SVSilent wrote:
For example, the moment I feel that she is not by my shoulder, I make her stop, or back up, or move left or right. Yet again, a call from her mother will make her run back at once. That makes me feel that it's not trust that makes her follow, but respect or maybe fear that was build through training, (making the wrong thing difficult the right thing easy). Or if I can explain this differently I don't feel the spirit in this, I just see nicely performed exercises.
Oh, I can SO relate to this. That's exactly how I felt with Titum in 2007, after I had done pressure-based training with him for seven years. We were going for walks at liberty and I could let him graze and then whistle and he came cantering towards me, and it looked ever so amazing to other people. But actually it was nothing more than him knowing that if he does not react to my small cue, that cue will get bigger until he reacts, and that if he does not come to me, I will chase him off.
Now I would rather have him on a line (if I am not sure he wants to stay anyway) than that I would try to make sure he stays with me by punishing him for not doing that. As a consequence, now that he knows that he can freely express himself, I am getting the most valuable feedback on my actions from him. Whenever I am not doing something well, he tells me at once, and with that he has become one of my very best teachers.