Has anyone shown up in flip flops or shorts for riding?
Do people run in the barn or yell to a friend and spook your horse?
Has anyone given your horse a treat without your permission and you worried about them getting bitten?
It can be frustrating. You think they should know better. You don't want to come across as mean or bossy but you also don't have the time it takes to explain the reason behind barn rules. That's why you need this book!
Barn Rules is a companion booklet in the Brown Pony Series but was written with a much broader audience in mind:
- Parents and grandparents desiring a safe horse experience for kids
- 4-H leaders
- Lesson instructors
- Horse camps
- Therapeutic equine assisted activity programs
- Mental health professionals offering equine learning or psychotherapy
- Therapists offering hippotherapy
- Horse lovers
- New horse owners
The barn rules cover what to do, what not to do, and why. The first section of each chapter offers background information on the highlighted rule, then summarizes the information using Scripting (the author's form of Social StoriesTM), and finishes with an adorable original art poster depicting the rule with a YES icon or a NO icon and two or three sentences of explanation.
There are rules that cover for example, what to wear and what not to wear, how to behave around horses, and to wait for permission for various horse activities.
The book ends with two bonus pages of the entire art collection of rules and the print version can be cut out, laminated and used as Picture Communication Cards for horse games, as a visual aid during barn orientation, or for children with autism.
This book is a great tool for riding instructors to use during the first visit with clients and for horse owners to share with friends and family who are interested in riding.
Rebecca Cook is an Occupational Therapist and Equine Professional with over 30 years of experience in the arena. She has authored 12 Steps to Integrity With Your Horse, Saddle Fit Simplified, and is also the author of The Brown Pony Series. What books are available in the Brown Pony Series?
- Book One: Introduction to Hippotherapy
- Book Two: Risk Management and Safety in Hippotherapy
- Book Three: Considering Hippotherapy in Your Career Plans
- Book Four: The Business of Hippotherapy
PLUS ...
Barn Rules: A Companion Book to the Brown Pony Series - A teaching tool of basic barn rules in social stories and pictures for instructors, riders, parents, and volunteers.
Tally Up: A Companion Book to the Brown Pony Series - Checklists created from a task analysis of showmanship and riding skills that can be used to improve understanding of a Judge's class placings and to provide a foundation of skills to practice for competition. Also, a great breakdown of skills for an instructor to use in lesson planning. Safe Horse Handling: A Companion Book to the Brown Pony Series - Increase awareness of common sense safety to implement when working around horses. Some of the tips may be inadvertently overlooked until there is an accident. Great for equine instructors, therapeutic riding volunteer training, and equine assisted activity and therapy programs. Incorporating Games in Hippotherapy: A Companion Book to the Brown Pony Series - Play is the "work" of the child (and the de-stressor of the adult). Play engages the whole person: imagination, emotion, cognition, and engagement, along with the physical skills components of the game activities.
About the Author: Rebecca Cook is an occupational therapist and lifelong horsewoman. She began teaching horsemanship to 4-H youth in 1988. Rebecca is a certified Centered Riding Instructor, a PATH Intl Riding Instructor and advanced Therapeutic Driving Instructor, PATH Intl Equine Specialist in Mental Health and Learning, and is certified as a Hippotherapy Clinical Specialist. Safety coupled with horse experiences has always been forefront in Rebecca's mind and she combined her therapy education with her horse knowledge to create the background information, special scripting and posters for each chapter.
