Hope Horsemanship

Tag: connection

  • Twisted.

    Twisted.

    There was a time when a beautiful day was not complete if I couldn’t ride my horse. If I had to work or was otherwise occupied it was hard to not imagine myself in the woods with my mare and be sad about whatever it was that kept me from that experience. My work is pretty great. I run a rural area music education program teaching K-12 age violin students. I am also on faculty at a local college teaching violin and chamber music. So it wasn’t about having a dead end job that was torture to log hours at. It was about where my mind was, how it became mysteriously separated from my body on particularly nice days, and about the tension of having a mind and body in two different places. I had quite lost my mind and was struggling to function without being present in the good work I had in front of me because of it.

    I currently have this island of misfit toys herd that I adore. I jokingly tell people I have a good horse, a bad horse, and a sick horse. It’s an oversimplification, and thus isn’t entirely true, but it makes for good conversation. 

    Anyone who follows my writing can connect the dots: my good horse is Ireland’s Khaleesi, the mare I took in as a feral four-year-old in 2014. I started her for better and worse, learned with her and grown alongside her. She is my endurance horse, and in June we finally conquered the single-day 100 mile race on one of the toughest courses the sport offers. I can get done just about anything I need to and she fills in for me a lot. She is a highly confident leader and makes me look pretty good much of the time. She is a beautiful gift to me and I enjoy her constantly. My challenge with magnificent K is I’m decent at getting things done with her in the natural horsemanship direct pressure style of working together that has left places our relationship can improve. The hard part that requires some vision is going back to learning new pathways together when things “work out pretty good” the old way. I know there’s more for us, but it’s going to take some time creating new experiences.

    The lovingly identified bad horse is Wyoming the wild (by the way I also have a bad dog I adore, so this seems to be a pattern for me!). She of course, is not at all a bad horse, she is my complicated challenging horse who does not fill in for me, who is not confident in herself or my leadership, and has required a lot of consideration, thought, growth, experimentation, and help in order not to give up on her and find some wilderness area to release her back into and wish her good luck. She’d probably survive; she has the skills. In fact, all she thinks about is her own self-protection and survival since she doesn’t trust it to me, yet. And why should she? Truthfully I haven’t proven adequate of that trust to her yet, and so I refuse to give up and am determined to keep growing into the kind of leader a horse like her requires. She is constantly demanding I get better. She has been a valuable gift to my development.

    The horse I hate to label but truthfully, in fact, IS the sick horse is darling Redemption’s Hope. She’s a discarded quarter horse that went through many hands before ending up in my barn. I took her knowing she was a shut down tangled mess, without realizing how big a mess was really in there. My plans for her were to help her feel better, learn the world of humans wasn’t such a terrible place, and voila, she would be a sweet natured horse kids or adults with less developed skills could get to know horses and learn to work with safely. She did that work about a year while her health devolved into such places where I have more than once been certain she would not survive. She has been the most expensive horse I’ve ever owned through vet bills and nutrition supplementation and support care in general. 

    I have come to see the gift she has brought me is an opportunity to love and support a creature who has zero ability to give back, and for an extended period of time. We are entering a third year of her very slowly coming into some kind of stable health, but due to the neurological signs from the EPM (I believe), she may well never be ridable, or even a horse who can physically respond to a request in a normal way again. I simply don’t know yet. Only time will reveal what little Hope’s redemption story will be.

    Loving Hope has cost me emotionally and financially. I am limited with my herd, at the moment I cannot expand to more than three horses and she is taking up valuable real estate. She has taught me the long process of showing up every day to what often feels like a hopeless situation and staying engaged. She has taught me what it is like to invest and care and love with no reliable expectation of gaining from that relationship. How often are we given such an opportunity to love in that way? I haven’t always seen it, but recently it shines of a glory I cannot fathom, how did I get so lucky to have this horse come to me and teach me this important lesson? The lesson of showing up even when there seems to be little hope, to love anyway. This does not come naturally to me. I needed some help, and she came.

    All of this came to mind recently as I rode my good horse around a local recreation area along the Jackson River. I am fortunate to live in a pristine and beautiful area that is still so rural and unpopulated we have not one traffic light in the entire county, the animals outnumber the people, and our pubic national forest land is somewhere like 75% over private property. I am insanely blessed, and also quite intentional about living here. I went out solo, rode about 7 miles around this beautiful park and in the couple of hours never saw another human. It was exquisitely perfect and I reveled in it not taking one moment for granted. It was perfection in the experience of riding a fabulous horse, on well kept trails, in a place of untouched beauty.

    As I pondered this, I realized something has happened to me over time. 

    I enjoyed this ride, however, today it occurred to me that I equally enjoy the time I spend working with Wyoming the Wild, even when a decent percentage of our time together she is threatening me because I’m pressing her comfort zone (necessary to give her the experience of seeing she can trust me and her life is not actually in danger). I am helping bring her lost mind back to the present reality in order to help her feel better about her life, and about our connection. At the moment in our re-started education program I have begun again at the point of not being able to put the halter on her without her feeling threatened. So I don’t. If one cannot halter a horse reliably I think that reveals just how far we are from being a riding partnership. 

    I don’t know what will become of Wyoming the Wild one in her education. I am stubborn and I generally refuse to accept that a horse cannot come to an understanding and work with a human- there are just ones where the bar is set too high for many (sane?) humans to consider reasonable… I am considering that she could be one of these special creatures. The alternative, which is also possible, is I’m just not skilled enough… but each year I’m finding that less and less likely the root problem. Let me assure you no pride in my skill level… She certainly has required I gain experience and understanding in order to succeed in helping her. I know how much I have to learn is deep and wide, but my hunger to grow covers a multitude of sins in the process. I don’t think it’s only my inexperience anymore. She’s a unique and complicated horse. How have I gotten so lucky to end up with her? I don’t believe in coincidences, I know she is just as much a gift as the good horse is.

    I have found that anymore I do not care nearly as much that I’m able to ride this horse as that we come together. I do want to be able to ride her, but I have found I love the time I spend with her, learning to show her she does not have to protect herself from me, that I am here to help her, and she is just perfect just the way she is, right now today. We will simply keep spending time together until things come right and then we will see what that looks like.

    I thought of the time I spend with Hope now, every day walking her slowly and intentionally, watching how she struggles to lift her front end and thus her front legs paddle around not to drag the ground. How can I help her to think about lifting first even her eyes off the ground and begin to think lighter in the the front? How can I help her start to rebuild her atrophied muscles that would support her body in better balance? We do tiny weight shifting requests just to begin the form of thinking the change that someday will mean she can walk normally again. How can I work with her so she isn’t stressed out which is when she begins to panic and her feet begin to cross over unnaturally like a horse who has neurological damage (she doesn’t do this if she is not in a panic).

    What creates this panic state for her? Her life has given her the experience that humans will demand things and then punish for non-compliance. Somewhere along the way I believe this horse wasn’t saying: No, I won’t… but she began to have physical limitations that meant No, I can’t. And when that happened her reaction leads me to guess she was punished. Now when I begin to ask things of her I can see the stress and worry set it. She either completely shuts down and is non responsive, or she begins to offer up anything she can muster getting her limbs all crossed and in a pretzel. The answer is not to quit asking anything of her (though I basically did this for almost a year thinking she needed the rest and recovery which may or may not be true), but instead to begin to ask her things she can do and to give her the time to think and do it, and not to punish her when she takes a long time to get there. She has been taught not to think but only to respond and quickly- my hope is that I can teach her she can think, she must think, and I will help her along the way.

    What I am realizing is I am finally beginning to find the real gift in being present in the reality of each horse, and asking how I can help them. My own mind is letting go of the idea that I have to have a riding (or teaching) goal for each horse and each day we do not get significantly closer to that goal brings frustration or irritation. As I let go of that way of thinking, I find not only peace in the process but a deeper joy in every moment we share. Even the struggles of which there are many right now. I am able to see opportunities where there were only roadblocks. I am curious about things instead of annoyed by them. 

    I recognize fairly quickly when I am getting all twisted up again.

    I have riding goals for Khaleesi. These are good. I believe the road I am on with Wyoming will include riding her again- and successfully – as well. I have a goal that Hope will someday have a body that works again in balance and be able to help humans to learn more about horses in some way.

    I think having goals is important. 

    Sometimes we have to adjust the goal.

    With Wyoming, I had the goal to be able to safely trail ride her including loading her on the trailer to transport. This year I’ve seen that she has way more deep anxiety that if I don’t address, none of that is going to function in strength. I’ve done the “grown up” thing and adjusted my goals to honor her needs… 

    This is where it gets so dicey and on a good day I can laugh about it…

    I adjust the goals to helping Wyoming get feeling better working with me and pat myself on the back for being such a highly developed horse person who truly puts the needs of my horse first and is willing to patiently work with them in the way they need.

    And then I find myself occasionally frustrated and annoyed when we have an “off” day and she comes at me with more violent snark than the previous day… or I had gotten to lay the rope over her back and she relaxed, whereas now if I stand in her zip code with the rope in hand and she pins her ears and threatens.

    Why? If my only intent was truly to help her, there would be no frustration. Frustration comes because I’m not getting my way and that reveals that I’ve made the new goal the central thing and I’ve once again gotten all twisted up around the good thing that isn’t supposed to be the ultimate thing and now I’m frustrated that she isn’t getting better!!! I am not making clear progress toward the goal of her getting better so help me mare you MUST GET FEELING BETTER WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM!?

    Lord. Help me. Every. Day.

    I still get twisted up.

    Do you ever get frustrated? I heard that a prey animal’s basic job is to frustrated a predator. Think about this… Predator wants a meal, so it chases the prey animal. Prey animal wants to live so it does all it can to evade and outrun the predator. The very definition of being frustrated.

    Frustrated: feeling or expressing distress and annoyance due to inability to change or achieve something.

    When we feel or express frustration we are acting like a predator. In the human world the definition of predator is: a person who ruthlessly exploits others.

    This is not the dynamic I want in my barn. This is not the dynamic I want in my life. Therefore I have sought to become more aware of when I feel that frustration rising in the dark space of my heart and it is now a warning signal: you have become twisted again. Stop. Regroup. Begin again and ask: how can I help?

    The good news is we are all given a certain amount of self-control and if we begin to use it, we can strengthen it! Each time that twist shows up in my relationships I can notice it and make a decision to change myself and my approach. I can decide not to be a frustrated predator.

    Not controlling another (horse or human) to manipulate or force into what goal I have that day is a much slower road to my goals, but it is the only way to my ultimate goal. I know there are many who won’t understand (why take the slow way of freedom and love? It’s incredibly ineffective), but when we get there it’s a million times sweeter, and the roads and detours are more peaceful and full of life.

    It always begins with me. Untwisted.

  • Strange Companions

    Strange Companions

    Once in a while I get an odd song stuck in my mind. It comes without a reminder (as in, I haven’t heard it in a very long time). Lately I’ve found that the more annoying the song is, and the more inclined it is not to leave, I should pause, and ask… why?

    A recent example of this was before the Old Dominion 100 I kept hearing over and over on my walks with the dogs (which I use for deep contemplation and so was frustrated to be constantly interrupted by this tune) “She’ll be coming around the mountain when she comes…” Finally I paused to ask… why?

    As I entered in instead of trying to push it away the song quit being so annoying and seemed to bring me encouragement about coming around that big mountain loop: the OD 100. The song began to give me hope of success of finishing the ride and also that, I’d come when I came, which would be a foreshadowing that we were not going to be coming around on any fast timeline, we’d come when we’d come. I wasn’t riding six white horses, but the imagery of being successful was built into it for me. Once I smiled and said thank you, I appreciate the encouragement to have confidence in this big mountain I was about to circle ‘round, the song wasn’t quite so plaguing.

    Last week a new song, on my same walks entered the scene. As always I began with an eye roll and asked it to please go away, I have important things to process and contemplate. The lyrics refused to bend “We’re off to see the wizard! The wonderful wizard of Oz…” (I’m sure you can continue the tune, sorry about that). Once I realized it was happening again, I gave up and entered in… why?

    The answer I drew from the question as I walked was to contemplate what Dorothy was doing. What’s the general plot, the “moral” of the story so to speak, and more importantly the point seemed nag at me: consider her companions on the journey.

    So I did. I even spent a few minutes researching because I only vaguely remembered. Except for the Cowardly Lion (who could forget him?) I had to do a search to find who else joined her and what they were seeking from the wonderful wizard of Oz, who as I remember was not so wonderful at all. 

