The Ultimate Horse Training and Behavior Book - Limited Edition

We have your Ultimate Horse Behavior and Training book and love TTouch, particularly the ear stroking technique that you used to stop a horse from colicking. We, in fact, used it to calm a blind horse who got a hind leg trapped in her blanket. It was truly amazing to see her breathing slow and her muscles soften so she could be freed. I, myself, and the other volunteers at the rescue would love to have more exposure to everything you do.

We have 75 horses on site and are one of the largest rescues on the West Coast. Most of our horses are yearlings to unstarted six year olds who were only minimally halter trained before coming to us.
—Kalie



Dear Linda and all your terrific staff,

Thank you so much for the TTouch training at Trailblazer Festival this last weekend. I am so happy to now have the tools to help Ming have a better, more comfortable balanced life!

I am a board member of the Los Padre Trail Riders in Santa Barbara and I got a call a couple of months back when I was on my way home from yet another exhausting jiggy trail ride. Tami asked me if I wanted to put Ming in the Linda Tellington Jones clinic and I had to laugh as I was so tired form the trail ride.

When I brought Ming, Linda got to see how Ming can be, never walking flat footed, jigging in place,spinning, circling, all the things a jiggy horse does. So for two days, we got to see first hand the TTouch and how to use the tools, the balance rein and even Linda riding Ming with NOTHING on his face and just the Liberty ring around his neck. Now I have a goal! Now I have the tools! This is so exciting!

With his saddle and pad adjusted,and the training bit and reins and balance rein, I discovered how my seat made Ming more forward. And when he went forward, I would clamp down with my legs which drove even more forward! I bought the Ultimate Horse Behavior and Training book and looked up jiggy, so under Jiggy/ Joggy, I have a list of TTouch and ground exercises I can do to break this pattern we have both developed and that had become a never ending circle.

So thank you all once again, I am looking forward to letting you know how much success we have in our new venture together.

—Susan




This book has instantly become my NUMBER ONE HORSE BEHAVIOR AND TRAINING book in my entire library. It is just incredible! I haven't been able to put it down. I actually started tagging with mini post-its all the pages and things I liked and eventually had to stop because it was soon becoming every single page. If you are dead keen on learning some massage, wanting to really bond and earn your horse's trust -- if you have a horse who is herd bound and want to ride out on your own, if your horse has an injury that you want to help him get over, if you want to get your horse listening to you, if you want to relax your horse before a ride, if you want to physically see changes in your horse -- this is the book for you.

I had been reading about Linda Tellington-Jones and her TTouch methods for a while and was a bit skeptical. I put it off for a year or so before I saw this book online and decided to just go ahead and purchase it and at least see what it was all about. I mostly made the decision to buy it because she has 30 years plus experience and has scientific evidence and proof to back up what she teaches. It wasn't just some mumbo-jumbo up in the air technique. My style is to go with tried and tested, things that have ultimately proved to be effective.

This book is FULL of case studies and tips on what you can do and try with your horse. This book is basically the ultimate guide to anything you wanted to know about your horse. It lists a full A-Z section on horse problem behavior and reasons for it, then offers regular training tips as well as then offering TTouch methods. I have become a believer after trying only some of the methods suggested such as Lowering the Head and the Abalone TTouch and the Connected Circles. I made sure I was down at the yard when no one else was around and all was quiet and relaxing, and I could try these without anyone else wondering what the hell I was doing :o ) Within ten seconds of doing the Abalone TTouch on my horse's neck, his eyes dropped and his head dropped and his breathing came out in deep, even huffs. I was amazed! He is normally quite a tense and spooky horse and normally is always on the look out. I then wondered if it was just in my imagination, wondering if i just wanted it to work, so then I practiced a few other things in her book -- such as using the 'wand' to ground the horse. I just used my old red carrot stick whip, and in a moment of him spooking, I calmly Lowered his Head (which I'd taught him previously) and he dropped it with eyes wild and I stroked his legs from chest to toe with the wand to ground him, and within seconds his eyes returned to normal, he huffed out a sigh and stood quietly.

It is important to remember that things won't happen overnight. Those particular things happened over a couple of days for me, because they are the most basic things you can do, but they gave me the heart to try the other things. I am absolutely besotted with this book and believe that even if you don't get out of it what I have, at the least you can read through the A-Z reasons of horse behavior and understand why they do it, and try some of the ground work pole exercises and ridden work. The sections are clean and laid out beautifully, the text is big and easy to read, everything is described step by step all with color photos which are numbered and coincide with the steps. There are many case studies and a great story about getting a warmblood yearling back on a float he'd had an accident on within only one day. The ground work exercises are invaluable and there are great bomb-proofing ideas that you can do with things just lying about your own place -- nothing that you really need to buy extra. You can also improvise on the 'wand' like I did, and you can buy a dog chain lead or make your own zephyr lead out of yachting rope and a clip -- you don't need to buy anything.

I can't say enough about this book -- if you were like me and wondering if you should buy it and on the fence -- just bite the bullet and get it -- it's one of the best buys you'll ever make. Everyone should have this on their shelf, I now keep it in my tack shed, still with all the post-its sticking out of it so i can find my favorite exercises. The best book I have ever bought.

A note from Linda: This review is from a blog whose author we have lost. If you know the author we would be grateful. Thank you, Linda Tellington-Jones