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).
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.
In part 1 and part 2 of Am I Safe? I wrote about some observations and questions that connect to conversations I’ve been listening to around the neurological system and healing. Hopefully in the wrap up below (part 3) I can give some thoughts on what we can do with these questions.
First the elephant… It is very hard to see borderline (or outright) abuse happening in situations where very clearly the people involved see it as normal. The more I learn the more clarity comes with my own herd- and the world around me. I am grateful for the horses in my own herd because they are constantly reminding me that humility is my superpower… this doesn’t mean I am amazing at humility, instead it means I can always choose humility and every time I do it empowers me and those around me where pride is ALWAYSALWAYS destructive. I am convinced it is pride and ego that are the deepest roots of the pain we cause horses day to day.
Early in my career riding endurance with Khaleesi I was certain she was not giving me her best (she’s being lazy) and I was determined on this particular ride to insist she give me all she had to see what we were capable of. Around the last loop of the ride she really began to slow down. I INSISTED she get moving! We only had so many miles left: you can do this, come ON why are you slowing down you are not that tired! I know you! You have more to give!!
The more I insisted the more she resisted. I can still feel the red-angry frustration that was welling up in me, I was not thoughtfully making a decision anymore I was infuriated that she was refusing to get this done. I grabbed a stick and whipped her butt- I MEAN IT!
She began to comply and try (this story still breaks my heart to retell it) and I began to notice something…. When the ground got sandy and soft she ran and trotted her best, and she always slowed down when the ground got hard and rocky – still trying to show me she was going, but CLEARLY not as comfortably. She wasn’t softly giving me her everything, she was doing the whole thing with brace and not exactly an attitude (she never threatened to buck or fight me) but not a willing happy heart.
It began to come together and I softened. No, I was right she wasn’t tired. Her feet hurt.
She was in pain.
We were now close to the finish and I let her walk every rocky surface and she would trot on sand- but the damage was done. Both physically and mentally. When we got to the finish, it was a hot day, but it took her 20 minutes to come down in heart rate. We used ice water and hand walked her. This horse generally pulses if she is fine in minutes after cantering into camp. The ONLY reason she does not pulse is physical pain. There have been three times in our career I’ve had pulse issues. We did get her down in enough time to final vet. She didn’t look great and got a “C” on gait but the vet noted it was not clearly a lameness- she was just looking all around exhausted so we got a completion.
Grace I did not deserve.
We got back to the trailer and I was devastated. What had I done? Ego. Pride. Never again.
I learned a lesson that day and in the years since I have NEVER repeated that by forcing Khaleesi to give me more than she was willing and able.
The trailer loading debacle I wrote about in part 2 was that NEVER again moment between Wyoming and me. I tried to use force to move her forward in the process. That choice that jacked up my trailer, could have gotten her killed (as she broke off the chest bar leaving enough lead rope to hang herself over a hinge like a fish on a line) and left me some wicked rope burns to remember it by. Again I know I got off easier than I deserved.
I took this picture that day when I “hung up her halter” for a time. I comitted to work within her threshold regardless of what it was and not to listen to the voices that say I should just “get it done” by force, whatever the thing is. I did not use a halter with her for months.
Now that I write this… some of that deep trauma in her poll and neck that she was resisting could very well be residual from that wreck I caused.
So there are two of my most dramatic, but not the only, moments of when my ego or pride and ignorance created trauma for a horse in my own herd. But for the grace of God go I again over those paths and every year I learn more I can look back more recent than I’d like and see ignorance or impatience creating problems I preach so hard against.
Humility is my superpower.
Yet humility does not mean never speaking about what I see, and what I’m learning because it might create discomfort. It means I don’t do it in a “me against you” conversation, but always a “I am with you” conversation. With compassion. And with the knowledge that we can only do the best we know at the time. And pride is so insidious- it attacks at a deep root level and is very hard for any of us to see in the mirror, and easy for others to spot looking in. My best advice if you care to grow, is to find a few people you trust and give them a hunting license to help you see what you cannot.
In all fairness, I still fail a lot. But I refuse to quit.
In the case of Hope and other horses I see in broken down states, I don’t think any one of the people in her line was an evil genius trying to wreck a beautiful creature physically, emotionally and mentally. I think every one of them wanted what most horse people want with a horse. They want good things right? And yet people created the deep rooted problems in this mare by ego and ignorance. It’s how most problems start. Not one person in her line of owners took the time to listen to her and then do what it took to help her. They saw her as obstinate and unwilling. I can say she is neither of those. She had finally been… broken.
What then can we do?
