You're Rude!
The massive, paint gelding had no redeeming words of praise for me.
"I’m not rude. You’re a jack-ass!” I implied back. My hand was tight on the lead-line, and my feet braced.
“You wanna take it outside?”
"We are outside, knuckle-head.”
I’m not a push-over. When in the midst of a conversational push-back, I try to lean in and stand my ground. I felt like this wannabe gorilla just flat out inserted his nose into the conversation where it didn’t belong. I’ve dealt with teenagers before. Respect can be in short supply.
“Never trust a dog with your food” cleverly illustrates the agenda of many. It may surprise you to learn horses have one too. Theirs is a world of lush grass and people-free zones.
My bad. My agenda here involved trying to load this overgrown rump into a trailer. If he had learned anything in his twelve years on planet earth, it was how to push his weight around. Anywhere his nose went, his body was sure to follow. That meant through you, all 1400 lbs. If that didn’t work, he’d just turn a 180, leaving you powerless to pull against his entire body, and he’d drag you wherever he was bent on going. “Bye bye,” said the gorilla. What a joy and delight his agenda was.
But one monkey doesn’t stop the circus. He now lives with me, once I got him on the trailer, in stall number ten at my farm, while he begins kindergarten. In stall eleven, the next door down, there lives another kindergartener, a two year old, 15+ hand, Andalusian filly, virtually untouched. She is a tall, willowy, blue-roan girl with long legs that move her around almost catlike. Her natural slides and spins leave you breathless.
Both horses share experiences from the same “free-spirits” camp. That means an inability to lead, function or cooperate with any human requests. Theirs is a world of zero requests implemented on their time. Disagreeable comes in many shapes, colors and breeds. He’s “Paint tuff,” and she’s high-strung neurotic. Oh, the list goes on with my entire training group, but let's talk about these two. Do you know what is at their core of their beliefs?
Neither one recognizes that humans truly exist. Our worlds are worlds apart (not even in the same solar system). Both horse-brains have been left completely mute to our language, leaving them reactive to every situation, big or small, that swirls around them. “Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs” means a constant state of wide-eyed panic.
Their eyes, never on you, are thus never focused enough to settle their feral brains. Leading is a series of jumps and stops, hoping to stay out of their way when they jump, or it’s being led by their awesomeness down the runway! (The mare is most happy and secure when she leaps onto you.)
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Neither one recognizes that humans truly exist. Our worlds are worlds apart (not even in the same solar system). Both horse-brains have been left completely mute to our language, leaving them reactive to every situation, big or small, that swirls around them. “Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs” means a constant state of wide-eyed panic.
Their eyes, never on you, are thus never focused enough to settle their feral brains. Leading is a series of jumps and stops, hoping to stay out of their way when they jump, or it’s being led by their awesomeness down the runway! (The mare is most happy and secure when she leaps onto you.)
Over the past couple of training seasons and years, I have had it easy. Most of the horses in for me to work with have been someone’s riding horse that simply needed to graduate to third grade and get some education—easy stuff. It seems the hard ones come in lumps. When I say hard, I mean the learning curve for them is large. It’s not that they don’t know anything, they know plenty. Unfortunately, it has nothing to do with cooperation and harmony towards humans.
Communication between species is the single most elementary element that must exist. That means a two-way communication. Both species must learn the language of the other. Unfortunately for us, the horse doesn’t really care. We care, and we have to impose our will to teach the horse that they must care too if we are going to have a relationship at any level.
Two sticks of wood don't make a fire. There are a hundred ways to start training these two. I’m not so interested in “training” as I am in communication. “Hey, there! I want to get to know you. Do you know who I am? Let’s do something together.” Those are my words. The horse has something to say but it is hard to hear because they are too busy fussing and jumping and stomping. Way too much commotion. Way too much energy. Way too much drama. How do you bring coherency?
In my thirty-five years as a horse trainer I have seen a lot of techniques of varying degrees of success. For me, the biggest game changer has always been to turn them loose and talk to them in a language they understand—body language at liberty. My point is that while on a lunge line (something I do use), the horse never gets to make a decision. He never gets to decide to cooperate with you and join in. For a fearful horse to become un-fearful, he has to let go of fear. For a stubborn horse to become cooperative, he has to let go of stubborn. Those decisions change, mold, shape, and transform a horse from an unusable one to a useable, teachable one.
Well whoop dee do, but horses don’t learn unless they are relaxed and tension-free, period. If your horse is only thinking about running away from you, you haven’t even gotten the mayo jar opened yet to have lunch.
Wellness, between horse and rider, is a real slice of chocolate/strawberry cheesecake if you want to understand harmony. It is a a delicate, super-sweet line of connection between species that channels learning and communication, a tension-free zone so communication can flow. We all get frustrated at times with the language barrier, but when we bring frustration into the equation, or when the horse’s mind is filled with tension, there is no ability to truly shape a horse’s brain into a confident, exuberant riding horse. If frogs had wings they wouldn’t bump their butts when they hopped either.
I appreciate your feedback. Please take some time and “like” www.facebook.com/Jeff-Wilson-Cowboy-Dressage. I have been training horses for over 30 years and value the western horse lifestyle in my approach to training. Giving clinics and seminars on how to reach your full potential with your horse through the training foundation of Cowboy Dressage makes me happier than a full breeze from a corn-eatin’ horse.