Kim wrote
I have two horses (half-sisters) and neither are comfortable picking up their feet. It feels like neither one of them know how to balance over their other three feet when we lift up a foot. I have been playing with some of my Feldenkrais work with them to see if I could help them learn to move their balance to different places, and that is going well, but slowly. I was hoping you could share some insight that might help in this process.
Any help would be greatly appreciated,
I thought I had done an Oliver’s Diary lesson on feet – I have a lot of footage of us fixing that problem – but I haven’t got around to it yet – so many things to get done! Crikey he was really bad on one leg, quite dangerous actually and infuriating at one point too. If I was going to actually FIX the problem and not just bully him into it, I had to bite the bullet and not trim that foot until we’d gone through the change process. So there were several trims where three feet got done and one foot got walked around on some gravel and I took an occasional quick one or two swipes with the rasp.
Giving you their feet takes a fair bit of confidence for them because that takes away their ability to run away – which is most horses primary defence mechanism. So helping them to Release OTHER things that they are afraid of, takes some of the escalation out of the feet issue (every unaddressed fear adds on to the next one and makes the fear more intense.)
AND if one horse is better than the other, then helping that easier horse to get REALLY GOOD with their feet, in their deep comfort zone and super confident, the more difficult horse will learn from them and make that job a giant load easier.
When they’re difficult with their feet, they also need confidence in US that we’re not going to push them further than they can give us in their Comfort Zone. We need to follow our good feelings and use our Not Quite Right for backing off. Then stop and wait for The Chew at each step, so that they can Release whatever old stresses and tensions they have around it. The same process will have a different energy about it as they go through the Relearn process. And every time you reach a feel good place, stop and appreciate the heck out of it. Soak up the feel good. Make a feel good star out of them.
AND they need to have confidence in that process of both of you doing things together for their good. And that might take confidence developed in other less dramatic areas than feet, first. Haltering is another area where they have very often been forced, bullied, coerced or tricked into having a halter on for the first time. And most people are doing feet when a horse is haltered. So to my way of thinking, I want to address THAT before addressing a feet problem. And I really want a horse to know how to stand still in one place before doing feet too.
Here’s an Olivers Diary lesson teaching him to “Stand in the box.” It’s such a big deal for most horses, that you can’t do the box thing and the feet thing in one go, it would feel like “when are you going to leave me ALONE?!” – too much. 🙂
So that’s five broad keys for success right there, before we get into technique:
1. If the feet thing is a big deal, Release other fears first to take the intensity out of this problem.
2. Make sure other elements for success are in place first. i.e. being happily haltered and knowing how to stand still in one place for you.
3. If the feet thing is a big deal, teach another horse to find their deep comfort zone first – humming with happiness and feeling really empowered by the process.
4. They may need CONFIDENCE in us that we really will work WITH them on this and not push, force or bully them into it.
5. Keep your eye out for good places to stop for the day and don’t do too much in one go.
So here’s the techniques that we used for Oliver:
http://www.jennypearce.com.au/olivers-d … n-the-box/
I broke the feet handling down into baby steps laying each step carefully into his comfort zone:
- Could I stand beside his leg and have THAT in his comfort zone.
- Could I stroke his leg stroke his leg and have THAT in his comfort zone.
- Could I re-weight him so his weight was balanced so picking up a foot would be easier?
- What about the “ask”? Could I run my hand down his leg, give a signal on his fetlock and have him give me the tiniest attempt to pick the foot up – to just START the lift?
- Could he lift the leg a bit more?
- Then a bit more until I could actually hold it at the right height for second?
- Then could I stroke the leg while it’s up?
Then it became apparent that there was trouble in his shoulders that was causing lifting his feet to be uncomfortable, so we (usually Steve because it became part of his lessons to loosen Oliver up before riding) so Steve was doing the Masterson shoulder release. Which is very Feldenkrais’y, so you’ll like that. I think I’ve put some Masterson videos up somewhere where he showed that particular leg technique.
Don’t be worried if it takes you longer to get the horse to actually do that release, you’ll be doing a bit of practise to get the hang of what Jim is doing. He is VERY clear in the Feel of what he’s doing, so that will be helping the horse, who I can see has seriously sore shoulders.
I suggest that you watch the video over and over again, feeling into your own body for what he’s doing, imagining that it’s YOUR shoulder tucked into the horse like that, YOUR body bent over with the feel of the horse’s leg in your hands. FEEL for the leg coming down at that angle and the release of the shoulder. Notice in the video all that soft muscle as he moves the leg a little towards the end of the Release and have that really clear in your mind what you’re looking for. All this will help your horse to know what you’re looking for.
And when that video finishes, you’ll see where you can go on from this video to a scapula release as well.
Once the shoulder stuff was improved, Oliver could pick his leg up and hold it without pain, so I could ask him to hold it up for longer and longer, always following the good feelings and using the Not Quite Right to back off.
Then I could get tools onto his feet.
Then I could get him using the hoof stand.
And actually I trimmed that foot for quite a while before I handed over to the feet trimmer. 🙂