If we want to be able to take our horses out on the trail, to riding club, clinics or competitions and have our horse cope well with different environments, be comfortable and feel secure about it, then our horse and us need to be able to cope with high energy comfortably.
We tend to do a lot of LOW energy things with our horses naturally, keeping things relaxed and calm, especially when we’re dealing with nervousness in our horse and/or us. That is completely OK.
But when the LOW energy is completely in their Comfort Zone AND enjoyed, if we and our horses are going to have happy lives together OUTSIDE of where we live, it means that we have to prepare them for that.
And we can prepare them for that by working at home – by helping our horse to feel safe and comfortable under all kinds of higher pressure circumstances – by getting them comfortable with HIGH energy.
We can very usefully start this at liberty where our horse can leave us if they need to, while we get good at practising listening and taking action on Not Quite Right.
Now here’s a big deal… I have included this Lesson in the liberty section where it belongs BUT possibly the biggest part of this Lesson is thinking through BEFOREHAND how this benefits your horse and whether it is time yet for this Lesson for you and your horse.
To work this model successfully, you need to HAVE a Comfort Zone in place AND you need to have taken time to enjoy it, to anchor it and enjoy it, BEFORE you add the kind of extra pressure of higher energy in this Lesson.
For example, some of you will have horses who are not ready for this Lesson yet. It will give you a Not Quite Right maybe even at the thought of it. If that is the case, then like every other Not Quite Right, pay attention to it and take action on that Not Quite Right and delay playing with this Lesson until you DO feel happy at the thought of this.
And keep your eye out for the “coincidences” in life, bringing you opportunities to get something that is naturally high energy into your horse’s Comfort Zone. Coincidences – yeah right! (Gentle Aussie sarcasm there!) Remember Oliver’s lesson about the way that God or The Universe brings us what looks like crappy circumstances and they turn out to be wonderful opportunities?
Do make some kind of note to come back to this Lesson however, after you have cleared some other old “crap” away in later lessons, because having high energy in your horse’s Comfort Zone is important to those of you who want to enjoy getting out and about with your horse on trails and at riding clubs and competitions.
IF you’re moving into this lesson, make sure that you HAVE the good feelings before you start and follow those good feelings to keep them. Ground yourself to make sure that YOU can flow high energy. If you’re not sure what grounding and flowing high energy is, let’s talk about it on a Live Seminar, so put your hand up.
Ignore any old lesson numbers you come across – we’ve added so much content that they are irrelevant.
Click here for the alternate recording
Related Lessons
Click here to review the foundation lesson “the gift in our horse’s differences”
Click here to review the Lesson about helping Peppi have a Comfort Zone with tools.
Written Version of the Audio
It is Sunny that particularly brought low, medium and high energy to my attention as I was filming and preparing lessons for this course.
I will not be safe and she won’t be able to look after me, if all I ever do is sweet low energy work with her. I have to increase the energy and I have to have the higher energy IN HER COMFORT ZONE AND MINE for me to be and feel safe and indeed, for her to be happy too.
Because life is FULL of high energy moments.
Normal things at home such as a windy day, something happening out of routine, another horse having some kind of an upset, a branch falling out of a tree, a dog barking, a plastic bag blowing past in the breeze, our horse’s rug flapping against them in the wind as we put it on.
Then outside of home, we have things like the busyness and extra activity that happens at riding club or clinics or competition, the strange dog barking as we ride past, the motorbike or tractor or traffic or trailer with the flapping tarp that comes past when we’re out riding, or the wildlife that pops out from behind a bush and all the other unexpected things that can happen when we are out and about.
If all we have ever done is low energy things around our horses, then we are not going to be in our Comfort Zone and sooner or later we are going to get into trouble.
THIS KIND OF STUFF, THESE HIGH ENERGY MOMENTS DON’T FIX THEMSELVES.
You may be lucky enough to have a horse who takes all kinds of things in their stride – but if that is true – then SOMEONE worked with that horse OR circumstances happened over a long period of time to help that horse be cool with all kinds of high energy things.
Even if you have a Caretaker horse, who tends to slow down or stop when they are afraid or confused – they are generally speaking still afraid of high energy things. And that fear or nerves needs to be addressed or, because fear is cumulative, you will end up having trouble with them moving forwards freely.
We can do it systematically, we can help our horse systematically to cope with these higher energy things.
For most horses and certainly for young horses, we need to introduce these things in such a way that they end up taking ALL kinds of things, ALL kinds of energy in their stride.
So how do we help them do that?
Well we can start way back at liberty, where they can move away if we put too much pressure on.