    In a quick google dig and the memories from childhood, I recalled that this little troupe was seeking someone to solve their problems, but it was actually in the journey, in the process, that the pieces they needed came to them. It was a story about love and kindness and helping others along the way, and about good triumphing over evil I think (the wicked witch of the west and all…). I need to watch the movie or read the book if I’d like to get more serious, but for today that’s what I’ve got.

    What did the companions need? When I pondered this at first, I couldn’t sort out why it mattered in my life right now, until the next time I visited the barn and it hit me like a house in a Kansas tornado. 

    They line up with my horses.

    My classroom this summer is the barn. And my teachers all have different subjects. It was blaringly obvious to begin that Wyoming is my cowardly lion. She is afraid of just about everything on some level and she roars in threats of violence if she can’t for some reason run away, but I don’t think she wants to fight. Who were my other two then?

    She’s so ready to threaten when she is uncertain.

    As I pondered it was plain. Hope is my scarecrow. The scarecrow wanted a brain. 

    This is not to say Hope is a dummy in any sense, but I have held a hypothesis for a while now, that part of the deep damage in her, and part of the hang up in her healing, is her almost complete shut down to the world outside of herself. That’s in fact one reason I wanted to take her on, because I wanted to see what it might be like to help a horse that was so shut down. I think over her years previous, her thinking center had been shut down so severely that she was trained not to think or use her brain but only respond to cues. Thinking takes a little time and some training doesn’t allow for time so any delay is punished. This teaches a horse that thinking is going to get you into trouble, act, and act fast if you want to avoid the rope popper, whip, crop, or spurs. I have seen Hope in a desperate panic if she doesn’t know how to respond. She will try to just freeze and disappear internally then if you insist she stay present, she will throw out all kinds of varied things in order to just DO something. She has a brain, but she has been trained not to access it. She is deeply disconnected. Also one issue the True North folks helped her through is evidence of EPM (Equine Equine Protozoal Myeloencephalitis, if you’re interested you can click here for details on this: EPM in Horses) EPM attacks the horse’s neurological system crossing the blood brain barrier. She still shows lingering effects of loss of stability and balance from this that I hope in time will continue to diminish as she heals. I don’t know if her health issues will resolve (at all actually, I hope they do now that we’ve done about what we can for her acute issues), but I believe they won’t be resolved if I don’t help her dig down and begin to trust her brain and give her the time and patience to try.

    That leaves Khaleesi who is, of course, the Tinman. 

    Years ago in looking at personality types I pegged her as a typical “metal” horse so this makes a lot of sense to me. A “metal” horse tends to take time to develop a skill, but once they get it, it’s solid as a rock and they tend to be very dependable creatures. They seem to take a pride in a job performed solidly if not with flair the way a “fire” type horse might. They tend not toward the fancy, not toward the fastest and most competitive like a “wood” horse. They are your solid good citizens though not as laid back as an “earth” type. They don’t carry a lot of fear like a “water” type horse, and they don’t need constant motion either. They tend to be thoughtful and dependable. This is my beloved K. The one I can always count on to be there for me and consistently carry out her task. 

    The Tinman wanted a heart. Of course Khaleesi has heart! She has a ton of heart in there, but the one thing I sense we don’t have is that deep trust connection. She seems to carry a lot of weight on her shoulders. She trusts the job, she certainly trusts me for everyday things, but I have felt there is something down there she keeps walled off as she dutifully does her work. This is not a problem I have to “fix” and it’s not exactly “wrong”. I don’t have to get every to part of her horse mind, body and spirit… however could I do better? Definitely. 

    The driving and direct pressure/punishment paradigm I trained her with my best intentions have created an environment where there is a limit, I think, to our connection. She is my super star right now in the barn, but she gives me an opportunity for grad school. There is more we can do and be together if I will grow into those places, maybe she will still have the dependability of a job well done, but also engage that great mare heart she has in our connection, and maybe I can be more worthy of that part showing up, maybe I can carry some of her concerns and free her up to shine.

    So serious and so reliable, my metal horse Khaleesi.

    Coming to the barn-school with this imagery has shifted my approach in a slight way that I think has been helpful. Certainly with Wyoming who is the class I spend the most time in lately. Certainly every horse has basic equine needs, being a good leader for the horse has some fundamental pieces that are necessary for all horses to thrive under. Yet horses like people have unique needs as well depending on their personality and their experiences. It would be much easier if there truly was a three-step program that always succeeded to have a happy thriving powerful horse, I have found even in my small herd it’s simply not realistic to think that way. 

    All horses need the space to access their mind in training, have emotional control and stability, and be supported physically toward good health. I suppose a good horsewoman or man is adept at seeing where the broken parts are, which system has the greatest weakness, and finds ways to bring strength there, walking the horse toward ever more complete wholeness. Maybe along the way we can also find our own way to being more whole. Maybe we can find our way back to Kansas…

    Photo Credit: Madison Barnett
  • The Way Down

    The Way Down

    The story of Wyoming and me seeking a better place hasn’t been easy for me to update very often because there isn’t much of a clear line path to tell. Some days I have sight lines toward an island in the sea… and some days I think we (or probably just I) will drown out here with not a ship or speck of land in sight… and then… what are we doing out here in the middle of the ocean?

    I am getting pretty good at avoiding the deep end of the pool. I am also fairly decent at navigating the deep end of the pool with a horse I have some connection with if we get there by some twist of the current. However with Wyoming, I look around more times than not and see the wild ocean swells and wonder if we’ve come out here to die together or to rise up out of the stormy seas like crisis friends knit together forever.

    Maybe that sounds dramatic. It seems pretty matter of fact in the barn at least a part of most days. More real I’m pretty sure, than it would be for someone with the experience that brings expert timing and feel, accurate instant reading of what’s about to happen which leads to meeting the action perfectly instead of just behind it (or missing things altogether). But everyone has to learn somewhere and in learning- we must necessarily do what we do not know, or it isn’t learning, it’s practicing. 

    Ideally for some, the lessons can be planned more graduated into bite sized steps. That hasn’t usually been my way, and so why would this be any different?

    I was listening this morning to an interview with Molly Sanders and Russell Higgins on A Learners Journey. I highly recommend the pod, and Molly has a great inquisitive nature seeking out interesting guests to discuss the facets and layers of horses.

    In this interview (link to interview here: Youtube interview Molly Sanders & Russel Higgins) Russell shares a metaphor where a person is climbing a mountain and is only 2/3 of the way up and looks around to see the route has ended and there is no way to continue forward. There is a feeling of disappointment and decision there, and looking down the mountain there are many more people who stopped around 1/3 way up and decided that was quite far enough. They’ve set up camp and have no interest in continuing higher up. Well one reasons… I’ve gotten farther than those people at least. But the one on a quest is determined to get higher up the mountain with the hope of seeing the vista from the top, and cannot be bothered with comparison and the uselessness of that story. So she has sorted out that the only thing to do next, is to go back down to the bottom and take a different path. That means going past the people below to begin again. How humbling it feels to have risen to a certain height only to find once there it’s limited and doesn’t take you where you had hoped. Starting from the bottom again can feel demoralizing, and yet with the experience of the mountain you’ve gained, the next path you choose with more knowledge and hopefully it will bring you closer to where you hope to go.

    This resonated with me as it is a great illustration of my life with Wyoming. I’ve often climbed up to some figurative low-level trails that have dead ended with her. There were no good camping spots there however, and I often slid back down even if I tried to hold my footing. This particular round of seeking a better place and full of hope, has taken us so far back down the mountain I might have even tunneled underground with the dwarves for a bit in order to find a better starting place for us on the next attempt.

    In the three weeks of working every day, I have taken a horse that I was managing around pretty acceptably for the most part, and uncovered an animal that had been harboring deep concerns and layers of self-protection that certainly has me questioning at times if I am actually creating a monster or helping to dissolve one.

    I have had to get creative and am almost exclusively working with her without a halter and in various states of freedom. I’ve spent days working from her stall, the open design being very helpful. I’ve locked her out of the stall so she’s been in the slightly larger open space of the front of the barn (with the barn door wide leaving her lots of options to leave which she never does). I have played with the flag which, in the “positive” column, has gone from an item she was intent on murder every time she saw it, to something that helps her find peace when I rub her with it. In fact she really loves it when I scratch her belly or butt with it from time to time and melts into a puddle of horse-putty (only to harden again when I change the activity at all). 

    This is an ocean of new wild territory for me most days and I don’t exactly know what I’ll do when I show up at the barn. It has been suggested to me that my logical “straight line” (ahem, predatory?) thinking, will not serve me so well here. If I want to see progress I’m going to have to work on things from different directions. Humans do have the eyes that focus forward, straight line toward the prey or the goal! Horses have eyes that do the periphery well, and you can see them grazing gradually in arcs toward things they are unsure of, though they can set their mind toward a thing and walk straight to it when they are relaxed and comfortable about it (or as I’ve had happen last week when they are calculating the probability of actually taking it out with a direct attack…) 

    This reiazliation that I have to learn quickly to come at things less directly came from the logical human clarity that I cannot get her to accept the halter willingly and without worry, so if I’m going to do anything with her I should at least get that settled… only with Wyoming that has not been an easy first step. I spent practically a week straight line sorting out HOW TO DO THAT.  This resulted in my smaller goal (get the halter on comfortably) disproportionally larger than the true big picture (to get the horse “feeling better”), so hammering toward the halter question was within a day, counter productive to my actual aim.

    I was getting in my own way. Again.

    The balance of this is important. Not having any goal is a road I have traversed and I don’t recommend it. It only circles around the low paths meandering through brush never going anywhere of any use and often retracing spider webbing tracks with no useful destination and not helping the horse or the human much. However, the flip side is deciding I’m heading to the peak and trying to make a straight line there over boulders, through thickets of thorns, and cliff faces without the intelligence of seeking out the more winding navigable trails that the animals before me have worn lightly in. This way always leaves me banged up and you can never actually beat the mountain this way. I’m learning to accept that sometimes a detour can appear to be a mistake and in the end take you round the back way, faster and with less danger than being stiff necked enough to insist on climbing the sheer rock face. 

    I didn’t have to make the choice to head back down the mountain this year to try again. We had slid down the rocky ground we had gained which wasn’t ever that far, right past curious onlookers, and we had been stuck down at the base for a time already. This path I’ve heard from others is a promising one for the kind of needs this horse has. Yet it’s not been a clear cut thorn free journey. I’m packing a trail saw and leather gloves, and it’s been somewhat slow going hacking through some rough layers.

    At the moment it looks considerably worse than it did two months ago while we languishing in base camp trying not to disrupt the surface much. Today I hold the opinion that this mess was always there, it was buried by our truce. The truce where I learned over time how to enjoy this mare without asking anything that could bring up her ill feelings and concerns, or threaten her self-protective mechanism that I hadn’t actually seen were so thickly built by now. They were always down there, and as a core they don’t leave her in a very good place for a life to exist. That’s what I think. By the time this is over I might have to adjust these thoughts, but I only have the experiences I have for the moment to work with.

    Though her threats at violence are coming out more regularly and I have in wisdom sought out ways to work with her that keep me with some boundary (a fence, a gate, a flag, etc) that she can express that deep ill feeling she carries and it can come out so volcanically that it helps for me to have something in between us to block it in case I miss the lava flow. This also allows me to to observe her and try to see what is really happening without only having to focus on the potential I might need get out of the way quickly or block the dragon’s rapid fire. She is in a mode right now feeling more exposed and vulnerable, where she’ll shoot first and ask questions later. 

    These outbursts are still connected to letting go of hard thoughts, but also as I ask her for anything- right now the major request I have is one soft step, it could be forward or backward, with whatever tool I can work with that day. It could be to the side. One step. Some days she seems ready to take me out over one step in a relaxed state. She is deeply convinced that is worth going to war over. This is no way to live.

    I have a fair amount of emotional control, and I am quite wary of her seriousness but not afraid of her either. I don’t punish any of her outbursts no matter how violent, but try to block as equally as I can and as timely as I’m able. I try to make my requests as soft as possible, as clear, and wait as long as it takes for her to think and try something- rewarding the slightest try that is soft and not a try to take me out because that will make the request stop too (if I’m incapacitated!). 

    So it has become a dance for me to learn of blocking with boundaries that are clear and just as big as the enmity she throws at me, and to immediately return to calm soft request, or recognize when she needs to simply have a moment to think, to give her an opportunity to make a better choice and see if she will seek it out (sometimes she does!) or to see she can wait softly and nothing bad is happening. I’m sure I don’t have it all synced up properly and some days I might make it worse. 

