Peggy Hogan fell in love with horses at age 3 when her sister put her on a pay-per-lap pony ride in Griffith Park, Los Angeles.
Along with her passion for horses, she began to take an interest in training dogs. At age 15, she owned a dog that was trained to respond to hand and verbal cues; she even found an agent for the dog. Before long it became clear that Hollywood was not exactly ready to welcome a 15-year-old dog trainer, but that did not deter her passion for training animals.
Since those early days, Peggy has devoted herself to the study of how to better communicate with all animals, but her passion remained with horses. She began to study Natural Horsemanship, but the use of pressure and negative reinforcement as a method for training behavior left her hunting for something different.
Soon she immersed herself in the teachings of
Peggy Cummings, a master clinician and founder of Connected Riding®. Peggy Hogan teaches Connected Riding® with its focus on ease of movement and postural balance with alignment for both horse and human. Her study with Peggy Cummings transformed her ability to stay connected with a horse both on the ground and in the saddle.
Throughout these years of study she heard of
Alexandra Kurland, who was using positive reinforcement in a technique called Clicker Training, based on the science of Operand Conditioning.. Alex was achieving very clear communication and profound results with horses; Peggy saw the changes in training she knew were the right match for her.
After watching and learning from clicker trainers of other species, Peggy started investigating ways to add more and more shaping, capturing, luring and targeting to her program. She knew there was a way to use these pressure-free techniques for teaching behavior to horses. She wholeheartedly embraced the idea that horses would respond and offer behavior freely if given the choice.
Today when you watch
Peggy's videos, you will see a variety of horses, at liberty, offering behaviors that range from freestyle, to agility, to medical procedures. She has trained full-sized horses as well as miniature horses. Her techniques have been used to help a variety of rescued horses, too.
Peggy's current goal is to share the steps of learning Clicker Training - primarily these lesser-known techniques of shaping, capturing, luring, and targeting. It is an exciting time for all horse owners and, with Clicker Training, you will find the ordinary horse owner can achieve wonderful results that, until now, were reserved for professional trainers.