I asked the question in part 2: What can I do to make Wyoming feel safe enough to let go of her trauma? I will never had a successful relationship with her while her nervous system is on overdrive. She cannot communicate, connect or learn if she is only on survival/react mode. Wyoming wears her emotions on her outside. We always know how she’s feeling, and she doesn’t have emotional stability and well being. On the other side of the coin is Hope. She is equally traumatized but her reaction is to withdraw and shut down, comply as much as she is able. She hides deep inside herself. Horses willing to go this route are often considered respectful and obedient. Bombproof and ideal… until they simply cannot.
I had hoped to find another expert conversation to tell me in a nutshell how to fix all this for my herd. No such luck. Instead I heard another quote ringing in my ears:
You cannot come to a horse intentionally thinking you want to fix something. If you come with the goal of fixing it your horse will internally brace against it and you won’t be able to fix it. Instead let go of the idea that you are fixing something and simply find a little place to release tension here or help them to relax there and before you know it thinks get better and you have fixed things. You have to let go of your agenda in order to help the horse.
Jim Masterson
I have three personal takeaways from all of this. The order isn’t key as much as they are all interconnected so they work together in a synergistic way. I trust you can sort out what it all means for you and your horse journey.
1. Get better than you currently are at understanding horse communication. And put it into practice by listening better. Everyone says that of course they listen to their horse. Just as no one was setting out to destroy Hope earlier in her life, my experience is those owners would say the same thing- of course they understand horses and of course they listen, many many people who have own horses and ride horses do not have accurate understanding of what is going on in their horse’s communication. I see most riders- especially ones who have “been around horses all their lives” making assumptions about what they think the horse is saying that is often pretty inaccurate. This brings up another quote:
Horses survive by being incredibly adaptable. They adapt to the way we work with them. They are so adaptive we often miss what’s really there because they are so good at accommodating.
Jim Masterson
Keep in mind have a real disadvantage in this from the start because of how accommodating horses are by nature, but that is a survival skill not a healthy way of being.
Horse people have taken pure communication from the horse like ear pinning, evasion (evasion can be trying to step away from mounting, bucking, rearing, spooking, running away etc), pawing, pushing, nipping and kicking and turned those into “unwanted behaviors” that we train out so they can be “good horses”. This begins early on and then is continued through their lives. We have taken away their negative communication channels. We as a culture training our horses not to share when they have a problem. No one wants a horse to bite them including me. If we were more adept at seeing early subtle signs they wouldn’t have to bite us in order for us to understand.
Part of helping a horse to understand it is safe is ensuring a horse feels seen and heard. Accurately. Acknowledge when your horse is trying to communicate she is not OK and see if you can find out why. Then commit to a change- do something about the problem.
2. Accept that one cannot separate behavioral (mental and/or emotional) from physical issues.
Of course there are issues that begin behavioral and there are issues that stem from physical problem but it is always more complicated and they will always connect. If you have a physical issue that isn’t addressed it will always show up as a behavioral issue. If your horse is experiencing physical discomfort they will do things like refuse to make that jump, not be as eager to do upward transitions, try to evade being caught, pin their ears or nip while being groomed or saddled, etc.
On the other side, if your horse is having mental or emotional issues (isn’t confident to leave the herd, confusion over what is being asked, feels like it will never get released or there is never a right answer, is over stimulated) that will show up in time in the physical body as ulcers, joint or tendon injuries due to not moving in a relaxed and proper form for the work, or acute injuries from flight responses when they aren’t thinking but reacting and get themselves hung up, cut up, or in some other wreck.
If you always assume there are connections between behavior and the body you will have more data to work with in assessing what is really going on and have a leg up on finding problem before they are a big financial and time investment to sort out.
3. Assume your ego and pride are your biggest enemy and that both are working against you and then seek out ways to fight against them. Humility is your superpower too.
We all see our horses as friends (well anyone reading this blog for sure does), and we want to do what’s best for them. That is our high value (high values are how we talk, core values are what we walk). I hear most people say “I always put the horse first.” It’s in the core value where things get dicey. Are you willing to do what is best for your horse when it costs you the resource you have least of… for some that is money, for some it is time.
I was fascinated listening to Anja Beran who has been teaching classical dressage in Germany for over 25 years. She has been a voice against poor training in modern dressage (at very high levels) and is a great to seek out in the conversation of creating a powerful willing horse that can compete in any discipline much longer than the norms we see today. When the interviewer asked her how long it usually takes her to work with a client horse that comes in with some trouble (when you get good at successfully fixing problems, you see a fair amount of them) and even I was a bit surprised at her answer: Well, you see usually we find it is a minimum one year, and often we will keep them and work with them up to three years to help them come back into a healthy way of moving again.