    Some days I find a better place! Within the violent snarky outbursts there are moments where Wyoming thinks her way through something and finds a place that has peace. There are moments she relaxes all the muscle tension and her eyes grow soft and I can pet her and she lets go and can breathe maybe for the first time truly freely. I always hope for that before I leave the barn. Some days we get there, some days we just get “not so bad” and that place is so much better than the “really bad” we were at 45 minutes earlier that I’m glad for a place we can truce for the day and try again the next day.

    Here is what I have observed recently.

    Every time I drive up, if she is already relaxing in the barn she stays there. If she is in the field she comes running in. I don’t think this is the the action of a horse who wishes I would never return, not the actions of a horse who hates the work we’re doing. I’m amazed at how she is so engaged to come interact with me- even when it seems only to release that venom she is carrying around. It is tricky for me because part of her interaction right now is sorting out her violent feelings, and so though simply being in the barn has not yet shown her aggressive with no cause toward me, I still am more aware than ever that she is in a season of sorting out deep things and may not always have appropriate time and place filters so it’s my job to stay alert. It’s like once in a while the thing that triggers her she has almost little control over until it’s done. More times than I can count she turns toward me in the work (when I am ready to put up a boundary or behind a gate) with snaked ears and flashing eyes only as she gets closer to me seems to decide she can let go of that on her own and by the time her nose is over the gate her ears flop and her eyes are soft and she just looks at me. It reminds me of a trigger that gets hit and then in the process of attack she realize it’s actually not necessary and melts back to normal. Talk about Jekyll and Hyde.

    Many days I work with her free to leave the barn and go out to pasture, eat grass, and disconnect altogether. She has never done this. When she works in her stall it is because she chose to go in there. Currently I sometimes lock her out of the stall so we don’t get stuck in the stall work. What is fascinating to me is that her brain in the beginning was in the pasture, and her body in the stall. Now that she has the opportunity to join the two by going into the pasture- she does not choose to do that. 

    The flag has come around to being a tool I can use to defuse now yet still create a boundary she is respecting. The rope however is still in the death category, and as over time I would like to be able to work with her in halter with a rope attached, I had to sort out how to approach her with a rope and not get my arm chewed off. The flag I can touch her with at a distance and even if she bites at it I’m still a safe few feet away.

    I took the halter off the rope to start this process and grabbed my 22’ line. I began in the stall tossing the line up in the air to land across her back or neck and then reeling it in. None of this is painful, but she acted as if her life would end and she had to kill the rope. She has been on a lead rope for eight years worked in a halter. I cannot believe I created this fear of ropes in her this week. 

    Is it possible that she had been internalizing these concerns from being driven with (I have never tied her bodily up with a rope but I cannot know that no one did in the “gentling” process before me) the rope and halter are certainly able to force her to do things she wouldn’t prefer- like run in circles around a human or get on a trailer. I’ve spent years driving horses with the end of a lead rope if they didn’t do the task.

    I wondered if her fear of me and the punishment (being driven with a tool for non-compliance) had been enough to create reasonably obedient behavior for the past handful of years. I always knew she wasn’t right, wasn’t relaxed and unconcerned, but I hadn’t thought her deep fears could be this violent. 

    So I went ahead with the rope toss because I saw with the flag that once she came to experience enough times and believe for now the thing was not going to attack her, she became calm with its presence. I have to get there with a rope too. Only this one seems even more ingrained.

    I experimented with a few things because I’m learning. One thing I did was the tossing and bringing back the rope so she could see it would not hurt her and it would leave. She eventually slowed down her attack of the thing and began to get more curious. Curious is good, you can’t be curious and terrified at the same time I’ve read that at least… She began to sniff and follow the rope as I pulled it back along the ground. Then sometimes I’d leave it on her and then send a loop to gently bump the rope up or down her body, when it was on her back or rump she began to take more calm steps and was able to walk out of the rope. If it was on her neck she began to drop her head and let the rope fall to her ears, then she learned how to release it to the ground. She was beginning to become empowered. 

    A next step I tried was coiling up a shorter lead rope and holding it out to her with my hand at the bottom in case she tried to bite the rope- and see if I could touch her with that, it was not looking good so I thought a bit and zip tied the coil to the end of a stick and string stick so I could rub her with the rope from a distance. This also seemed to help make some change of her worries.

    Tom suggested that though my tool work is helping her to see the tools themselves might not punish her, they still need to press into the realm of directing her (without pain) and then back to rubbing or not directing. That will be a really important distinction. 

    This has been a real challenge for me. I often start with the presence of a tool, or just my own presence, and her concern shoots up and self-preservation kicks in, so I begin with the message: hey, you can relax, I’m not going to hurt you and neither is the tool. I can get some softness there, but it’s not really where we need to go because I am going to need to direct her, influence her thoughts, and work together. This has to happen if she is going to continue to live in my herd for both our safety and her well being. I cannot take care of her needs if she is a threatening wild animal and there could come a point when I determine I won’t keep her in that state. (We are far from there now, but that is the long truth of this story).

    As soon as I begin to interrupt a thought (like the last post explains) or heaven forbid ask her to work together with me toward a direction (take a step without threatening to harm me) she changes back to porcupine. Thus I must help her find peace, but also we have to find peace together, not only in her own shell behind her own walls learning that the tools and myself are not only not a threat but we will never ask anything of her. I mean you can’t have a healthy teenager who has a fabulous good attitude when you give them all they want, leave them to do whatever they want, and they carry no responsibility to the family- or to your better judgement of when they might need their hooves trimmed or to have health concerns attended to.

    What the balance of this is, well, I’m learning that I hope. Trial and error style.

    Currently I’ve been working with the rope now that we’ve gained enough ground that she accepts the rope as less threatening, but she’s not so keen on me using it to suggest a request… I try to get her to leave her stall and work her in a larger area with the rope loosely looped once or twice around her shoulders/neck area. To give somewhat a picture my “goal” is not to allow the rope to be tight and claustrophobic but only as potential for light feel and some direction. I can’t really control her with it, and it’s a 22’ line so I have a lot of rope to give her without it getting tight. What I don’t like about this is it’s hard to be entirely clear about a request, so my aim at the moment is she gets a gold star for ANY try to move herself with a rope ask, any try that is not including lunging toward me or threatening violence.

    The other day, a particularly challenging day, one of the only times I have seen her calculating, straight on facing me in a hard stare, just what the cost might be to take me out (this is rare) and I wondered if I had gotten myself into a vortex of ocean current I wouldn’t be able to swim out of… I kept asking for that ONE soft step with the rope only loosely draped around her, not secured with any knot that either one of us could get too caught up in, she came through. 

    I was truly about to bail that day thinking I had gone too far with this direction, pushed her over to the point she was going to kill or be killed and giving up- sending her back into the stall and leaving her alone might be the way we live to try another day. But I am stiff-necked and I knew if I did that- yes, we can keep working and it is not the end, but it would have been a terrible setback teaching her that kind of intense behavior DOES work out for her purposes which would turn that into a tool she would pick up more and more readily, which would mean some more serious concerning work ahead possibly more intense than I wanted to have to go through. So I prayed quickly for wisdom and I stood in there asking as confident and calm as I could be and ready to put in the boundary (but not holding it in place when she wasn’t threatening because then I am the aggressor…) and held my ground with the simple non-threatening as possible request.

    When she did take the step and relax somewhat I was relieved and that was a day that though I won’t say she came complete to a soft peaceful state, it was pretty darn good all considering where we’d been. And I led her over to her stall door, got one back up step when she began to crowd me at the door (and she quietly complied!) I softly let her in… then went home to wash my big girl panties so they’d be ready for the next day.

    After a few other chores, I opened up the gates and let all the girls out to graze. Two walked out and found some grass, but not Wyoming. She walked out then trotted to the water trough (she also has water in her stall bucket), and then as I was out of the barn in the front, getting ready to leave she cantered around and back into the barn alone. I walked back to peek in a window to see her in her stall, alone, standing quietly, the rest of the mares out in the pasture. 

    Has that become a place she’s found peace due to the work we’ve done in there? I don’t know. Not yet. But I observe and I continue to take notes, I hope in time there will be more clarity as things settle in to more distinct patterns.

    Meanwhile I keep in touch with Tom Moates who is a saint to read my detailed descriptions, occasionally see video clips, observe pictures, and offer me encouragement and ideas to consider. The encouragement I particularly appreciate because there are clearly moments I think “I am now, or have by now, ruined this horse.” Tom seems to be able to find the phrase or moment I shared that he sees as the little crumbs of positive progress. 

    Down deep, I do know everything I am seeing comes out of that volcano I knew was there in some form, often smaller eruptions, before. I am not creating them today. I am however determined to expose them hopefully in non-lethal increments if I can be so wise, but not so small they do not have any value at all and only create a kind of low-grade illness. 

    I have heard a saying: What is revealed can then be healed. There is a lot being revealed this season. Certainly I’ve done things that might have inflamed or created experiences she could use to dig more solidly into her position, but this mare, in being left alone while I knew I didn’t know how to help her, has nursed and tended the poisonous garden and it has gotten more firmly entrenched by the very fact it hasn’t been exposed sooner. In other words, I think doing nothing has caused more harm than I realized.

    These couple weeks have been messy, sometimes downright ugly, and also tiny glimpses of peaceful and sweet. I am glad for the time I’ve been given this summer for this work, and the relative privacy for us to feel our way up the mountain on a newer, not so well worn track. There are signs along the way that give me hope we are going the right way, but they are still faint.

    That’s another observation I’ve come to in life: the really clear well worn paths often do find dead ends and many people camp out, unwilling to leave the ground they have gained for a place higher up the mountain. The paths that take one higher are usually less traveled and they look more overgrown and treacherous in the beginning parts, but after a time, once you’ve invested because of what you’ve come to know and not how you feel about it, they begin to open up into wider spacious places, and there are brooks along the way, and some stunning scenery. But they are never for the faint of heart.

    I spliced together a few minutes of examples of some of this work as a little bonus video here for anyone who made it through the blog!

    Note: I want to clarify that I am attempting to walk a pretty fine line for me where I am not “desensitizing” Wyoming to my tools or to me. I don’t want her “bomb proof” or shut down in order to cope with scary things. I think some of this work can look similar if one isn’t being quite conscientious, or if one doesn’t truly understand the difference. I don’t think I always get this right, but one of the main distinctions I’m trying to get clear is that the “answer” to Wyoming finding peace is not to hold still under the pressure, or to “act right” on the surface (like don’t come at me with your teeth) although it would be lovely if she can stand quietly and relaxed and I don’t want her to approach me with violent intention. I want her to be able to move and walk with the rope, the flag, or my hand touching her. In Wyoming’s case one of her “shut down” reactions is to drop her head to the ground; when she does this I know she is feeling so much pressure she is checking out. I don’t want her to check out, so in those cases I need to notice it’s too much and find a way to back up a touch, or sometimes I need to add more pressure so she HAS to come back to me and face the scary thing and come through to see it WILL be ok and she doesn’t have to hide. This takes understanding and wisdom. I at least know what I want to do, even if I don’t always do it perfectly. The bottom line is in the intention. I don’t simply want her physical body reaction to look right, I want her to feel better after facing the thing seeing that it doesn’t have to hold her in terror. There is a difference, and I think most people I’ve talked to struggle to see it at first, or even to believe it exists. When one can see it, the difference becomes important.
  • The Good Citizen

    The Good Citizen

    I sometimes hear horse-folk say the most important thing we can do for a horse is to train it to be a good citizen. They have rational reasons behind this, especially like: “I may not (God forbid) be able to have this horse it’s entire lifespan.” Implying a horse that is not a good citizen is more difficult to re-home (which is true… most horses are tricky to re-home, throw in any complication — physical or behavioral — and this becomes exponentially more challenging). Then there is the embarrassed owner who finds the equine health professional’s life in danger just trying to help… In the end there is great agreement (which is actually rare in horse-folk) that anyone should be able to handle a good citizen with no trouble at all. I usually smile and nod along, because to disagree makes you seem like an idiotic crazy person. I mean how could one disagree on the one thing everyone generally agrees on? Just ruin world peace while you’re at it why don’t you?

    My “not so” good citizen

    It’s not so much that I disagree as I’m fuzzy on the details. I think a more interesting conversation would be had about what the definition of a good equine citizen actually is. It’s easy to nod and assume we agree on a proper way to handle a horse in the first place, but that is far from true. I’m pretty sure I don’t want a horse that “is obedient” to a request from everyone exactly the same way. I’d bet the farm that no one is going get hurt handling Khaleesi no matter what you do with her… however, how you ask, and your ability to read a horse and interact appropriately is going to impact what you get out of her. Shouldn’t it be that way? 

