. Some horses have not learned this. Their focus is maybe on another horse, and will canter when that horse canters. Or it could be on the barn, and when the opportunity arises, *his* desires override the rider's desires, and he takes off. Having a horse that has his main focus on his rider is gold, pure gold. Judy http://icehorses.net http://clickryder.com