Here in America we expect results in a weekend to maybe 30 days on the outside. Unfortunately you can get a horse looking to an uneducated eye (that would be 80% of the horse-person population if you go with the rule of the Pareto principle) in 30 days training, but there are so many holes in these horses that someone is eventually going to crash through physically, mentally, emotionally or all of the above- it’s only a matter of time.
Anja explained that a very high level circus in Germany uses her exclusively to train their Lippizaner team and she says they bring them to her for seven years. The reason they are willing to invest that kind of time she explains is because they perform well into their thirties when they are trained properly. A healthy balanced horse will also cost much less over time in vet bills and missed work.
Money is a limited resource for most of us. It is true we have to make decisions thoughtfully when it comes to how much we can allocate to a horse, but I have seen people throw tons of cash around if they believe they will get a quick fix to a problem. Time is usually the more treasured resource and we appear as a culture not willing to give our beloved horses the time they desperately need to learn how to carry their bodies properly, to think and make choices instead of hurry up and react to my pressure (obey) so we can get on with what I want to do. We also need time – to get better in our own knowledge and skills so we can actually help the horses instead of always talking about how they are so good at taking care of us.
And so I circle all the way back to that first question… why is that horses — when they are given more supportive care and a place that will hear them ask for help do they appear to get so much worse?
From the neurological perspective I have been learning more from, I think when they begin to feel safe they will begin to heal. And no healing can take place without the revelation of brokenness. One must feel in order to heal. With any person or horse or any living creature- survival often means setting aside a wound in order to get through now. When we are given a safe place to peel off the survival mechanisms the only road to wholeness is by revealing the brokenness and then letting it go or getting the professional help required to walk through the healing.
It makes more sense to me now that it would take Hope some time to believe she was in a safe enough place to fall apart. It also makes sense that Wyoming has deep layers she does not feel she is safe to release yet. Knowing that means I can be more attuned to making her feel heard and that her worries and concerns while I might think on human terms are overblown and inaccurate, to her they are enough to jack up her nervous system and that’s all that matters.
In both cases I have come to see that I cannot approach this as a new (oh that ego is tricky!) goal for them. I am a driven person and I can take their healing and turn it into it’s own goal that then becomes a new source of stress and pressure.
When Hope first came back from her stay with Dr. Hancock I was very excited to see her bloom into a healthy mare. I was great at doing all the things I was told would help her recover. But she seemed to be getting worse after a week or so. I was able to recognize that I had dumped my expectations of her coming into health on her and she was straining under the pressure. I tried to let her know that I believe I had done all I could for her professionally and now it was up to her to get better. I would help all I could but she would need to go at her own pace in her own way. I was committed to be with her and support her.
She has good days and bad days, and stress is more likely to create a bad day. I don’t always have control over stress in a horse herd. My healthier horses are less affected by it. Overall I see clear trends toward better. She more stable in her balance. She is moving better in her body. She has less mucous and infection recurrence. She is brighter in the eyes. She has more “personality” and preferences coming out. When we brought her home in December of 2020 I would never have guessed she could have so many deep layers of brokenness it came close to costing her life; she held it together pretty well for months. The very limited work she was for a few months in could not have caused the depth and seriousness of her condition. The downhill freefall actually came while she was in pasture rest with her herd through her second winter here. A place she probably felt the most safe in a long time.
I look forward to what healthy Hope will be like. I look forward to her becoming more her own horse and getting to know her. And I will continue to find ways to help Wyoming believe she can let go of the trauma her past life and I have caused. I will get better at hearing their concerns and answering how I can. I will assume less and be curious more. I will honor them with the time they need and set aside my own goals and plans for them regardless of what people on the outside think. And hopefully I will look back at this series someday with a more complete picture and have some corrections to make-
For now, I think that is the best I can do.
Hope before I brought her home December 2020A little morning trot in July 2022 after returning from functional vet careHope now (October 2022)
I would like to conclude by bringing up that one cannot give what one does not have. I also have seen in myself wounding and brokenness that made it hard for me to be the whole healthy balanced person who could set aside my ego and goals and the external pressures at work on me to have the grounding and confidence to allow these horses to fall apart. Because there was a time when them falling apart was too close to my own identity and I could not be the stabilizing factor and have the patience and grace to not need the horse to perform for me in order to make it’s life worthwhile. I also consider the complexity of a world of wounded people who are part of the cycle with traumatized horses. I hope someday HH will be able to help encourage increasingly more powerful horses AND powerful people in richness of mental, physical and emotional health.