    I have an illustrative story of a farrier years back who tried to help me out by checking on a lost shoe one day when he couldn’t get in touch with me, but was in my area. He was trying to do me a favor by grabbing a halter and going to see if he could tack the shoe back on for me. He left a message I got later, quite frustrated that no matter what he did including bringing a bucket of grain, he couldn’t catch her. Stupid mare. (I think she thought he was a stupid person thinking she would be lured by food!) I am pretty sure if you asked him, even today, he’d say my horses are not good citizens. But K never trusted him, and he used fear and intimidation with horses, telling me more than once that a good horse (his definition of a good citizen) has a healthy fear of humans and that’s the way it should be. He was considered one of the best farriers around, but we had to part ways. And I was glad he couldn’t catch her that day. 

    I thought this blog would expose my disagreement with the good citizen idea, but as I process, I see that it’s more the definition that separates us all. My ex-farrier thought a good citizen has fear of humans. Some call their horse a good citizen and then say things like “you can’t do anything with the horse on the ground but once you get on them it’s all just fine…” What I’ve been coming to see is the most important thing (as I’ve heard Harry Whitney say) to teach a horse, is that they can let go of a thought. 

    Over the two weeks I’ve been working daily with Wyoming to help her feel better, a simple truth has begun to rise in a new clarity. This mare has gotten good at hanging on — with a death grip — to her own thoughts.

    There was a time I observed: you can get along just fine with Wyoming as long as you never require anything of her. If you exist with her on her own terms you can be best buddies. She’s friendly and fun, and the life of the party. However if you require something of her, she switches pretty quickly to what Tom calls “snarky.” 

    A day with some visitors, Wyoming put herself dead center of all the attention… life of the party!

    Regardless if my definition of a good citizen aligns with the general horse community, a horse willing to fight over something like “will you please take a step backward” is absolutely not acceptable. And yet… now what? We have already established in the last two entries that she doesn’t feel very good about her life. That’s what I’m trying to address.

    In over seven years, by no one’s definition, has she been transformed into a good citizen no matter what kind of training I’ve practiced from harsh (becoming more scary than her threats) to compassionate (free choice and positive reinforcement). In all the places I’ve searched, so far I haven’t been able to break through for a real change.

    Now I’m getting better at understanding where the horse’s thought is, and how they are feeling. Currently I am going in deep to see if I can change Wyoming’s experiences to change her thoughts, and then get a change in how she feels.

    Begin at the begining?

    A soft moment during our R+ phase…

    The halter. I have worked on getting her to accept being haltered willingly from many angles over years with her. I can put the halter on, but it doesn’t take a horse whisperer to know she is tolerating, but not relaxed or willing. I love linear rational thought: If I can’t get her to willingly accept the halter, is it a wonder the rest of it is like poison fruit of the tree? I wanted to go back to the source and work from the root.  

    When I walk into Wyoming’s stall she immediately comes to meet me at the gate.  I offer the halter and she will grudgingly allow it to be pulled up over her nose. Gradients of messy depending on the day, but I get it done.

    Something I found interesting is Khaleesi will not come to me in the stall and put her head in the halter, yet I never have a problem walking right up to her and offering the halter and she will dip her nose dutifully. (We are experimenting with this but that’s a different story right now) Wyoming coming to the gate to meet me, which on the surface seems “better” than having to walk over to halter K. However, actually putting on the halter is a totally different experience. Khaleesi is willing to cooperate, Wyoming tolerates and sometimes gives little threatening nips at the rope with her lips. 

    I began to grasp something that I had not thought through before: Wyoming was not connecting with me by walking over to meet me at the exit gate. If one was only reading action it looks pretty cooperative. Where was her mind? With me? Not at all. Her mind already left the stall. This is not good if one misreads the situation to think we’re working cooperatively. What I can get away with because it’s actually Wyoming’s plan isn’t going to give me accurate information about what’s going on with her. And if I don’t have accurate information we are going to eventually run into trouble.

    The truth will set us free.

    So being the truth seeker I am, I decided to try something different. I walked into the stall. She came over to me. Then I walked to the adjacent corner of the stall. This was going off script. She stayed at the exit.  Standing with me in a stall corner, was not on her list of plans so she did not join me. 

    I made a light shuffling with the lead rope to get her attention and encourage her to consider coming over to me. Just think about it? I was asking her to add me to her list, maybe bump me up to a higher position there. She pinned her ears and looked over at me with a warning.

    Nope. Not gonna do it. Don’t ask. 

    Interesting. The ear pinning threatening behavior I thought was reserved for asking her to put out effort. Simply coming two steps over to me in the stall did not seem worth the fight she was threatening. But somehow, to her, it was.

    I paused and considered, if she was already threatening violence, maybe I needed to find a safer spot from which to press this issue. Her stall has an exterior barn wall, a partial wood wall with a four foot exit gate, then two farm gates that separate her from Khaleesi and from the other half of the barn which is storage for hay and equipment.

    pondering climbing out of the stall completely before we begin…

    From this position, I asked again with more insistence: I see your brain is already out in the field. Let go of that for the moment, bring your brain back here to the stall, and find a place of peace with me.

    I walked over to what makes the back “wall” of the stall which is a green farm gate, and climbed up to sit a moment. It seemed like a better place…but as I sat there now looking at her rear end (with her head still pointed out the exit), I realized that when I began to push the comfort zone there seemed a decent chance of getting a chunk taken out of my leg.  And so I climbed over the gate into the safe zone of the barn outside her stall. With the open plan of this particular make-shift stall, I had great access to her with the ability to stay out of reach. 

    Let’s freeze frame a moment.

    Before I get into the action to come, let’s walk through the present snapshot of the story. Wyoming is not at peace with her brain out in the pasture and her body in the stall. In order to find peace she has to reunite her body with her brain. She thinks she would prefer to put her body out in the field where her brain is. I must show her that since it is not always possible to get her body where she sent her brain, she can choose the real option to bring her brain back and engage in the present. She can find peace this way.

    This is not so different from human experiences. Anxiety, which is at an all time high in the world today I’ve heard, happens when a human allows their brain to go places their body cannot. Sometimes into the future to worry about things they cannot control or even deal with because they are not yet real. Sometimes to a place they cannot actually be, to try to control things there. This is always a losing game, and it creates sickness in the mind and the body. We hear more often than ever the importance of becoming present where and when we are. Find something that can return you to the reality of the present, where it turns out, most of the time… you actually ARE ok. 

    Trauma, I think, without going out of my own depth which is not much here, is when you DO come back to the reality of the present location and time and find out indeed… you are NOT ok. Acute trauma usually has an end point, but the effects linger. If we don’t address it (which is painful), we will continue to suffer- which is more painful.

    It’s a pretty good bet this horse has experienced trauma. She was wild for at least two years in Wyoming before being rounded up. She might have lost herd mates in that time to starvation or predators, or injury, or random barbed wire fence lines or suffered some of these herself. Being rounded up and penned is traumatic to a wild animal. In her first training-gentling experience she was traumatized by the halter, bit her handler, reared up, and flipped over. Some horses do not get so traumatized by being haltered the first time. I wish I could say her life has been carefree and perfect since she found her way to me, but that’s not true either.

    I thought I was getting a green-broke mustang who was doing well under saddle and needed some consistency and mileage. Perfect for me! Instead, looking back, I brought home a traumatized animal whose personality was more fear based than most and I did not have the tools then to even recognize what was happening forget what to do about it. I delved into natural horsemanship type work and began driving the creature to her fight/flight mode in order to work with her and certainly added to her experience of trauma in the hope of helping her. The same work that created a pretty good citizen in Khaleesi by most definitions, did not create the same thing in Wyoming. 

    And so, armed with new understanding and some rough tools, we are back in the moment with the horse gazing out of her stall, with her mind out there and her body in here. She is not at peace. My presence was upping the ante on this and it didn’t sit well with her at all.

    I’ve moved away from driving pressure, so my plan was to create a kind of “indirect pressure” in her environment that would not scare her to have to fight or flee, but to be big enough eventually that she couldn’t block me out or ignore me anymore. I wanted her to choose to put me on the list, because I knew her being present would bring her peace. Peace is what she wants more than anything, but she’s stuck in her patterns and doesn’t know how to get there alone. Now I had to be ready to not add to her fear/flight/fight system, but make it so her other choices to stay stuck didn’t work out so well anymore. Then, when she did come check in with me, I had to be ready to offer a place that felt better than she felt in vigilante mode. I had to find a way to offer her rest, security, and peace in my presence. It had to be real.

    I made a noise with the rope. She turned her head and death glared at me, snake ears and flashing eyes. Then turned back to her field.

    I made a larger noise. Same reaction but faster and more intent.

    I swung the rope to hit the wood barn wall next to me with a bang. She swung herself around, dipping her head low and raising it like a dragon, ears flat against her neck and came at me over the top of the gate with her teeth bared threatening me that this demand for her attention was worth fighting to the death over.

    Well, I wanted the truth.

    This is what’s been in there the whole time. I was now poking at it from a safe place in the hope what I stirred up and revealed, maybe… maybe we could release it and make a deeper change for the better.

    Here I saw it more clearly: It is not that Wyoming is offended by any request to do a thing. This horse has a fear-based natural bent already, and has gotten a self-preservation life and death grip on the thoughts she manages about her environment and her herd. If you want her to let go of those, she is convinced her very survival is at stake. And though I believe that Wyoming basically “likes” me, she doesn’t look to me highly enough to let go of her survival mechanisms to give me her full attention (yet). If I ask her to let go of the other thoughts she is managing and put me in the center of her mind, she is kind enough to warn me that I’m stepping into a dangerous place. If I continue to press this, she threatens… I don’t think she wants to have to kill me. But in the end, if she believes its her or me, right now she would follow through to whatever extent she could in order to get me to understand and back down.

    And so I began to press into Wyoming’s self protection mechanism. I don’t do it because I need her to become a “good citizen” (though I would love that to be an outcome). I don’t do it because I need her to become an obedient riding horse (that would be awesome, but I already have one of those). I am doing it because somehow this horse has come into my care, by ignorance, mistake, or willful stubbornness by the grace of God, she’s here now and we are going to have to find our way to a better place. 

    The truth (sometimes ugly when it comes out of the dark) is what will set us free.

    I continued this basic program of making just enough noise to break her loose from her other thoughts and have to focus on me at least for a moment. I left a lot of time in between for her to search out this puzzle and to process it. I am not trying to use fear to manipulate Wyoming, the tool (whatever it is) will not come after her, just make enough noise and fuss to have my thing bigger for the moment than the other thing she’s trying to hold on to when she gets stuck.

    When I did get her attention, it came with her best dragon impression. Today I wanted her to be “rewarded” for checking in with me even if it was with a massive wave of what looked like murderous rage.

    Oh, thanks for giving me your attention! Good job!

    Video clip of one of the times she realized she didn’t have to feel bad about being present in the process.

    I don’t know if that was the best response or not. I’m kind of in the wild myself here with her now. I’m learning by trying and trying not to get hurt in the process. When she comes at me with that kind of face, it does not feel good for her, but she has momentarily had to let go of that other thought, and she is present. The truth, it appears, is she is convinced being present will feel bad. I say that because as she would come at me with murder in her eyes, as the time went on, she would hang there a moment with her snakey ears pinned and eyes flaring and I just stood there two inches out of her reach and then we’d pause for just a moment, and she would begin to soften. She would look at me and start to relax, her ears would float back up, and I would be still and breathe evenly with as much peace as I could muster, trying to translate from every pore: I know you’re ready to fight, but I love you, you are mine, and we are going to get better together in time. I am here to help you.

    She would stand there and everything in her body would begin to soften until her lower lip would drop slightly and she would let go of the entire weight of the world she was used to carrying. The first time this happened in entirety, she stood in as much peace as I’ve seen her maybe ever, then she had a big release reaction. She shook her entire body and neck, she went into yawning that twisted her head both directions and her tongue would come out of her mouth in all directions. 

    It took two hours to come to this place where I could reach out and touch her on her forehead and she stood relaxed and peaceful, no fight in her. Not a hint of trying to send her mind out the gate or window. 

    Finally peace.

