When I came in here to do some refining of lesson presentation. I read the words “when you are ready, this will be one of the most beautiful things you can do for your horse – release this old trauma”, opened my heart to feel my herd kind of automatically and I burst into tears. Oliver has this trauma enormously and THIS is what’s behind his sacral damage getting so far in its healing and not quite completely gone.
The Lesson
There are three stages to this and many other “lessons” with your horse:
1. RELEASE – this is about releasing old resistance and trauma, which requires stopping when you feel that something is Not Quite Right and waiting for The Chew while your horse processes that – and tying up has caused SO MANY horses trauma that this is a very important release to help them with.
2. RE-LEARN – once the trauma has been released your horse goes into the Learning Stage. Again you are using Not Quite Right to know when to back off and allow your horse to go slow enough to learn at the perfect pace for THEM.
3. RE-PROGRAM – during and after the Learning Stage, you can help your horse to put this new learning into their auto pilot reactions that they go to when they hit their “Oh Shit” Zone. With tying up, the ultimate is that they can come forward off the pressure of the halter when they are tied up even if something happens that puts them into their “Oh Shit” Zone.
What you are about to watch on this video is a very low key, picture perfect and incredibly sensitively done lesson on teaching a horse to tie up for the very first time. The whole lesson lasted about half an hour, including breaks and will be done many more times, increasing in intensity until coming off the halter is imprinted in young Will’s brain no matter what is going on around him.
And when he is ready to be tied up to a solid object, HE WILL NEVER BE TIED UP TO A SOLID OBJECT.
I have heard all the arguments for tying a horse up to a solid object and I strongly disagree. I have spent my life fixing horses who have been physically, mentally and emotionally damaged in the learning process and it is absolutely unnecessary, as you have seen in the previous two lessons and will see in the video lesson below.
I have these great velcro tie up thingy’s (3 cm wide loops that complete the loop with velcro) that came from Equitana velcro would pop open and the twine would break if a horse had a pull back episode. I’ve got a great tie up thinigy form Cynthia too. Sue next door has loops of single pieces of unthreaded hay twine that run through short pieces of old garden hose, so that the rope undoes easily. That’s what we are looking for when I say Will be never be tied up to a solid object.
Important Safety Tips
1. NEVER tie your horse up to a gate or a fence, not even if you use soft breakable hay twine. The possible consequences to you and your horse’s safety are horrifying.
2. Learn to tie your knots up on auto pilot in such a manner that your fingers are never in the knots, so that you can never get accidentally caught in a knot if your horse pulls back while you are tying a knot. Murphy’s Law – do all things safely all the time and these things don’t happen!
3. The new type of hay twine is MUCH stronger than the old sort even though it is thinner and needs to have some strands already cut in it, so that it breaks easily enough if your horse pulls back.
Also please note the Safety Issues section below the video.
Be comfortable about doing these lessons with your horse as slowly and as completely as you need. If you want this Lesson with your horse to go as well as it did for Will, then make sure that your horse will come off a firm feel from you standing in front of them – straight forwards as well as from an angle, a bit to the side.
We’re looking for them to come off a FIRM feel, not a meet and melt one – before we move on to this lesson.
Lessons to Review
Preparation for tying a horse up – the meet and melt lesson
Let’s sink into this Not Quite Right stuff
Be comfortable about doing these lessons with your horse as slowly and as completely as you need. If you want this Lesson with your horse to go as well as it did for Will, then make sure that your horse will come off a firm feel from you standing in front of them – straight forwards as well as from an angle, a bit to the side. Yeah I noticed I said this twice too – that’s because it’s important! 🙂
And there is a blooper on the video – not important, but see if you notice it!
I’ve been thinking…
I’d rather no one did this lesson with their horse at all, the safety issues are so big and so important. In fact, I’ve just had an idea:
I’d love you to use your breath or heartbeat or energy to access your Inner guidance system system, think about your horse and WATCH THIS VIDEO WITH THEM – repeatedly, until you can watch the whole thing with inner peace and or happiness.
Now, if that sounds off the wall to some of you, I’d like you to humor me and try it anyway. We KNOW that horses will learn from other horses who are in their Comfort Zone and we KNOW that our horses when they are relaxed in their Comfort Zone, connect deeply with us and understand a heap more than we ever thought possible. So what have we got to lose by trying something completely different?
And I sure as heck want to hear how much changes from this alone!
Safety Issues
If you’ve done the task of watching with your horse, and you’re determined to go ahead AND if you’re really familiar with taking action on your Feel AND if your horse is ready and willing to be this vulnerable, then consider the following safety tips:
♦ If you are an inexperienced horse person get a second opinion from someone on the spot about whether YOU are ready to try this lesson, that the place you want to do this lesson is a SAFE place, and whether YOUR HORSE is ready to try this lesson.
♦ Make sure that the rope can slide easily and not get caught on anything.
♦ Make sure that whatever you are passing the rope around is a solid and extremely secure object – no fence posts to pull out of the ground please or weak tree branches to snap off! Do not pass the rope around a gate that can pop off its hinges and flatten you and your horse.
♦ Make sure that you keep your fingers clear of the rope where it goes around the pole.
♦ Have a rope that is long enough to allow you to stand far enough away from your horse to keep yourself safe.
♦ Listen to your Not Quite Rights and take action on them instantly.
♦ And if you have doubts about your skills in detecting Not Quite Rights and taking appropriate action on them, THEN DO NOT DO THIS LESSON.
♦ It’s YOUR responsibility to keep you and your horse safe – so make sure that you do just that!
Having said all this, when you are ready, this will be one of the most beautiful things you can do for your horse – release this old trauma, re-learn in a sensitive and beautiful way and develop new brain pathways for a “good” automatic reaction if your horse ever hits the “Oh Shit” Zone – when they are tied up to something that will break if they have an emergency.