Thank you for reading this series and I hope it gives you some things to chew on and encouragement to find ways to improve your own herd toward increasing excellence, connection, and deeper relationship.
I have asked myself the question of why I have seen a horse on multiple occasions move into a home better suited to its needs and watched the horse go from not particularly thriving (meaning none of the horses were in peak physical condition at the transfer) to pretty seriously ill or lame… broken down in a much more serious way than would have been expected over a period from months to a year.
Why (I kept thinking) am I seeing this pattern, and experiencing it myself (specifically with Hope, but in a more emotional less physical way with Wyoming as well)? I would think that the horse moving into an environment better suited to helping it thrive should mean the horse improves in condition, not worsens. I have asked myself if I am wrong about what makes for a better environment for the horse to thrive? Are these horses getting better or getting worse? What is the truth?
Someone working with our functional equine health care told me they see this quite commonly and explained to me that it is an honor when a horse will choose you to fall apart. Ok I thought, I sense truth in that, but what is really happening?
I had an early theory that these new owners took on the horses knowing they would find some issues under what I call the duct tape that had been holding them together previously. When you are willing to take on a horse that is not in peak physical condition, and you begin to take off the “duct tape”- you’d better be ready to find (like in a project house) things behind the layers behind the layers that always are more serious than you realized on the surface when you did a walk through.
Sweet Hope finally on the mend… I think.
I had a sense there was something to this but not real clarity.
Recently I stumbled across an interview with Jim Masterson who developed what is called The Masterson Method which is a body work that is simple to begin, anyone can start, and builds connection between you and your horse while also encouraging the horse release layers of tension and trauma that are held in the body. I liked his story and this method work was based on observation, listening to the horse as you went, and a light touch paired with patience to wait until something changes. It was a low risk – high reward experiment. So I did some investigating on his website, watched a couple demo videos and thought I would see what happened in my own herd.
This is where things began to get interesting.
One caveat from Jim Masterson was that as prey animals, some horses would resist releasing tension in the body because it is a vulnerable state and reveals even momentary weakness. If the tension spot seems clear by observation, and in waiting you sense they are resistant, one suggestion was to be sure you were not looking with too much intent at the horse (expecting release) or possibly try looking away entirely for a moment. Sometimes Jim noticed that after a small release, if he turned away for a moment or gave the horse a break, the horse would have bigger releases that continued on their own.
This podcast binge where I stumbled on to Masterson also led me into some interviews that began with training concepts and wove into equine behavioral neuroscience and trauma and healing. One of the interviews with a neuroscientist included discussion of some studies that revealed: the nervous system must find rest in order for healing to occur, a being (horse or human etc) cannot heal especially in the deeper levels if they do not feel safe.
A different interview along the same subject brought up this point: tolerance and willing acceptance are not the same. Many of our accepted even natural horsemanship training methods include a psychological double-blind where no good options exist.
An example of this is when pressure is put on a horse intended to bring a response. If the response the human is seeking is outside the threshold of the horse they are now in a psychological double-blind. They can choose not to respond which will result in increasing pressure until the pressure is worse than the discomfort of the response they are being asked for. In this case the increased pressure is used to force horses into situations they are not ready or properly prepared for, put them in pain, or do not understand. Under this pressure they are not in a relaxed learning state, but in self-preservation.
In self-preservation the most common reactions are flight, fight or freeze. We rarely allow flight from a training session, in fact most horses are hard wired to choose flight first. When we don’t give them an out we force them to fight with us or freeze. A horse who fights will generally run into a human with access to tools that can win the fight (though humans and horses are often hurt in the process) these horses are quickly labeled bad and disrespectful and problem horses. The freeze response is not only a stoic stillness, but can be when a horse shuts down or withdraws inside themselves to a certain tolerance level in order to survive and function. They are in a heightened nervous system response even though they look docile and calm.
Pressure and toleration are not inherently bad. Simply walking toward a horse is pressure. For a wild horse just an approach will send it into survival mode flight. For my herd they more often greet me with curiosity as they graze feeling generally unthreatened by my approach. I might ask my mare to tolerate the annoying flies for a period of time while we try to do some work under saddle, I’ve asked her to tolerate my lack of grace and occasional mistakes or imbalance in learning a new movement with the expectation I will improve. We work with green horses to learn to tolerate things like saddle bags, water bottles, raincoats being put on or taken off, or tolerate riding in front or back of a group when it isn’t their preference. Different horses tolerate different levels of discomfort depending on their personality. The problem comes when the human decides to (or is ignorant to) override the horse’s threshold and we don’t go at the pace where their comfort level is pushed on but not broken through. To work at this pace as with most things, takes time investment and patience and our fast paced world the value of the art of slow development has gotten lost in the rat race.