We could approach and retreat with a stick and string like we did with old Peppi in this lesson on your Fast Track course. Review that Lesson because there is no point in me repeating it here.
The key to success with Peppi though was getting bigger AS I WALKED AWAY swinging the stick. Then stopping and waiting for The Chew. That helped him increase his Comfort Zone faster.
For example, if we were using a stick like with Peppi to increase his Comfort Zone with higher energy, then we could work our way from the low energy of just swishing the stick around gently, to being able to flop it from side to side using our whole arm, to the higher energy of being able to throw the rope over their body maybe even to the extremely high energy of being able to crack a stock whip.
And we do that with approach and retreat, using our feeling that something is Not Quite Right, to know when to back off or retreat and when to stop and wait for The Chew.
You might be waiting for a chew for a long time while your horse processes and releases something that happened in the past. That’s the healing work that you will be helping your horse to do or you might just be helping them put the higher energy of that stick into their Comfort Zone and that won’t take so long.
With my new horse Oliver recently, when I took the opportunity to use it to swish the flies off when they were annoying him and rub him all over with the stick, over a period of days of annoying flies, we had worked up to medium energy in my fly swishing. And boy did he LOVE me doing that!
His Comfort Zone with the stick is going to be very beneficial if I want to show him which leg to move in the Spanish Walk or show him where he might create some extra energy for the Piaffe.
I remember once with Bobby, throwing a rope around him to swish mosquitoes off. We got from low energy up to quite high energy very naturally with him enjoying me swinging the rope to keep the mosquitoes off.
We could add to our high energy work with a rattling plastic bag – by approaching and retreating, using our Not Quite Right to know when to stop and back off.
We could start off with just rustling the bag in our fingers and ending up being able to flap it around a little naturally as we walked around our horse. And once that was in our horse’s Comfort Zone, we could have the whole bag flapping loosely from the handle in our hands on the next windy day and approach and retreat with THAT high energy plastic bag.
Low energy could be about walking up to my horse quietly and considerately. Medium energy might be that I can march on up briskly and give them a treat. High energy might be that I can run up to them and give them a treat.
It might mean that instead of just running my hands all over them, I might be able to rub them all over with a crackly sounding coat in my hands – that’s higher energy than just my hands. So many of my coats have a bit of a crackly sound that I personally don’t want to be trying to fix that on a rainy day.
It might mean that the higher energy of a flapping saddle blanket or rug could mean that they can be blown around in the wind without sending my horse into their oh shit zone.
Or all the machinery things – the noisy trail bikes out on a ride, the car, truck or tractor, whatever – louder and noisier and with higher energy than they experience in their everyday life.
As I said before it would be lovely if as many of these things could be in their Comfort Zone as possible – but generally speaking, this doesn’t happen by itself and we have to help our horse get all these kinds of things into their Comfort Zone.
Have you noticed as I have been talking that most of these things are being done with a purpose and that we are taking advantage of things that happen naturally to get additional high energy stuff into the Comfort Zone?
Each medium and high energy thing that we add to our horse’s Comfort Zone makes it easier and faster for the next thing to go into their Comfort Zone. Until we have a horse who can handle low medium and high energy things under all kinds of circumstances.
And liberty is a great place to start that low medium and high energy experience, where our horse can move away from us if they get too uncomfortable.
So here is a simple little task for you to start this off with.
High energy and treats as a combination, worked well at liberty when I was working with Sunny, giving her a bit of incentive to stay as I explored how fast I could run up to her, without pushing her too far out of her Comfort Zone because I only wanted her in her Not Too Sure Zone for short periods of time and not at all in her Oh Shit Zone if I could help it.
I was seeing if she would play with a ball (which is another opportunity to work on low, medium and high energy) and every time I wanted to give her a treat (which I had outside our working space where she couldn’t reach them) I RAN over to the treat and RAN back to her with it.
The running AWAY at high energy made it possible for her to come to terms with the high energy easier.
Then I could wait for a chew if I needed to before running back with a treat. At first I couldn’t run back to her at high speed or with high energy and I had to do a little approach and retreat – slow down and speed up, back away from her fast and wait a little – then forwards again – using my Not Quite Right to know when to slow down and when to back off – until she was OK with me running up to her with medium energy first, then later with high energy.
This is just a simple little task – but it’s a very important start to working on a whole bunch of things at low, medium and high energy so that when you and your horse are out and about, when you’re out on the trail, or at a competition or at riding club or at a clinic, your horse isn’t fussed about or is easily settled with any high energy things that might happen.
So there’s a fair bit of work here for you, over quite a period of time.
Go have fun with the start of it and see you next time!