Get busy livin’

September 11, 2023

I have three horses who lack for a forward thought and I can see how it’s shown up with different looking issues in each of them. One of them I haven’t had all that long, but the other two I have. Is this something in me? Am I causing this problem in horses because of a way I’m working with them?

During the week at Harry’s clinic in August as it became more clear to me how important that forward thought is, I saw not only my herd, but a client and friend’s horse that I’ve been working with about a year all exhibiting facets of this issue. If there is something I’m doing that is causing or increasing this issue, I sure wanted to address it!

Harry considered a moment and answered:

No, I don’t think you cause it as much as you’ve missed it. You haven’t recognized it for what it was and addressed it is all.

In the last blog entry I wrote about how I began working to generate a forward thought in Khaleesi. I am seeing some nice progress with her at home. I love now seeing moments where she will stretch that neck out in front of her relaxed and take on a forward walk without carrying the tension about she has in the past. The biggest issue with a lack of forward thought in her was the amount of tension in her body in movement. I don’t think she was deeply distressed by our way of being together, but she wasn’t moving freely and relaxed. This change will allow her to feel better about our time together and that will improve our connection.

As for Hope, I have been working with her this summer with the goal of engaging her mind in a way that will help her become more available and less shut down. I have seen gradual but significant changes in how she walks and holds her body. I had not previously addressed her mind as lacking a “forward thought” in movement as much as I saw she simply was not mentally present to begin with. It is somewhat challenging to take a horse who doesn’t have good balance, has suffered from EPM (unclear what issues are blocking her ability to comply physically), and appears to have been mistreated over her life in direct pressure and punishment training… it is challenging to take that horse you have a ton of compassion on, and to make a big enough “meltdown” with the flag in her stall to get her to simply look up from the ground at you and have to deal with you in her world. To get big enough that she will come out of the only place she probably has felt safe and has retreated into for years now… (inside herself). The initial stress of that interaction on her is real. I’ve found it difficult to generate that pressure at first because the stress does affect her. Yet it takes that much to get her to come alive, be present, and then try to offer her the best place of security and sweet spot you can give when she does.

I have not had the tools to do this for much of the two and a half years she’s been in my care. I suppose it’s good that I’ve left her to benign neglect for the last year as she was not well, because I didn’t know how to help her, so letting her rest was probably not a bad season. It seems she’s come to a holding pattern where she hasn’t told me she’s ready to die, and yet she is still quite unwell. And I can’t see leaving her alone there any longer. As the quote goes (from the Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King) It’s time to get busy living, or get busy dying.

So I’ve begun to enter her world with enough pressure, and demand she come out of that far away place, to look up once in a while, and to come, and be.

I’ve considered this forward thought idea and it struck me that she has been chased around, probably kicked and pulled in western lessons, punished for slow or wrong responses, that she has given up trying to think with humans. I observe that her “go-to” is to freeze and go away down deep, and if I insist she not tap out in that way she will start throwing me what might have worked for her in the past about turning herself into a pretzel. Watching her it seems like I either get no thought at all, just a vacant frozen robot, or she’s giving me two thousand things with thoughts bringing around like a pinball in stress and fear. Something I have not seen is a simple, clear, forward thought.

She came to me with her spine literally compressed and roached up toward the end of her back; her neck, compressed and tight, was unable to move freely, and her body compensating to function. Imagine that braced up wall that either came from I can’t or I won’t got cemented more strongly in place and riders and instructors kicked and drove her forward into it- I heard she began rearing which is not a surprise since her forward was blocked that would be a potential direction for the force imposed upon her… up. Upon coming to live with me, I saw a compressed ball of a horse that has been smashed into that wall she was now trapped inside.

I thought we’d simply help her free up and she’d be fine. I now wonder if this change in how she moves is like becoming an entirely new being, taking years of painstaking work as the changes happen. And the mental part of it cannot be left out if we are going to succeed in helping free her.

Hope walks forward with her front feet dragging the toe, she backs with her back feet pushed against the ground, dragging backward. If she’s stressed she crosses and uncrosses her front feet threatening to fall over in a pile of spaghetti like she doesn’t know where her legs are or how to move her feet.

Occasionally, I have observed her heading somewhere with interest and she almost looks normal. She can’t totally pick those feet up, so they paddle slightly and sometimes she looks slightly off like a lameness is present, but if she is headed somewhere with interest, not being chased by the herd or stressed in any way there is a glimpse of the real horse she might become. It’s in these moments she’s not afraid, not shut down, and I’d say she has a forward thought. Her body is freely going where her mind is sending it!

As I’ve continued our work together, and she is trusting me ever slightly more, to come out and join me in the land of the living, I’ll get her outside on the lead line, and only ask her to stand quietly but ready. I watch her stand there facing me with a panic buzzing through her. She begins crossing those feet, getting unstable, and starts offering me things- circle left? Circle right? Back up? Oh gosh, what what what what??? And I respond by slamming down my flag not at her but on either side of me to block all the different thoughts that are now pouring out like chaos to do anything to avoid punishment. One of these has to be the right answer!!