One of my favorite moments with Wyoming
I heard Karen Rohlf (Dressage Naturally) recently say that power (or strength) in a horse is energy plus relaxation. If you take a look at her horses, her courses, and her talk-walk integrity she is building powerful horses that have been trained to do high level complex physical movements and they have to push the comfort zones in the horse, but done in such a way that no shortcut tools or force are levered against the horse allowing the trainer to push past their ability to comply with willingness. Something I particularly like about her training is the emphasis that the horse feels good about what they are learning and how their body is moving so they seek the correct form naturally because it’s where things feel good to both the horse and rider. The attention to miniscule changes in the horse’s posture and how to feel this as a rider and then encourage the horse to seek that feel again seems overwhelming to most riders but if we were to embrace the process over progress we might even come to enjoy the art of horsemanship instead of getting to a finish line, a ribbon, or a new level of competition.
In order to thrive and move in power and strength, the basic question a horse or human needs answered is:
Am I safe?
Unfortunately this question is better translated Do I FEEL safe? Because we have all been in a position where our thinking brain has sorted out the fact that it is irrational but yet we don’t FEEL safe and I have seen some instances where the person has FELT safe and it was pretty clear from the outside (or what came next) that they were not actually safe. We know that if we are in fear or pain and the person who can help us ignores our concerns, that rarely feels safe.
I do not suffer from anxiety but I have met many women who do. I have a long time violin student who recently explained to me that she can go into a freeze state of high anxiety and appear like she is listening and even do what I’m asking of her. She shared with me that for years this has been happening to her in various intervals in different situations including her lessons from time to time, and what is going on inside of her (which I did not see from the outside she had gotten so good at being functional in this state) was panic and the inability to take in information. She might ask me to wait a moment while she got a drink, or went to the restroom just to get outside the situation and find a way to come back to calm. She did not dislike me or blame me, something had tripped her brain into overwhelm and internally she was having a panic attack. She fully realized this was irrational and knew that I was her friend and she wasn’t in danger, it didn’t come from me being particularly demanding either. In her case it was a mental disorder that would take over from time to time that she has learned to manage in recent years.
Human nervous systems and minds are more complex than the horse. I do not think horses have the same issues with anxiety disorder in the way humans do. My point in this example is that she felt unsafe even though she knew in her mind it wasn’t true. The fact that she FELT unsafe was what tripped her nervous system and she was unable to learn or take in information in that state. From the outside it would be easy for me to think she was being ridiculous and irrational; if I didn’t understand she had a legitimate struggle that I was not experiencing in the same way at the same moment I could try to force her to just get with the program and stop being so difficult.
What I see with horses is many times the human doesn’t believe the horse has a legitimate concern instead I hear things like: you should be ok with this… or you have seen a tarp/cone/tractor/bike/mud puddle fill in the blank before and that is enough that you should not be afraid ever again… or we learned this yesterday you are just being difficult… don’t be stupid… or we see new behavioral shifts and assume the horse is being a jerk, taking advantage, or lazy instead of seeing the behavior as information and wondering why is this happening? is there pain somewhere? Does the horse possibly not connect the pieces as I assume he should? Could my horse be confused? is it possible he really is afraid of the cone because it is in a new place…
Instead of curiosity, taking the information as real data, slowing down, listening to the horse’s concern and trying to address it from their perspective (ain’t nobody got time for that….) We push through with force or shortcut with a tool heading ever onward toward the goal we have for the day or week or year and when the horse complies or is forced into a physical frame without relaxation and understanding we assume they are ok with it.
Moment of disconnect where the work I was trying to do was not working for K on any level. Many things were going wrong here but if this is what a canter depart looks like it will not be balanced and strong! From 2018.
This potentially creates long term mental, emotional and physical wear. Eventually it will reveal damage that gets pressed under the surface until either the duct tape is pulled off or it just cannot hold together anymore and that “out of nowhere” blow up comes or the injury makes it way to the surface and is forced to be dealt with. I am increasingly astounded at the amount of things going on beneath the visible surface of the horse (in my own herd) both physically and emotionally that we will not see (if we don’t make the effort) often because they will hide it especially if they do not feel safe. When we do finally see it arrive at the surface is much more deeply rooted and harder to heal.
What is also very clear in my observation is that everyone I know that has horses loves and cares for them very much. Not one of them is intentionally being abusive or making a decision to cause them deep rooted harm. Every one of them is doing their horse program the way they were taught by someone else who had been taught by someone else and so it goes.