    I know this made a deep change in her, because after I walked away to do some things in the barn she began to eat hay. That might seem normal for a horse. However, I left the horses in their stalls for which is normal this time of year for a few hours a day. Khaleesi eats the most hay in these periods. Hope eats the next amount but less because she spends a portion of time laying down resting as she is not fully well. Wyoming always ate the least. 

    When I returned later to release the horses from their stalls, Wyoming had eaten every almost every blade of hay which is highly unusual. I always suspected it was because she was distracted with checking out her window and stall door, but she never paced or pawed or showed bigger signs of stress. She always went into the stall voluntarily. I think she would choose the stall because her herd was inside, so that’s where she needed to be- but her brain was in fact roving the field still on guard for danger. 

    As I worked with her for the two hours, not only did she gaze out the exit door, but there is a smaller window.  She would cycle her mind out that window, to the exit, then with Khaleesi in the next stall. Those three places were all on her list to cycle through making sure all was in order. At some point she must have added in eat some hay to the list, because she did eat some of her hay. She’s not lacking for calories, has never shown sign of colic, and drinks her water, so I never concerned myself with addressing her low hay consumption over the 6-9 hours they would spend inside.

    Now, if the herd is put in the barn, she eats all her hay and I keep adding more. This reinforces to me that the work I did with her over those two hours convincing her to let go of her thoughts to be present in the stall with me did not ONLY give her a few moments of peace while I was there, but she learned that she could find peace being present in the stall even when I was not there. She was finding more peace even on her own now.

    That is a very big deal. That is a very big why to continue to try.

    I wish I could say that in this first big day of finding a place of relaxation that we now have solved her issues and all is well!

    Not quite. The journey has only begun, and so far this one promises to be one of plot twists, steps forward and sideways, and sometimes backward… one that will require patience, and the ability to notice the smallest things as landmarks along the way. However I am seeing evidence that teaching a horse they can let go of a thought truly is one of the most important things to helping them live as good equine citizens. 

    Right now, asking Wyoming to let go of a thought feels to her like an attack on her self-preservation and tips her into fight mode. In other horses, it is a reason they bolt, flee, buck off a rider, or try to kill the vet. If a horse can let go of a hard thought they have a better chance at working together with us in our own thoughts – like you need hoof care, or to come safely with me as I lead you somewhere you aren’t sure you want to go… These are things most people could agree a good citizen would be able to do.

    Stay tuned as I process the days I spend with Wyoming. The ups and downs of that journey will be the focus for now, and I’ll be back soon with another installment!

  • The devil in the details.

    The devil in the details.

    In the last post (Complicated), I posed the root question:

    And so, the whole thing depends on the question: can I help change Wyoming’s experiences and thus her mind, that working together with me is something she can feel good about? And in changing this, could she feel better about her life all around?

    Over time I have been given advice about Wyoming suggesting a few basic horsemanship concepts. I was told You’ve got to make the “wrong” thing difficult and the “right” thing easy. Also This is a horse where you have to get it to be her idea if you want to succeed.

    This is all well enough… but somehow I wasn’t able to get a next step from the well meaning clinicians and horse-folk who suggested these better ways, to actually sort out exactly how was one to do this? The devil, they say, is in the details.

    As for the first premise, I have been astounded at how easy the “right” thing can be (walk quietly in a circle) to find this mare will choose ear pinning, rearing, and even trotting or cantering in order to NOT comply with my “easy” request. Have you ever heard that it takes more effort to frown than to smile? I’m certain that ear pinning and rearing take way more effort than quietly walking relaxed a turn or two around me.

    Khaleesi had this figured out pretty quickly. She did the math and came to the conclusion complying with my general requests were going to be the path of least resistance. I think she also knew my heart (is that a stretch to write about?) for however a horse knows these unseen things, I think Khaleesi has always known that for better or worse, overall I am trying to do right by her. This horse seems to reward the least try by her human, and she seems to have a lot more grace in my failings. Khaleesi is the kind of horse of which it is said: they will fill in for you… a lot.

    Wyoming is not such a horse. She may or may not know my heart is to do right by her, but she tells me every single time I am not quiet enough in a request, every single time I get impatient and don’t allow her the time to consider and choose. She responds to my energy and where I am looking and if my body is not exactly angled in the ideal way to ask that thing. She responds in a huge way if I am at all confusing to her in any signal. Wyoming has a very low tolerance for mixed signals or confusion.

    As for the second piece of advice, the making it her idea. I never got someone to show me effectively what that would that look like with her. In the past I figured it’s obviously one of those things you have to struggle through on your own (what are you an idiot to have to ask that follow up question of HOW to do it? Or maybe it was like the force… you have to find it on your own grasshopper). That was another assumption. I should have probably asked better follow up questions. Maybe someone might have been able to show me.

    Observing Harry Whitney and Tom Moates, it seems altogether less magical and more practical. The horse gets to choose and whatever she does IS her idea now. And as I’ve heard Harry say: when it’s her idea, then she will own it, then it’ll stick.

    Harry Whitney in TN patiently allows for the horse to come to the idea on her own

    Oh, I thought. So I must not trick, force, or otherwise manipulate and threaten her into doing what I want. And yet somehow I have to help her make better decisions? Which then follows that if I’m dealing with her honestly and not manipulating or otherwise controlling or punishing her… then it actually has to work out better FOR HER when she chooses the thing I am presenting. Which might incentivize her to truly seek to join with me because… it works out for her when she does.

    The devil is in the details.

    I hear a lot of talk in horse circles about putting the horse first, then watch the presentation of folks’ interpretation of that in action and am skeptical. Let me clarify a finer point, often I observe my own presentation of my own interpretation of putting the horse first, and I am highly skeptical even of my own stewardship of this concept.

    And yet, as I perch outside the round pen as Harry helps a horse, I think there is actually a simple truth in… well… put the horse first? Harry Whitney, in the scant week or so I’ve spent around him in California and Tennessee, puts an emphasis on how the horse feels above everything else. 

    Harry in Vista, CA February 2023 helping a horse center and find peace in the midst of distraction

    I am pretty good by now about sorting out what a horse does. I can see the way a horse steps over a hind foot, or if the horse’s body moves backward, or if the horse is walking, trotting or cantering. I am even good at seeing a weight shift and feeling which foot is lifting underneath me. It is not that hard to sort out: I asked you to walk, and you are not walking. This I need to “fix” somehow. Harry wants to know how the horse feels.

    As I circle back to the question, can I help Wyoming FEEL better about her life, it seems now to rise above all the other questions I have asked: Can I get Wyoming comfortable on the trailer? Can I get Wyoming to respond to a simple request unoffended? Can I put on a halter without her nipping at it as I put it on? Can I convince her to carry me as a rider without being so pinched up inside?

    And so I went to work last week, and the devil is in the details.

    Day one and day two were spent with Tom sorting out the fact that Wyoming is not only complicated, but that she does not feel good most of the time. Even in the herd she is never fully relaxed, she is the one who appears to take on the role of defender of any possible harm. This is a heavy load to carry. Any new environmental stimuli, even a chainsaw a mile away in the woods across the street is cause for concern and alert. 

    Khaleesi has a more balanced sense of what is concerning, and what can be noticed and let go of. Same herd, same stimuli, still aware of her environment and sometimes on alert, but quicker to let something go and relax again.

    If I were to consider Wyoming’s “worry cup” (as in the amount of anxiety a horse is building up until it runneth over – usually in a negative expression of some sort), Wyoming is not a cup half full kind of mare… she is like 5/8th  most of the time and now has learned to carry that kind of worry in everything she does. This would mean when I want to do something together I have precious little room to press her before her cup runs over. I think this constant anxiety is a big part of this not feeling good all the time.

    If she lives at 5/8 full, I think me showing up puts her at 6/8 (or 3/4 for those who prefer to simplify their fractions) then whatever we begin to sort through together leaves only 7/8 and then bam… self-protection at all costs shows up in fight/flight with the fight being unusually high on her list of options.

    I am considering the possibility that her 5/8 full worry cup at all times being a way of life could account for why she is so quick to flip over to fight/flight and the fact that we’ve had to get decent at dumping out the part we just filled if we both want to survive together. If this is an accurate hypothesis, then it follows that I have not been effective at getting down into the bottom 5/8 of the cup she carries constantly in order to empty some of that and give us some emotional space to work in.

    If I had to find an analogy to compare it to, it’s like working with a machine that is not running quite properly and you have to learn how to manage it without it overheating and blowing up if you want to get anything done. We exist too close to the red zone as an every day functioning.

    I think until I find a way to dig into some of the chronic discontent/anxiety she carries as her normal and help her to let go some of that somehow… then I’m constantly in the zone where every move I make could be the thing that takes her over the edge. It’s an eggshell kind of life. My guess is she would rather not live that way either. If she knew there was another way.

    As Tom says: this is the horse she would rather be.

    This winter and at other times I’ve put her into the benign neglect zone, first because I didn’t have any promising answers to bring a change. Second, in the winters I’m busy with my teaching work and have far less time for the herd.

    I used the think caring for her basic needs, allowing her to settle into a herd in a life of basic freedom could not only do no harm, but would help her reset again and feel better in order for us to possibly try again after that refreshing time off. Maybe the horse can drain the cup on her own? Since meeting Harry I am convinced that they actually DO need intervention in a different experience in order to make a change. Leaving them alone to “be a horse” if they are troubled will not fix the trouble. 

    The biggest take-away I had from Harry in Tennessee this spring was: 

    Our understanding runs our emotions, our emotions dictate our actions.  If you want a change in the horse, you must change their understanding. 

    Harry Whitney

    After Tom’s visit it had come into focus for me, somehow Wyoming needs new experiences to get that cup drained enough that she could withstand a little pressure in order to grow and expand her world. Leaving her alone to a world that gets smaller and smaller due to fears is not kindness. Creating a shake up in order to help her was going to be necessary.

    No Wyoming… tell me how you really feel?

    And the devil is in the details.

    This is where the hoof hits the dirt. The first question from the last post was: can I help Wyoming feel better with new experiences that will change her mind. Once everyone was gone and it’s just me and the mare I now to have to ask: How on earth am I going to do this?

    I have a feeling this is going to demand more from me that I currently possess in knowledge, skill, creativity, grace and most of all patience. As I got started, I realized this horse is probably going to be the kind that makes me or breaks me – meaning I will either grow and learn, or she’ll be too much for me and I will truly fail her. I can not at the moment accept the latter as a possibility, so I’m prepared to be changed from this process. 

    And so we begin… again… again.

  • Complicated

    Complicated

    “Well she’s… complicated…” he says, “This isn’t the kind of horse you move on, sell to someone else or otherwise offload.” As he turned to my friends he added, “This is the kind of horse that, well, people with this kind of disorder end up with…”

    I didn’t ask Tom what exactly that disorder was. I didn’t ask because I was pretty sure I knew. I was pretty sure it was whatever the disorder- it is the thing that tries to explain why certain people, upon finding they have acquired a “complicated” horse, instead of thinking what a terrible thing it is and how difficult the road will be, see an opportunity to learn things that “uncomplicated” horses cannot teach you.

    I could be wrong about that and probably should have asked. Probably I didn’t really want to know the definition of this disorder in it’s entirety. Some things are better left to wonder.

    I do have a fairly “uncomplicated” horse in the herd and I enjoy her immensely. I am not the kind of person who has to have a problem to solve at all times. Ok. That’s not true, I am that kind of person. However, I am also the kind of person who can enjoy an uncomplicated horse. In fact, I am grateful that the complicated horse will make me better for the uncomplicated one as well. 

    Enough of that. Back to the complicated wild one.

    I’ve had Wyoming, I keep saying about five years, but I think I’ve been saying five years for at least two years now, so it might be more like seven years. I’ve written about her journey from time to time here. I’ve ridden her, I’ve done ground work, I’ve trailer loaded her, I’ve done clinics with her… but I have never found “success” with her. 

    When I say success I mean: felt like we had come to a place where things were working together well. 

    Everything I have done with her that initially masqueraded as success has always eventually unraveled, sometimes in potentially dangerous ways.

    I could get things done with her, and she’s so sensitive it sometimes “looked” amazing, but it never felt good, it never felt solid, it never felt right.

    I still haven’t given up. This mare has over time brought up the question for me if there are horses we should “give up” on and allow them to live out their days as a pasture ornament, but that never felt right for her. I think Wyoming has a desire to do something together. I just have not been able to figure out how to do it so it works for us both.

    This is Tom Moates’ second visit to play around with us on the farm. We focused on trailer loading last time, and though that is still not settled, I have a good path laid out and can continue to work on it. What I wanted to address this visit was the path to becoming a reliable riding horse (or the decision she couldn’t be). 