I have to get big to break through the chaos of her brain, which seems counterproductive when I have so much compassion on her and what she’s been through, that I want to pet her and say “there there… just relax… it’ll be ok, I don’t want to stress you out- you’v been through enough..” but I now see how that has not worked at all to help her. It’s like someone whose gone into another mental space, and the only way through is to make a big enough disruption they have to be slammed back into the present and see they are not back in the warzone, they are right here with you, now.

I have seen her finally come center, look at me, and stop the chaos. Where I can pet her and give her a sweet spot to relax and release all the fear tension she carries- well, at least what of it she can.

When she begins to go around me to circle, one might think she’s having a forward thought. However she’s moving in flight and fear, and her brain isn’t quietly thinking about forward, since I have insisted she not go into freeze mode, she’s in panic flight and her brain is all over the place. She’s all bunched up- just like her spine looked when she came to me.

After she came to being momentarily centered and quiet, I started with getting her to LOOK and put her attention to the left and right, not walking off, only asking: can you move your attention. This is interesting because it’s hard for her to not look at me. If you were worried if you took your eyes off the teacher you could be ambushed and not be ready, you’d have a hard time looking away too! Without a question, when she first came to me, out of ignorance of what I was doing, I added to that experience of worry with her. So we have some recovery to do. 

Once I can get her to look away – that would be the direction I’m about to ask her body to go… I start to suggest a walk. I do this with my energy, with my body, with a cluck cluck, with the flag rustling (not at her but in general at my side), and she doesn’t pick up on it. This is not driving, and she hasn’t been asked to take her attention and though to a direction, look that way, then lets head in that direction you are looking. She is more used to keeping her eye on the handler and moving her body the way she is being driven.

In this case I begin to pet and rub her with the flag, to help her relax- I’m here to help you and I won’t ambush you. Then I lift and lower the flag in a calculated way, smooth and not like a driving as much as a signal, it’s gentle but clear… on the third time I drop the flag with gravity to land on her rump and she scoots forward- not relaxed yet, but I was shocked to see how she carried herself momentarily almost with grace. Then I rewarded her and rubbed her again with the flag- told her how awesome she was, standing still. I want her to think about moving forward- not to drive her on and on. I want her to be curious, and not afraid. I want her to start thinking and making decisions, not reacting. And I want her to have some time to respond thoughtfully not in fear of punishment.

The dropping of the flag onto her rump is not scary (I can tell because when she’s in fear she gets all befuddled) and it’s new to her. It’s not whippy it’s like dropping a stone on the ground (but not as heavy as a stone), it has weight but not a feel of being chased. And it makes contact- not floating around threatening. These things I have played with and observed they make a difference. The horses have told me they do- in how they react to them.

Now I ask her to look, I ask her to think about walking, I rub her with the flag and if I lift the flag up into the air she can walk off and I’m amazed at the difference in how she moves this way. I return the flag to her body while she walks and I rub her with it, I want her to stay present and not check out into auto pilot mode, and the flag is a “here and now” sensation that helps to keep her present. It should help her relax and encourage her to be connected to me, and to know the flag is a help – not a threat.

I still don’t know what Hope’s future looks like. She is far from healed of the many broken things in her mental and physical systems. She still has good days and not so good days. However her good days seem better levels of good. She can be found closer to the other two horses when in the field. I see her trot and canter into the stall from time to time to join the herd for a meal and some work-play. I notice she stays present more than she used to, her eyes aren’t as dull. And from time to time I see her laying down but it is less often. She still has not so good days too. Days when she seems less balanced, more lethargic, and more shut down. Days she drags her feet more and can’t seem to stabilize in standing still.

I’m going to continue to demand she be here more and more. I hope I can give her the experience that this life doesn’t have to be terrible when she engages. I hope that her mind can come into a place where she finds peace, and balance, and that she can feel good.

But I don’t need her to.

I’ve come to terms with the truth that she may never be the horse that helps me teach other people about horses as I thought she might be when I brought her home, and I may never put a saddle on her again.

Yet she has taught me deep things about my own expectations, and what a gift it can be to invest in something that may never bring a return. I’ve learned the reality of connection to mind and body, and the complexity of trying to do the “right things” and yet not getting the “right outcome” like you’d hope. I’ve learned that the “right thing” is not always so obvious! And I’ve been learning sometime the compassionate thing to do is firm up, and get big to break through the walls to connect – even when it seems traumatic for a moment. When done in love, not in self-service, it can be an expression of love. I suppose Hope has continued the process to humble me as I stand before her wanting to help, not willing to give up, but not having clear answers, and the willingness to step forward into the place where I must accept:

I don’t actually know what to do, but I am going to try, and stay open to the reality of what is in front of me (even when it’s confounding and difficult) and walk this out no matter the outcome. Even when it’s painful.

A year from now I might look back on this chapter with more experience and wisdom and bemoan what I don’t know today that I don’t know, but for now, onward we go into the best I’ve got. And the knowledge that love does win, even when the victory is not what we expected.