Nice story, it reminds me of a documentary I once saw of an American horetrainer who tried the 'soft' approach when taming wild horses. He was really looking like the average though redneck but underneath he had a really loving personality. At the end of the documentary he succeeded in taming a wild Mustang [after a very long period], and then this though looking guy just cried tiers of joy. Nobody had believed he would succeed in this. As you say, bodylanguage was a big part of it, he said something like you should make all your movements quite direct/steady and confident-looking. [He used a horse pen so a horse could run away [but in a circle at leisure], so he would approach them again everytime they got calmed down [so they knew he was the safe-spot.]] Just animal-psychology, not hard to understand, but to really win an animals trust is a major achievement and can only be done when you're really in balance with yourself.