    She has been started and restarted a few times already, the last time, a couple years back I even went on a few nice trail rides on her before she began laying down during the ride. Yes, while I was riding her. When she was done, she was done. I was never hurt, she would simply lay down and I got off, but this is an example of how it was not successful. 

    I tried letting her know this laying down thing is not how we do trail rides. She didn’t care. When Wyoming is done, there’s nothing left to say about it. I could have whipped or beat her, but it wouldn’t matter. She would die if that’s what it took. This is what we come to, eventually, with about everything.

    After a few episodes of her laying down on the trail, and me trying various responses of either ignoring it- getting off, asking her to get up, and simply getting back on and continuing on… I also tried carrying a crop and smacking her forward when she started to lay down… she actually got so fast at it in order to avoid getting driven forward that she could lay down with little to no warning! 

    But it didn’t matter in the end, because the problem continued to move up the chain to her refusing to leave the yard entirely and she would crow hop, buck and start to rear if I insisted. Which took us all the way back to can we ride in the arena again, and then can I just get on her and ask her to go forward at all?

    This is an example of how things would come apart. 

    And so I go back to the drawing board and try to figure out why this isn’t working out.

    Since she didn’t travel on a trailer (she has before but that also came unglued) my options for getting help living at the end of nowhere have been limited. In February, Harry Whitney put me in touch with Tom Moates, who lives within driving distance from me. Tom has an interest (disorder based too?) in wild mustangs and complicated horses, Wyoming is both of these, so he was keen to work with me if I could line up enough other horses to make the short trip worthwhile. We now call them these fun two-days of people and horses “roving clinics” as we hop up the valley from farm to farm on the 220 corridor. Mix in some good food and laughter and what could be better?

    A soft moment with Tom after we worked a while on getting her to center up her mind

    On Monday (day one of two days this visit), Tom watched me halter Wyoming in the field with her small herd loose on the handful of acres, and try to get her mind centered on me. Unsuccessfully. 

    I had planned to get her halter on in order to bring her in so we could begin talking about the process of saddle and riding and how we might go about finding the holes that have apparently been left behind in the many other starting processes so I could sort out my homework with her going forward. I had plans, but have learned to come with a plan and take what presents. I could have walked her away but I knew she wasn’t with me, so I tried to address that first. 

    Tom watched me struggle to center the mare and get her to let go of the herd, the environment, and all the other things her busy mind keeps track of at any one second and after a few minutes asked me: Would you like me to comment?

    Yes. Please. 

    In this way we began working right there in the field with what we had. It took a while to get the mare willing to give up on all the other thoughts she was juggling enough to cooperate with a few simple asks including “can you walk around me in a circle, relaxed and responsive in case I want to make a change midstream (not on autopilot)?” What I’ve become used to and what Tom and the others were seeing is that this mare can go from: I’m ok but I’m not really focused… to I’m about to stab you in the heart and pound on your grave… quickly back to oh hey what do you want to do for dinner?

    It’s a Jekyll and Hyde life with her, and when she threatens death it’s convincing.  I’ve yet to see her follow through, and I’m not afraid of her. This doesn’t mean I don’t take her seriously, but I don’t think she wants to act out her threats. When I see this dragon act, I usually put in a hard boundary and she lets go of murder momentarily, and we go back into the cycle… wash, rinse, repeat. I have not been able to make a significant change in the cycle as of yet. Thus the we are not successful feeling I have. 

    On any normal day you walk into the field with the herd she is the ambassador, friendliest horse I have. I bring anyone and everyone in to meet the horses without concern. She is not a generally aggressive horse. She loves to be around people and I see her as usually quite willing to try. All it takes is for her to feel trapped and asked to do something (anything) that isn’t what she had in mind and it flips like a switch to life and death, self-preservation, and you can see it in her threats to fight.

    Abigail & Wyoming a few years back

    She doesn’t hold on to that big bluster long, and when I meet that with an equal sized quit that!! She always does, and she goes back to a normal looking horse, her eyes are not blazing and her ears look normal, and the teeth go back where they belong behind fuzzy velvet muzzle. Usually she’ll comply with the request which is something like walk around a circle. But often she does it with a hard heart. She complies in order to get it over with which becomes avoidance by compliance. This turns into auto-pilot where she can do the thing without engaging her brain which she prefers to keep on the forty-two things she is juggling while trying not to have to give me any more brain space than necessary to keep me at bay.

    I have learned to walk the knife edge of demanding things of her and yet not getting hurt, which as I reflect might have put us in a truce where I accept not having her full attention if she will give me enough of it to do a thing together. This would also be why we still are not successful.

    As Tom watched this dynamic between us he questioned some of my responses and my timing, and my choice to get bigger or not get bigger, and when… which all was useful for me because we have a particular history and way of relating that may not be always ideal. Yet after a while when he asked to take the lead rope and do some experimenting he came back with the moment we began this blog.

    She’s complicated.

    Tom observed not very many horses are as quick as she is to go to full on life or death self-protection response and threaten violence. He also didn’t think she truly wanted to take out a human, but we all agree it’s not completely posturing. If she were pressed it seemed likely she’d shoot to kill. Her switch between the two: life and death versus compliant seemed unusually quick. It was also not completely clear when the bad attitude needed to be met with a big boundary and when it might be more productive to ignore it and allow it to dissolve without creating an explosion. I have struggled myself sorting this knife edge out in working with her.

    What Tom came around to express is his clarity that the mare doesn’t feel very good most of the time, and because she isn’t feeling very good, she’s quick to explode. We don’t know if this is necessarily physical. She may not feel good physically, though I don’t have evidence for this. What seems very clear is mentally and emotionally she does not feel good. This could be chicken and egg so we have to start somewhere to effect her feeling better and my sense is mentally emotionally is a good place to start because we have no clear entry point for the physical (I’ve had her checked over through the years wondering if she had physical issues, and we just don’t have any good leads on that side). 

    She is hyper vigilant and is always ready for an environmental factor to take out the herd. She is concerned about everything. I also think from the way I’ve worked with her in the past- with my natural horsemanship, direct pressure, driving style- she is concerned about getting the right answer to a cue. It’s not personal, it’s everything. She’s like a teenager who is mad at the world and the bad attitude is always at the surface ready to come out in a snarky comment, sarcastic remark or an eye roll. 

    I don’t know if she came this way or if humans (including me) created this. My guess is it’s a combination, and it doesn’t really matter. The same me working with the same tools also produced Khaleesi who is a great partner and basically compliant- even one might say responsive – horse. We have much room for improvement together but Khaleesi never threatens my life. Each kid is different in a family, so is each horse in a herd. And this horse is more like the kid adopted from a war zone who lived there long enough to carry some trauma. Regardless of her background, I’m sure I have a hand in the degree of problems we are working out. I’m not particularly bothered by this, I only plan to do better from here. 

    Great moment at the end of the session when Tom was checking out if she can tolerate some “dead weight” while carrying the saddle.

    When Tom said she doesn’t feel good about anything it struck me in a new way. Strange, because I could have said that same thing myself for years if I’d thought about it. Deep down I knew this was true but hadn’t isolated this is the root problem everything hinges from. Clearly the entire picture is hanging on the question: can I help Wyoming feel good about life in general and working with me?

    If she did begin to feel good, then trailer loading would work out better, the riding would fall into place, and even simple things would not be such a challenge. As Tom observed: you can get THAT onto a trailer, but then what? You’re just trailering THAT around! You don’t want to travel with THAT? THAT is not the kind of thing you want to export.

    we don’t want to export THAT

    Indeed.

    And so, the whole thing depends on the question: can I help change Wyoming’s experiences and thus her mind, that working together with me is something she can feel good about? And in changing this, could she feel better about her life all around?

    Apparently that’s part of the disorder in me, against all evidence so far, I say yes. At least I think that’s what having hope is all about. Here at Hope Horsemanship, I’m certainly going to try.

  • Kate the mare.

    Kate the mare.

    I was able to steal away for two days to catch up with Harry Witney in Rogersville, TN. He had taken roost for a few weeks at Mendin’ Fences Farm, a Horsemanship Education Center somewhere between Johnson City and Knoxville. The short trip was well worth the effort as I loved how Mendin’ Fences is set up and functions and got some good ideas about how I’d like to set up a location whenever that becomes a reality. I was able to watch and chat with Harry and the gathering around him for two days- and the gathering included Tom Moates who has become a Hope Horsemanship friend and comes to work/play with our horses from time to time- but also made a new friend from SC (Sue) and got to chat with Molly Sanders who does great interviews on her podcast: A Learner’s Journey.

    I had a few good take aways this particular trip I plan to write about, but the one that felt most compelling for me personally was watching Harry work with a beautiful strong independent mare named Kate.

    The way Harry worked with Kate wasn’t any different than other horses I’ve watched him work. Kate wasn’t all that particularly different from other horses either. Why this story particularly touched me was probably as simple as timing. Recently I have found myself distracted from my own path and my own story and though I knew it was happening, sometimes knowing doesn’t solve the deeper problems. Sometimes being aware is only the first step and not enough to make an internal shift that brings about change. I knew I was becoming anxious because my mind was not centered on my current place in my current journey. I knew this shows up in my wanting to start rushing around…

    What brought new clarity and impacted me came from seeing a story unfold that revealed to me, in a simpler version, what I was happening in my own life. That story enabled me to shift back to where the peace would be. Here is what I observed:

    Kate the mare.

    Kate was 26, not young for a horse. She’d had a life of performance, hurry and worry. Kate had been there and done that, her new owner explained, including long miles on the Appalachian trail, racing barrels and various other jobs in her life. She seemed now to get resentful about being pushed to perform. Sometimes she would dig in her heels and refuse to connect with a human and work together anymore, if pressed she would rush and go fast to get it over with. I just want her to have a happy rest of her life now, her owner said, that’s why we’re here.

    They brought Kate into the round pen and set her loose. She went about hurrying and worrying… and didn’t see any value in checking in with Harry. When he’d make a suggestion that she could let go of her anxiety and the thoughts that took her mind away from the roundpen she’d respond in a cloud of dust.

    Harry took his time with her and never encouraged her to add energy or up her effort. He kept it all slow. After a while of working in this relaxed slow way someone asked: Would you start working her at faster speeds now? (The horse before Kate Harry had done a lot more work at faster speeds) Harry responded: No, she just needs to get realizing that she can feel good right here. We don’t need to rush.

    The mare took a fair amount of convincing that Harry had anything at all to offer her. She was independent and strong willed and didn’t seem to need or want a leader in her life. When the mare let her thoughts wander away from what was happening at the moment in the pen she would get anxious and rush around. And yet Harry’s convincing was quiet, soft, and patient. He never chased her around to get her attention. He wanted her to work it out. If she could come through working it out herself, he explained, it would be more meaningful to her.

    She considers her options from across the sand

    When the time was right, Harry asked the mare to let go of the thoughts that took her away from being present: Be here now he said. Be here now. And he would wait, and help her notice him, help her see she could relax and feel good if she would choose to let go of the worries and choose to be with him, present in the pen. Yet she had to choose. When she would momentarily choose to pause and even consider connecting he would say: Good for you mare, good for you.

    She gives Harry a chance…

    I couldn’t help but think: who wouldn’t want to be one of Harry’s horses? Who wouldn’t want a leader who has the steadfast patience to do what the horse needs when the horse needs it to help the horse feel better about themselves and their world? Who isn’t looking for guidance on how to be here now, and someone willing to care enough to firm up to help, never to punish, and to encourage the freedom to work it out in your own way? Who actually cares that it’s meaningful for the horse not just that it’s effective to get to a goal? Who doesn’t want a leader in their life like Harry- whose priority is first that the horse feels better? 

    I reflected how when Harry works a horse he doesn’t consider what he did with the horse before her or what the horse after her will need. He doesn’t consider what will entertain those observing. Each is unique and he focuses only on that horse and what she needs at that moment – and at this point in his experience he’s gotten pretty darn good at knowing – for each horse, their story, and their needs. 

    I reflected how beautiful it is that in truth, I do have that very thing. And it was at work in that very moment. How healing it is to have an experience that changes an understanding, that changes emotions, that changes how I function and respond. What a piece of hope right there at the round pen. 

  • The motions of emotion

    The motions of emotion

    I spent few days with Harry Whitney last week. I hope I will never be the same.

    I have been to a handful of horsemanship events and clinics ranging in size and popularity and I did not know what to expect from a Harry Whitney clinic. Harry doesn’t have much media out there to get a detailed understanding of what he is doing, though it’s not difficult to get the basics, so if you want to learn from him, you’re going to have to go find him.