Ironically I have found the same people who tell me that horses are not intelligent enough to make good choices, partner with us on a willing level, saying they must be completely controlled at all times in order to be safe also will tell me the horse is taking advantage of them or premeditating bad behavior. This is an odd disconnect. You can’t have a dumb animal incapable of deep emotions or the ability to make good choices also be an intelligent creature who premeditates bad choices in order to get out of work, faking injury, or the complexity that comes along with taking advantage of us.
So with this background that’s had me thinking. I will pause and post this precursor to the experiences I had digging deeper into my own herd, and some of the surprising revelations that make sense out of some lingering patterns I haven’t previously had answers for.
In part 2 I will begin with what Wyoming had to say….
In my last blog [Sacred Cow BBQ] I wrote about the decision to honor Khaleesi’s choice to say “No thank you” to my plans for the day. I think it was the first time ever I came with a plan then completely abandoned it and left when she walked away from me a few times. I have come to the field with no plans or expectations except to have some conversations. I have adjusted my plans depending on what a horse responds with, but I’ve never gotten a “no” three times and then simply walked away.
This week I did just about the opposite approach.
It was the right day all around for a long ride. I had the time and decent weather (lots of thunderstorms here lately). I arrived with an entirely different thought…
I’m not asking.
I fed the mares and got some things loaded into the truck. Then I returned to the field with the halter and approached K. She stepped off and shifted her weight, not dramatic and continued to eat grass. I thought in my mind: today I’m not asking. And I simply put my arm over her neck to halter. She picked up her head and looked at me then offered her nose.
Then I began to walk and she did not. I paused, turned back over my off shoulder and without hesitation I popped her firmly with the end of the lead rope.
I’m not asking.
And she popped in response right forward with me. She walked in by my side and we approached the trailer. She stood and looked around a moment, I gave her that short pause, and then I asked again and when she hesitated I (more gently this time) brought up the lead rope end to her body (Yeah, in case you haven’t noticed today… I’m not asking) and she looked at me and walked on the trailer.
We ended up having a great 16 mile ride (actually it was without stirrups!! You can read about the ride itself on the greento100 side here: No Man’s Land). But as I drove (and drove a little extra) I pondered all of this.
Which is right? I am seeking freedom and power in our relationships. So one week I give her total autonomy to say no (and the night before, in that same autonomy she said a very big yes as she came to me bridleless and invited me to get on her after our short work session). And then today she has really no choice in the matter, it’s a day to ride and it’s part of what we do. How do these seemingly extreme cases coexist in a horse program? Doesn’t the fact that many horse owners live in the “I’m not asking” paradigm bother me?
Yes it does.
So am I not doing the same thing today?
It kind of seems so.
I continued down this line of thought to realize a few key points.
The simile between horses and humans is helpful but incomplete. I cannot treat the relationship with my horse exactly like a relationship with a human friend or family member. However there are important real parallels that can teach us about ourselves and about relationships. If I’m going to see parallels in horse-human and human-human relationships one consideration is the horse is also not a child, or a teenager and should not be treated like a child, but there are truths in those stages with them as well.
If I imagined what the human relationship K is most like at the moment it might be closest to a teenager. I hope that I have put in a good foundation that my teenager is going to have increasing amounts of freedom and success should look like exactly that: increasing amounts of freedom. In this freedom it’s not preferable that my teenager should be just like me or think just like me, but we should have connection and the ability to communicate and work together even if we see things differently or disagree. Ideally there is even some appropriate give and take available.
In this paradigm there will be days when the system gets an override. In my imagination, a scenario could come up where I have a guest coming who will need to stay overnight in my teenager’s room with them maybe on the basement couch (where the fun sleepovers happen anyway right?) and so that morning I notice the room is a mess and there is laundry everywhere. My normal paradigm might be working on freedom to make choices and walk out consequences with a developing teenager, but that day it would look more like:
Today your room needs to be clean, sheets changed, and laundry done, folded and put away by 3pm… and… I’m not asking.
This is not negotiable and it’s not contingent on how anyone feels. It just needs to get done.
However that big picture looks different from the teenager who from childhood was never given much freedom or choice in their interactions with adults. The child has learned to do what they are told when they are told it and how they are told it … or else.
The “or else” is not natural consequences, it’s punishment from the parent. Natural consequences when they can be employed are the best teachers. Similarly when a horse can be masterfully set up to think that they caused something to happen they learn quickly, when they see they did not comply and we punish them so they won’t do it again they learn quickly too… but they learn different things in consequences than in punishment.
One system is going to develop a child into a teenager and an adult who can “self-carry” in life. One system is going to create a mind that isn’t trying to avoid punishment, but to learn about their environment and thrive within it. One system is creating a healthy (barring other issues!) mental and emotional system, then other is going to have fear, shut down and compliance over investment.
