AVONDALE ICELANDICS LLC- OWNERS/INSTRUCTORS/TRAINERS- Dor and Chris
Wife and Husband team introducing the Icelandic Horse breed to those 8-80 for 20 years in the Seattle Area. Trained as a tech sales operations consultant, Dor has now applied her proven process improvement approaches to accelerating results towards dramatically improve one's performance working with Icelandic Horses and Dogs too. Teaching Basic to Advanced Principles for Horses/Dogs in: - Animal Behavior/Psychology/Communication with Positive Reinforcement/Clicker Training Techniques. Specializing in creating more patient, confident, and responsive animals. - Horsemanship and Horse Whisperer (ie. Buck Brannaman, John Lyons, Monty Roberts, etc.) - Body work- hands on interactions for relaxation and trust including TTouch. - Avondale Icelandics "Dancing with Icelandics" and Dog Heelwork to Music- My form of groundwork with music. - Horse and Dog Agility obstacle work- on lead rope with horses/leash with dogs and at liberty. - Herd Leadership with Horses and Pack Leadership with Dogs - Basic Equitation, Connected Riding- proper balanced riding form- seat, hands, legs, etc. to improve fluidity. - Horse Conformation, Horse and Rider Bio-Mechanics, Fitness Conditioning for Horses and Riders Proud Member of the Icelandic Horse and Horsemanship Community: - Members of US Icelandic Horse Congress (USIHC)- Farm List under WA State and Hestafolk Icelandic Horse Club | Facebook, a Pacific Northwest WA Affiliated USIHC Club. - Connected to US and Canadian Horse Trainers/Breeders/Riding Clubs/Events. (Sidebar: Gudmar: USIHC Quarterly) - Organizer of Horsemanship Clinics and Certified Horsemanship Association member. CHA promotes equine professional excellence in horse safety and instructional education. |
How did the idea of Avondale Icelandics get started?
Seeing Icelandics for the 1st time, people are quite curious. I need to educate them as a local Icelandic Horse ambassador. People also stop me on the street, on trails, at horse events, etc. Others will even show up on my doorstep after seeing or hearing about them. I did private lesson programs over the years.
But I needed to turn many people down from a lack of time. I have now developed group programs of 2-3 as well as an LLC business.
How did you get to be an advanced rider and trainer?
As a tech management consultant, I deal with complex problems never encountered before and develop a plan of improvement for people, process, and tools. I applied that approach to my horse journey and daily rigor of learning every day. After years of experimenting for best results, I went from a frustrating, unsafe horse riding experience to one that people only dream about.
I now share this same train the trainer approach I discovered starting on the ground and using special tack and techniques in the saddle with my students.
How do you work with each Avondale Icelandics to get results with students?
Each of the Icelandics has different personalities, level of skills, body types, degrees of willingness, etc. so there is wide variety of learning experiences possible. We may start working with 1 Icelandic to learn how to sit properly and increase the challenge with another Icelandic. I facilitate the conversation gaps.
Getting humans to communicate through clear and consistent body language, vocal cues, etc. so horse/human understand each other. And now with dogs too.
Seeing Icelandics for the 1st time, people are quite curious. I need to educate them as a local Icelandic Horse ambassador. People also stop me on the street, on trails, at horse events, etc. Others will even show up on my doorstep after seeing or hearing about them. I did private lesson programs over the years.
But I needed to turn many people down from a lack of time. I have now developed group programs of 2-3 as well as an LLC business.
How did you get to be an advanced rider and trainer?
As a tech management consultant, I deal with complex problems never encountered before and develop a plan of improvement for people, process, and tools. I applied that approach to my horse journey and daily rigor of learning every day. After years of experimenting for best results, I went from a frustrating, unsafe horse riding experience to one that people only dream about.
I now share this same train the trainer approach I discovered starting on the ground and using special tack and techniques in the saddle with my students.
How do you work with each Avondale Icelandics to get results with students?
Each of the Icelandics has different personalities, level of skills, body types, degrees of willingness, etc. so there is wide variety of learning experiences possible. We may start working with 1 Icelandic to learn how to sit properly and increase the challenge with another Icelandic. I facilitate the conversation gaps.
Getting humans to communicate through clear and consistent body language, vocal cues, etc. so horse/human understand each other. And now with dogs too.