    Brandea and I did just that and we flew across the country to catch him in Southern California on a week we both could manage to get away. It was well worth the investment.

    I was surprised and soon delighted to find how intimate the group was. Harry does mainly one-on-one sessions and the clinics are limited to 5-6 horses. Auditors (or fence sitters and rail hens as Harry chuckled at the different terms for a clinic observer in other parts of the world) are also limited, but this clinic was below even the limit. At any given time there were less than 12 of us gathered around a round pen close enough to touch the master horseman hardly having to raise a voice to have a question heard.

    Intimate group around the round pen

    I have been in clinics where questions were “legal” but I’ve never seen anyone else address questions so willingly, easily, graciously and genuinely as Harry Whitney. He seems to invite questions because in order to learn, I think he wants those engaged in the process to be seeking and if we are seeking we should have questions. Harry creates a safe environment to ask any honest question, never leaves the human feeling stupid or embarrassed though he might lead you in a direction that brings a good natured laugh from everyone but always in a way that keeps us from Ftbecoming too serious about ourselves or the horses and his puns, jokes, and teasing take a potentially long exhausting day of mental heavy lifting and bring some lighthearted joy to mix into the kettle (pardon the vulture reference… one day to break things up Harry let us know if he could be any bird it would be a vulture and why).

    Possibly the thing I will remember the most in my first experience of Harry Whitney is the way his face can go from an attempt at very very serious to the grin that spreads so far and wide it always reaches his eyes. In a world of frustrated, annoyed, exhausted, exasperated, disillusioned master horsemen, the environment around Harry is true lightness and joy mixed with a weight of wisdom and experience. Where many well known horsemen seem to have compassion for the horse and disdain for the ignorant people who ruin them, Harry appears to have as much concern for the people who come for help as the horses who brought them. 

    I won’t try to encapsulate his approach in one blog post, however in some ways I could. There is an integrated core that roots beneath everything he does, and if one could get a handle on that it seems there isn’t anything that wouldn’t be possible. It reminds me of the “seek ye first” idea because when you sort out what that thing is… “and all the rest will be added unto you.”

    If I were to attempt a boil down to that core treasure it is about the mind and emotions of the horse. If you seek a present, calm, integrated mind and body (which will mean the horse feels good, has peace or in in a good emotional state), then you can have it all. There is nothing you couldn’t do together.

    The bad news is also the good news: it’s a lifetime in how to get there.

    In four full days of notes I skimmed through them to see if I could organize something out of the many hours of conversation and observation of Harry working horses and Harry walking others through working their horses. One quote seemed to rise through the roundpen dust:

    We must get more familiar with the motions that come with good emotions and the motions that come from negative emotions.

    Harry Whitney

    What Harry Whitney offers to those who have the patience, is a vision to see what a horse looks like when it truly feels good and how to see the signs of when a horse is doing the thing, but doesn’t feel good about it.

    I might have said before that identification of the problem is key, but today I will go to another place and say identification that there IS a problem is more key. We have so normalized… no… we reward and celebrate getting things done with horses when they are worried, shut down, or elsewise functioning in tension through the highest international levels, that I wonder how many people actually even have the eyes to see what it looks like to have a horse moving freely, in balance, with it’s mind and body aligned to commit willingly to the work it is engaged in. I long for the day when it is unusual to see a troubled horse in work instead of unusual to see a relaxed confident horse competing or even pleasure riding. 

    Lest anyone take this statement to suggest that I have sorted this out and point the finger around me, I will clarify that though I have been desperately seeking this without even knowing it was possible for years, I saw even today just how far I am from bringing my horses forward a shining example. But we will take ground together in this because I am committed to it. I am dedicated to learning and disciplining myself to the shifts necessary to be the one who is able to make my horse feel better about everything we do together.

    I have never been to a clinic where someone made what I’ll call an adjustment when I didn’t see a horse move a nose hair or whisker. I have previously thought (maybe I made this up, but I think I got some help from many sources over a few years) that if a horse didn’t move in their physical space then we don’t have anything to correct or adjust. And yet as I watched Harry in the round pen with a particularly bothered gelding the first day, I saw him knock the coiled up lead rope against his chaps making a decent striking sound and I hadn’t even seen the horse move.

    I had some ideas but I don’t want to assume. So I asked. I wanted to understand.

    Harry explained he created a kind of interruption or distraction at the point he saw the horse’s thoughts begin to move from present in the round pen with him to back to his stall and buddy in the shed row. He wasn’t trying to punish or correct the horse for a change of thought, he was interrupting or even blocking that thought because the horse had basically two options available: he could be present and calm, or he could allow his thoughts to meander (or lope directly!) back to his stall which would mean his mind would not be present with his body. When this happens he will be anxious until he is able reunite his body and mind. Considering we had no plans of taking his body back to his stall quite yet, bringing his thoughts back into the round pen and keeping them there bringing peace to the horse and all of us was Harry’s aim.

    Furthermore, it is preferable to reconnect that mind to the body at the soonest possible opportunity. It is exponentially more difficult to bring back a mind when it has gone far or gotten very hard in it’s direction. Harry Whitney is a master at helping a troubled horse come back to being present and feeling better about himself, and he has developed the understanding of noticing when a horse has just begun to have it’s thought leave to ask the horse: Hey there, let go of that and stay with me. He does it in a way the horse feels better about things.

    The things that can come from this cornerstone is infinite. People are so used to horses working while they are troubled that it takes a special circumstance to get a good look at what untroubled looks like. Compliant, obedient, slow, or snappy to give us what we ask for – these are not in themselves signs of a horse that’s untroubled. Horses can do very high level activities even without a rope connected and still be troubled on the inside about the work. Many dull shut down horses who are so troubled they have “gone away” when humans are present are considered perfect bomb-proof kid horses of high value. This horse might be quiet and basically compliant but it doesn’t mean it is relaxed and happy in the work. And that bomb proofing creates its own kind of danger. Someone will in time be hurt by it- the human or the horse.

    On the other side of the coin horses that wear their emotions on their outsides and who begin dancing around in giraffe mode every time they are asked to do anything are not shut down the way the dull horse is, but snappy reactive activity even if it’s responding to our cues does not mean willing and feeling good. Horses are fantastic at avoiding us in a myriad of ways and yet convincing us they are “on board” in order to get us from bothering them more. They are incredibly smart and as Harry said more than once through the week:

    It’s amazing they haven’t killed us all off by now.

    With so many examples of troubled horses competing and winning across the board of horse sports. I have wondered if I was just being overly sensitive, or if I was not reading things clearly, or if this is necessary if one wants to do things with horses.

    I have wondered if it might just be true that horses want in their hearts to be left alone to graze and be in their herd and feel safe and everything else we do is going to bring trouble…

    If so, maybe the best we can hope for is to do our things with them and then apologize and set them free again and at least try to give them as much horse life as we can in between the work?

    Now I don’t believe that. I do believe much of what we do troubles them, but from the glimpse of what I saw, it IS possible to actually be a force for peace when the horse gets anxious. The question as Harry put it is:

    Can we actually be effective at going into a situation where the horse is bothered and help the horse feel better?

    I saw that yes. This is possible. But it’s not for the faint of heart.

    Not because it’s a dangerous process at all, in fact Harry joked one day one that he doesn’t get a lot of auditors because his clinics are too boring for people to sit that many hours and watch. I thought he was kidding… he might have been, but there was more truth in it than even I realized. In fact there were many hours of things getting done and getting addressed at a level where you’d have to be watching closely to understand. No one is discouraged from getting firm or having a meltdown in order to do what needs to be done to bring a horse back to present with us. So these moments did occur- there is no tiptoeing around a horse allowed- however once the horse returns the moment is over and the leading onward continues in a quiet and relaxed thoughtful way. Harry took horses that were feeling scattered and fragmented (hot) and helped them relax into beautiful transitions that were soft but had life, and he helped horses that were dull and shut down to bring up that life without driving them around with force and pressure that worried them into the movement.

    The reason this is not for the faint of heart is because I observed the people present all had a very LONG view on their paths. They talked over years not days yet without losing track of the day to day and what can be done in a short time if done with quality, feel, and a quiet mind. This both takes a ton of patience because real change (which absolutely has to begin within the human and that is a process too!) takes real time, yet also once the shift happens it is astounding how other problems melt away without focusing on them. It is both a painfully slow and a ridiculously effective way to live. I think it brings hope.

    So for anyone else out there who has had enough horses (and for some people one is enough) to have come into one that the other things seem to hit a roadblock, or work for a while and then unravel, consider finding Harry somewhere as he gets around the country pretty well in a year, and sit along the fence and see if there might be something there that could change your life.

    I highly recommend it.

  • Avoidance

    Avoidance

    Have you considered avoidance?

    In my somewhat “off grid” experiments with Wyoming this fall, I am changing my approach to her education away from the direct pressure paradigm and trying to lead her mind and emotions by guiding instead of driving. I am finding myself yet again back at the basics with this mare. Last winter I spent four months with complete liberty and no halter-lead rope where she had to choose to engage if we did anything. This winter I suppose we’ve stepped it up as now I find us in the step of putting the halter on and teaching her to be led.

    I had a friend take a video Monday of the process on a challenging high alert day because the farm cows were being moved around in the horse field so her environmental antennae were fully tuned and her ability to focus on me and consider being willingly restrained was very difficult. What a great opportunity to see how deep the cracks are in this trust foundation.

    What I saw in great clarity when I watched the video was avoidance. 

    In the video you can see Wyoming is not comfortable with the idea of being confined by wearing the halter attached to a lead rope. Her personality is fear based and her flight mode is easily triggered. Her freedom is her most sacred need. [Hm, they say our horses teach us about ourselves….] If she is attached to me I would interfere with her perceived need to move those feet (fast) when she feels enough worry to flip to the sympathetic nervous system and go into flight. I have come to understand more than ever for this mare to partner with a human it is going to take massive trust on a higher level than the average horse.

    When I position myself in the place I would put the halter on her, she is pressed to discomfort but not thrown over her threshold. This is an important factor in the work with her. If I break through her threshold I push her into full on flight-fight-freeze mode and we cannot do any mental work there. Note that with many horses you can work in that mode, but you are training reactions not responses and neither of you can access the horse’s brain when they are in sympathetic response mode. What I hope to find is the place where she is slightly uncomfortable because I’m pressing on that bubble but haven’t exploded it. This is where she can think and learn, and my hope is finally get some traction on progress with our partnership that is lasting.

    How I know in this video that I have not gone into full flight mode is she is never attached to a tool (she has her freedom) and she doesn’t exit stage left. Still it is clear she is pressed into discomfort because she does “leave”, but in more subtle ways. 

    Avoidance.

    I knew it was happening but I saw it with more clarity from the 3rd perspective eye of the video. She didn’t want me to put the halter on and I could see this in the ways she would disconnect from being present with me. She would turn her full attention to the cows (mental). She walked a few steps away (physical). She “nipped” at me with her lips (emotional). She tried to ignore me through eating grass (how many of us have avoidance issues that turn us toward food or drink?).

    My response to these was not punishment. The goal of punishment is to change a behavior. While I am pressing on her comfort zone it only makes sense she is going to have to sort out what to do about it and telling me she is uncomfortable. I don’t want to change the behavior, I want to change her mind.

    In order to do this I will stay in the place where it’s pressing in but not exploding and make sure she knows I hear her. I let her know I hear her by not crossing the line she is most worried about. She is not uncomfortable with my presence around her body in any place. She is uncomfortable with the next step of losing her freedom to me (halter). So I stay in the conversation with her and let her know I will not force her to make the next step. This is how I build trust with her. I stay present with her exactly where she is until she can make the change mentally that she is safe with me and can relax.

    In the video I talk through the conversation I have with her as she uses various avoidance ideas to disconnect and not stay present with me in the uncomfortable place. I can tell you for sure- I can see that this mare is afraid of punishment. She is afraid of correction. I have to communicate with her so the correction is helpful and gentle while still guiding her toward a better path. If it’s too much she overreacts and goes into flight-fight. So when she “leaves” me mentally I do something to bring her back. This is part of the experimental part for me because I have to always find that sweet spot where she feels heard and led into a better place not thrown into sympathetic response mode. I wiggle my lead rope sometimes, I annoy her grazing attempts with my boot (and you can see how that works out!), I stay in step with her when she takes a few steps. 