One system brings internal change and growth, the other institutes external force.
One system encourages connection, the other distance and space whenever possible.
One system is going to take thought, time and will probably be kind of messy as it’s taking root. The other is a lot faster, cleaner and … controlled.
That is the biggest difference. Do we cultivate a freedom environment as much as possible and mix in times of I’m not asking on the occasions where it’s really necessary?
Or are we really never asking and looking for complete external compliance which usually looks pretty good if you don’t know the difference?
True enough… they are horses not teenagers. I know many people would say this entire conversation is a waste of time. Some don’t acknowledge that more is possible than controlled compliance, some don’t see the point in it… horses exist to serve us right? A life of enslavement is a gift to them- they get fed. Then there are many in the gray middle ground zone who just haven’t really put much thought into it. There are just the way things everyone does it, right? And there are those out there with connections that look like magic to me, when the tools and the treats are gone the connection is deeper than compliance.
I suppose in the end it depends on what your goal is.
Note Added July 2023: This post is an authentic part of my horsemanship journey, I was seeking a way of working with horses that honored them, that offered freedom, but also encouraged good connection. For now I’ve decided to leave this post in the record, but added a few updates that a year later I would look at differently.
Danny Silk in his book Culture of Honor explains that coming to place of real transformation is hard for most people because one cannot do it without a sacred cow BBQ.
Just last week I went to the barn early with a limited timeline and a plan to take a mountain walk for both the horses and the dogs to get some exercise before I had to take a couple days off from horse work. My horses need the exercise. And that day so did the dogs as I was dropping them off to a friend and I wanted to leave tired good citizen canines.
I’ve seen some pretty amazing ground taken in my freedom work in the herd this year, and it’s not uncommon for me to take a saddle or bareback pad out to the field and tack up K with no halter in the field. To me this is a pretty big level of cooperation from her. It wasn’t a huge stretch for me to grab the bareback pad after feeding and walk over to her in front of the barn and toss it on. And so I went to do so.
She walked off before I even had a chance.
I pursued her asking again- hey will you work with me?
This often is all it takes, ask again… ask a different way… insist, that yes, this matters to me and I’m going to give you the choice, but also I’m going to keep asking.
That day she was adamant.
No.
She never went very far, but she clearly blocked the on-side to toss the pad, and if I tried to toss from the offside she trotted off.
I said No!
I spent about 10 minutes in this pursuit and could see I was only losing ground. Also not usual. I didn’t particularly have a lot of time that day, and I had to make a decision.
I could walk back into the barn, get a halter, and take control of her.
I could keep pursing this until she relented and decided it wasn’t worth the effort.
I could acknowledge her “NO”, honor it, and leave.
I didn’t like any of these options.
The first one overrides her freedom completely which I will do but I am very choosy about what circumstances I will use force. The bar continues to go higher and higher for using force and a mountain walk is not important enough for me to use force for.
The second choice to pursue her until she changes her mind also overrides her freedom in a way, but it still gives her a technical choice. I make her original plans to graze in peace with her friends less possible if she insists on choosing not to cooperate. I don’t cause her pain or fear, I just keep asking until she recognizes I’m not going away and I’m willing to outlast her and she’s not going to have much peace until she works with me. Instead of forcing, I consider it convincing. But this one was going to take time that day I could not spare. **Today I might consider a version of this where I don’t have to end up with my original plan to be successful, but take the horse I have and do something together, get creative. I might simply spend the time in the field creating enough indirect pressure to see if she will decide to choose me as an option, and then leave for the day. July 2023.**
That leaves me with the third option, however this one had a sacred cow attached.
Haven’t we all been told whatever you do, don’t allow the horse to “get away” with something? As in: once I ask, I have to follow through until success (at least in some form) because if I don’t the horse has now learned to blow me off and will never work with me again.
I have clearly asked her to accept the bareback pad to most likely take a ride on the property and she said NO and if I just walk away won’t she now realize that she has the power to say NO?
And in the face of no good options before me, I took door number 3.
As I watched my horse walk across the field toward the shade and went to hang up the pad, I had the sinking feeling that I had just violated some basic foundational horsemanship rule that was vital for any success in any horse.
Had I just slaughtered a sacred cow?
As I drove off with my dogs to walk a different trail I began to unpack this scenario…
Oh no… I have just taught my horse she can ignore me and say no.
I thought you were working on freedom? The honesty of real choice? If the horse can’t ever say “no” and you accept the answer then is it real choice?