    This kind of work takes unique understanding of each horse because there is no set answer to all horses. I would have to get much bigger to break Hope out of a shut down state and get her back to present in ways that would send Wyoming to flight. My relationship with Khaleesi is much stronger so I can do a bigger correction without her taking it as personally- she doesn’t have an unnatural response and we can move forward together more efficiently together.

    At some point the change I hope for comes and she releases the tension and worry she had been holding in her body with a big neck shake. On this particular day that is a great place to finish and I tell her thank you and walk away. I don’t pierce into the next level with the halter although the session before this (which was over a week before due to being out of town) we had put the halter on and done some leading work without worry.

    Each session I must take the horse I have and do what she can tolerate or I will create relationship damage. That is the thing I am coming to realize more and more as I “grow up” is that yes, we can go forward when we don’t have agreement and connection- but do we fully understand the damage that is caused? I wonder.

    This is the case with the humans around us as well. Some are more geared toward progress and goals and some are naturally geared toward relationship and connection. I see that both are strengths and weaknesses. Those goal-progress oriented can do a lot of damage as we believe the prize is worth it and everyone will see that eventually. We run over others mostly for their own good. And yet the relational-connection folks can get so stuck in the messy imperfect relationship questions that they don’t get the strength of relationship because they don’t press into the challenges with courage and intention.

    If I never ask anything of my horses it does not create any relationship. Asking them to do things they don’t understand or are not ready to do mentally destroys relationship opportunities.  

    I see great value in this work and will continue to experiment with it. 

    Wyoming has by far required me to understand new ways of thinking or one of us was eventually going to get really injured. Yet as she has kept me in the curious mindset (I am too stubborn to just give up on us) I am seeing an early harvest with this line of work with Khaleesi and Hope as well. Because these two are less of a challenge for every day “simple” tasks (like wearing a halter without anxiety) their changes have been deeper and exciting.

    As always, I appreciate the clarity working with these horses gives me on my own life. I have begun to see in others around me to deeper layers of questions below the surface behaviors and it helps me have more compassion and not get so focused on the “unwanted behavior” and realize it’s the deeper heart and mind cracks that are behind the behavior. I can’t always help each person depending on our relationship and connection, but I can have more freedom in my own responses and not go into sympathetic self-protection responses as quickly.

    More transformational still, it’s brought awareness to my own avoidance behavior. When am I uncomfortable and want to distract myself with “the cows over there” or trying to eat or drink (or pick up my phone to check emails and messages rather than engage a troubling situation or thought), when do I nip at those around me hoping to send them away so I can self-protect? Truly not everyone should have my full submission and trust and that must be built, but I’m certain I can do this more intentionally and made decisions instead of reactions if I slow down and try to understand why I am feeling so anxious, angry or afraid. I can sort out my own cracks and look for greater truths to strengthen with, and maybe stop some of the cycles around me of irresponsible relationship behaviors that leave people wounded and lashing out in self-protection (creating more wounds in others).

    Link to YouTube videos:

    Avoidance video

    Fear of pressure video

  • I don’t JUST…

    I don’t JUST…

    I have been re-inspired recently with the concept of brace in horses. I am seeing in a fresh way that if we are willing to look, the layers of brace in even the simple things we do with horses hold practically infinite opportunity. I am taken by the fractal nature of it… astounded how the better one gets at dissolving brace, the better one gets at recognizing it in deeper layers and smaller junctures, and then hunting it out and dissolving that, and it becomes a lifelong passion of seeking out the weak place that is rough in transition and then the love of finding ways to work it smooth.

    Like any work worth a life’s passion, it is endless.

    It brings a strange mixture of humility and celebration; a brace covers a weakness and the more of these you find, in essence you are hunting weak points. When you see in greater depth the amount of weak points you hadn’t recognized before it is a humbling experience. Yet for those with passion for excellence, once we begin to hunt for these weak places, the celebration comes! There is great reward in seeing that it’s possible to do this work and though often slow and diversive, it always results in more balance and finesse and overall strength. As Buck Brananman once said about similar work:

    If you got a taste of it, if you got a taste of what I’m talking about, you’d rather do that than eat. You couldn’t get enough of it. You’ll hunger for it the rest of your life..

    Buck Brannaman

    Brace in a horse is a term for any place the horse doesn’t move smoothly through. There are a million opportunities for all shapes and sizes of being stuck in transition, it can look like a horse not melting smoothly from forward to backward, it can be as obvious as a horse rearing up or bucking in protest of something it is afraid of to as subtle as a horse that doesn’t blink when it’s being haltered or doesn’t breathe when being saddled, not standing still to have a rider mount, or standing still when asked to walk. Head tossing, rushing into gaits, race brain, spooky, hard to load… these all include places of brace to smooth out and clean up. If there is fear or confusion or resistance, that means brace in the mind, and also in the body.

    Sunny worries about his education being ridden and he often throws up his head around the mounting block.

    Recognizing brace is a skill that can be developed over time and experience. If you think your horse doesn’t carry any brace then step one is to get better at recognizing it. Once the skill of identifying brace is developed the art of horsemanship comes in how to move through that brace in a way that dissolves it and creates softness instead.

    In fact I am beginning to consider the possibility that all of excellent horsemanship is an art of helping horses release the brace they carry (mentally/physically/emotionally) from the first encounter until they breathe their last breath with us. Is it possible that everything we could want to partner with the horse to do can be achieved by seeing through the eyes of sticky transitions from one thing to another?

    Sunny ‘stuck’ in a corner as I help him let go of the brace that will also be worked out in leading on the ground.

    Mark Langley says many common issues people have with horses stem from the foundational truth that the horse doesn’t understand leading. When I first heard this I didn’t completely recognize the depth. It intrigued me enough to seek out more.

    As I puzzled over the claim by Langley that most horses do not know how to lead, I saw what he meant. It became apparent that most people don’t recognize brace in the most elementary act of a horse understanding simple back and forward feel on a lead rope to a halter. As I watched him spend 45 minutes helping a horse get a sense of how to follow a feel, the layers of possibility peeled back in a new way for me.

    Indeed the style of horsemanship through the Ray Hunt/Tom Dorrance lineage call attention in depth to the concept of feel (often paired with timing) as if it were the magic answer to most of our shortcomings in every horse relationship. Thankfully between Emily Kemp and Joe Wolter last year I had a fair amount of hands on help to delve more seriously into the mystery of this idea I first heard in depth at a Buck Branaman clinic a handful of years back.

    Working on both following a feel (away from the human) and getting comfortable with changing eyes

    In my own herd it became more clear that Wyoming had significant brace about the halter itself. Working through her trust and comfort of accepting the halter from me is significant for her. If I ignore the brace she carries just having the halter on her head, how likely is it the next steps in educating her will work well? No wonder riding her always went sideways at some point, I had never addressed her concerns (to her satisfaction**) about the halter and our misconnection regarding the feel of such between us. I don’t know that it’ll solve everything but it’s a good weak place to begin at.

    ** side note… a major gap comes when we as the human decide when something has been addressed to the horse’s satisfaction because that’s enough for us. I have heard so many times: the horse knows better… the horse knows this… the horse has done this before… and clearly an outside observer can see the horse disagrees. This is a common place for brace to develop. The human presses through because the human has decided it’s time to do so.

    Khaleesi is highly opinionated but she generally trusts me- as I began to float her back and forth checking her ability to follow my lead, the brace I experienced wasn’t hard to dissolve and soon she was rolling with me in a dance and when I removed the halter she stayed with me deep in thought for a time. It was a new take on an old conversation I believe she appreciated.

    Hiking the mountain together

    Still as we leave on our mountain hikes her smooth as butter leading gets sticky as her mind toggles between these things: Wyoming calling from the pasture, the clover that grown in the yard grasses we walk along the river, the old herd we pass by heading out the the trails, and finally me and what I’m asking. That 1/4 mile takes the longest of the entire hike because of how stuck in other thoughts she gets and how much practice I get asking her with feel to come back to being present with me and our activity.

    Being present together is an often neglected key in successful partnership. If we are distracted how can we expect our horse to be focused and present? Then once we are observant and engaged we must develop the skills and nuance to invite the horse to be present with us. If a horse is barn sour, race brain or spooky that horse’s thoughts are not present in what we are trying to do together. It’s quite stunning what we can pull off disconnected from each other- it’s more stunning what happens when we do stay present and connected.

    The comment I heard in an interview of being “able to roll smoothly without brace forward and back like a ball is the start of riding in balance and leads to what people are looking for when they talk about collection” was like a light bulb in my mind.

    Many riders riding around in a frame of some sort of collection have a horse braced into the frame that looks basically like what they are trying to achieve- however the deeper I seek, I think most haven’t experienced the difference because the real thing. Lifted carriage of the horse in relaxation without brace is not actually hard, but it’s impossible without connecting first to their mind, and having them in a relaxed and willing state which is quite a rare thing. It takes patience and trust.

    For me many years of slow building and also trusting those who have helped me when I have a vision of this thing and I get sent walking in small circles feeling even footfalls and being asked if my horse’s ribcage is moving equally in each direction… of learning to ask for a slowing of the front end to match the drive of the hind in relaxation and feel I hadn’t exactly developed yet. Can we walk or trot, come to a soft halt and take steps backward without a sticky transition? Of the times spent asking my horse to go from standing to walking to see if she is able to move straight or if she fishtails off naturally to go forward… to learn to let go of rein control to find out what is really functioning there underneath…

    As I look back I trusted whomever I went to for guidance- that each of the simple things I was doing that didn’t seem to have anything to do exactly with a canter lead change was entirely what was needed to build a horse that could understand and in strength and balance carry out athletic maneuvers in grace. When the time comes the hard things are actually incredibly easy if the foundation is strong and not braced together.

    I have seen it from time to time, and there’s a quality to it like when you see the work of a true artist instead of a skilled painter. It is something you know without quite knowing how you know when you see it, but once I felt the difference in K it was quite obvious from the inside.

    Hope is trickier because she spends more time shut down trying to hide the fact that in fact she is not comfortable or quite sure of herself. She spent a life being trained that once the halter goes on you do what you’re asked and if not you’ll be punished so your training is complete. On a well trained horse you can push the “button” that was installed and you get a “response” that you can count on. If the button stops working then you make it clear that punishment or correction will come and the horse gets better at compliance (as along as they aren’t a fighter). Then the process of shutting down their own thinking system which is not required when you are looking for obedience to training, and the challenge I picked up with her is how can you get a horse to see that they are actually being asked to think again, and act on their own thoughts while working with you. Hope was finally discarded when she could not comply any more. Whoever had her in the line of short term owners before me made sure she was indeed… broke.

    Something I’ve noticed around me when I hear horse people chatting is the fairly common phrase I just want to…..

    I just want a horse I can trail ride…

    I just want a horse that does what I ask…

    I just want a horse that doesn’t buck me off…

    I just want a horse I can do basic dressage (or jumping classes, or…)

    I just want a horse that is safe for my children and whoever comes to ride…

    There are a plethora of fill in the blanks, but I began to notice this sense of both this should not be so hard to just have a horse that does this very simple thing I’m hoping for… But also a settling as if it’s a positive attribute to carry… I don’t want much, I only ask for this simple thing… a horse that can just do this one thing for me. And gradually in the background this thought rose up in me I never want to be someone who just wants anything with my horses…

    No matter what I’m doing from putting on the halter to riding an endurance race I want a horse who is intelligent, willing, not shut-down, knows her thoughts and feelings matter to me even if they are inconvenient. I want my horse to flow with grace and not be rushed into something she doesn’t understand or doesn’t have the balance to do in strength. I do not want to resort to a tool to cover over a brace so I can just do that thing now. I want a horse who will have everything she needs (mentally, physically and emotionally) to partner with me at the highest level even if what we are doing is as simple as walking around the field in balance or opening a gate with ease.

    I think many of the horse community doesn’t suffer from grandiose plans, but instead for accepting such low standards. Many of us have big goals and that can be a problem because we are confused about the difference between having high standards and big goals. So we can get busy rushing toward our big goals and end up accepting so little quality in the process that we just want a horse that will [fill in the blank here].

    There is something in the upside-down truth of going down deeper to reach, in the fullness of time, the heights we crave deep in our souls that is fascinating to me. The lower we are willing to go in service to others the better our relationships thrive. The deeper we seek to find brace and cracks in our foundation the higher the skyscraper can reach in strength.

    Thankfully horses are quite good at being led and understanding feel. As soon as we begin to lead well and learn quality feel they begin the process to follow that feel and though it can be slow and take patience, it is the most rewarding thing… a taste of it can sustain you for quite a lifetime.