Well… yeah… but still this is scary. Its been ingrained in me that if I allow her to ignore me or say no that now she will think she can ignore me and say no and now she will probably never cooperate with me again!
Why would you think that? Have you ever allowed her to truly say “no” to you in the past? Is this a pattern you’ve developed?
No. I have adjusted the plans I made depending on her responses but I don’t think I’ve ever completely just walked away when she didn’t comply taking nothing… Not that I can remember.
Ok, so you haven’t developed this pattern with her and in fact over the 8 years she’s been your horse you have clearly shown her that you are determined to following through what you start, right?
Yes. I’d say that’s right.
In that case, if that “sacred cow” of always following through on what you start was based on a foundational truth, then today K should not have even considered that saying “no” was a possibility because she has learned the pattern that you will pursue her and stick with it until she responds to you. So how did she ever think to try telling you “no” if have established that is not ever an option?
Hm. That’s a good question. Maybe that sacred cow doesn’t actually work the way I thought it did.
How can you be sure that trying something different, honoring her choice in this case, will result in her refusing to connect with you more often. Is it possible that you just took an opportunity to show her that she does have freedom, she is powerful, and you respect and honor that freedom- for real? Is it possible that she might be MORE inclined to partner with you if she is aware that she truly does have a choice?
I would love to hope that could be true.
How will you know if you don’t try?
Maybe today I took an opportunity to walk out more closely what I hope is possible, and even if I’m wrong I can still adjust and try something differently going forward.
Right, and the fact that you even considered option 3, and then actually chose it is more importantly an indicator of who you are becoming and less about the horse at all in this moment.
Wow. I had not considered it that way. I am coming to a new place of being able to release control over my horses and to find out what happens.
Hopefully this will continue to reverberate through your human relationships too.
In truth I didn’t BBQ the cow. I knocked it off it’s platform and gave it less authority; it’s turning more into a normal cow in the cow herd of horsemanship concepts. I’m not convinced that it’s any better to always take the “no thank you” my horse gives me any more than it’s a good idea to allow a teenager to always decide what she will do all day every day. And yet if you didn’t give your 14 year old any choices, or the power to make some real decisions that came with real consequences then you’d have a person stuck in that mental age forever never maturing.
The journey is in trying to sort out these questions with a real animal and find out what is possible… what brings more connection and what brings disconnection, and how to create connection. Unfortunately this is a process you have to learn and it is unique to each human-horse pair just like it’s unique to each human-human relationship. I can’t make-up a set of rules on how to connect with a horse the same as no one could make a rule that would work for every parent-teenager. If we want it, we have to be willing to try, fail, and grow.
Maybe we have assumed horses aren’t capable of increasing freedom, or if they are capable we wouldn’t like what it looks like because they would increasingly avoid us and any of our plans.
That is a real risk.
It’s the same risk with the teenager. I think we have some influence over the size of the risk, but it takes way more work than just forcing control.
If we are someone who has shown we don’t care about that other person and their thoughts, emotions and needs and only what we can use them for, then it’s likely they will be less inclined to want to connect — forget volunteering to work together with us. If we have not built connection with them over time it’s going to be a hard sell that they should want to carry their part without being somehow forced to.
I believe that if I put in the work and the time to figure out what someone important in my life needs, who they uniquely are, and make an effort to be the person who honors them by showing them in a way they can understand, that I value them, not just for what they can do for me (performance), but because I value a connection with them- and that I will not attempt to control them by force, then I empower my friends— offering them freedom to become more powerful, self controlled, willingly connected and invested. (I fail at this a lot, but I don’t quit trying again)
The parallels between humans and horses is not complete, but it’s also not completely inaccurate. It’s limited but useful in both directions. I’ve been taught many lessons from my horses how to better honor the human relationships in my life, and I’ve learned something from interacting with a human that has made me re-think how I work with my horses for improvement of connection.
What I really want with all the relationships around me are for the other to walk powerfully in freedom knowing they have great value and great responsibility. And I think the life call to anyone who wants that bad enough, is it begins in laying down our own life to pursue it regardless the cost to us. And the only reason anyone would do that is for the faith that on the other side of that is where the magic happens.
July 2023: I can see myself seeking something I had not found yet in this post, but I still believe that it can be one of the hardest things we do – to have a sacred cow BBQ and seek the truth of things over the accepted way that has made us comfortable. I do not think walking away from a resistant horse is the best option for most situations, but I also do not think it creates the ruinous situation many horse people believe it does. I am glad to say I began to find better ways as I continued searching! Ways of guiding and not driving horses, ways to consider what they think and how they feel and to engage with them to help. And now I continue on that journey to get better at that as I go!
Hope Horsemanship 