The first key to success is an openhearted willingness by US, to understand what’s behind them having resistance, tension or outright fear around their feet.
The second key to success is our desire to do right by them.
The third key to success is the Comfort Zone Model
To understand how to RELEASE old stresses and tensions around our horse’s feet and how eventually it’s possible to release even the kind of deep trauma that is causing PTSD type reactions, first we need to understand the nuances of our Comfort Zone Model.
Let’s start with the “Oh shit I’m Dead Zone” which is everything outside of the Not Too Sure Zone.
We’re all familiar with a horse who is mentally and emotionally and even physically in their Oh Shit I’m Dead Zone, sometimes called the Oh Shit Zone around here. There’s no thinking happening, only automatic reactions. In the feet trimming circumstance they’re fearful to have their leg touched or picked up, they may be snatching their leg away really fast, slamming their foot down suddenly and really hard, they might be showing the white of their eyes, they may even lash out with a kick or a bite, they could be trying to get away.
Still in the Oh Shit I’m Dead Zone
On the other extreme, what you may not be so familiar with, is the horse that has been unable to save themselves from what’s happening for so long, that they’re gone deep inside and have literally given up trying to save themselves. I see them everywhere at horse events – you can pick them out by their dead, flat eye.
And still more kinds of horses in the Oh Shit I’m Dead Zone
Then we have what I call the Caretaker Horses who turn themselves inside to avoid hurting a human, but if driven to their outer limits become explosive when they just can’t hang on to their fear for one more second.
You can pretty much pick a Caretaker Horse by the fact that they SEEM like they don’t go forwards easily. People THINK they need to use a whip or spurs to drive them forwards, but what’s actually happening is that they have a tendency to slow down or even freeze when they’re afraid or confused or when they’re trying to look after their human who is afraid or confused or unsteady in their seat.
Joe the little brumby from the Key to the Kingdom of Horses videos, was literally shaking while he was being trimmed, but still stood there. But there’s lots of Caretaker Horses who don’t show their terror so dramatically. They have a tendency to go inside themselves when they’re in their Oh Shit Zone. You can see the clues on their faces – a tight mouth worried looking eyes, tension in their bodies.
The Not Too Sure Zone as it relates to feet trimming.
Stress and tension becomes chronic when a horse is too long in the Not Too Sure Zone. That’s a big deal right there folks. If they’re in their Not Too Sure Zone for too long, then what they’re learning is stress and tension around whatever we’re trying to teach them. The stress and tension becomes muscle memory.
Stress and tension around feet trimming can have adverse effects on EVERYthing else that you do together. The tension in their bodies that is now chronic, doesn’t suddenly disappear when you put your foot in the stirrup. It’s still there, waiting to bite you on the ass.
Whenever there’s some other pressure comes up, this feet trimming stress and tension ADDS another layer to the new stress – sometimes enormously and with disastrous results. Does that make sense of some stuff that happens with our horses?
Chronic stress also has enormous longer term health impacts.
Take heart though, all this chronic stress and tension, the behavioral stuff that comes from it and even the health effects of it, are completely releasable.
We can change the health and behavior impacts of stress by working our horse’s Comfort Zone. The Comfort Zone is about feeling SAFE.
In the Comfort Zone everything feels safe, learning is easy. To get happy feet, when things start to feel anxious or stressed or tense, we retreat to what feels comfortable again and wait for our horse to lick and chew, maybe even stretch and yawn. I’m going to talk more about that in a minute.
Then we have the glorious possibilities of the Deep Comfort Zone
Deep in the heart of the Comfort Zone is what I call the Deep Comfort Zone and that’s where the trauma release happens and the automatic neural pathways of the brain can change, where the stress releases and the physical tension in their bodies just dissolves away.
Blood starts to flow into muscles that have been starved of nutrition because of that tension and they can start working properly again. Bones can slide into place, sometimes in front of your eyes. The posture of the horse changes and they can move more smoothly and powerfully. Energy moves around the body differently and even organs can heal.
Here’s how we can RELEASE even old stress and tension – even trauma -around feet trimming.
It’s a simple process which involves using Feel for our horse, which we are masters at teaching here. At whatever stage we are working with our horse’s feet, when we first notice OUR OWN feeling of anxiety, stress or tension (which will be our horse communicating with us – that’s our Feel), then we take the pressure off by stopping what we’re doing, backing off and waiting for them to lick and chew, or yawn and release. We wait as long as it takes to get that signal, which is INCREDIBLY important, specially at the beginning.
If you’ve not done this work before, you could be there for a while. The more “Present” we are, the more we are “with them”, the more confidence our horse develops in being “heard”, the bigger their Comfort Zone is getting. And because of feeling heard, the faster the RELEASE can happen.
Right now – yeah I mean while you’re reading – smile for me at the idea of ENJOYING the time of being with your horse while they work through and release that old stress and tension. Sit for a moment and feel the sheer wonder of being able to help your horse THAT much.
I’ve got some stories coming up about how powerful this is and how simple when we go back to those keys to success that I put up at the beginning.
- The first key to success is an openhearted willingness by US, to understand what’s behind them having resistance, tension or outright fear around their feet.
- The second key to success is our desire to do right by them.
Bobby had been generous but not relaxed at trimming time.
Knowing what I was doing for a living, about 20 years ago my trimmer pointed out that even though all my horses generously co-operated (except Sunny who’ll we talk about in a minute) they still had tension in their legs when she was trimming.
I’d recently had a huge demonstration of how horses could learn from another horse when that horse is in their Comfort Zone – so I worked with Bobby to find a release of that tension that Cat was talking about, because he was the easiest horse in my herd of 12.
Well THAT opened up a can of worms, because this Caretaker Horse had been being INCREDIBLY generous. Once he knew he was allowed to show me what worried him, so we could release that tension, he showed me exactly how bothered he was and I realized just how generous he had been being. And far out – as I mentioned earlier – that tension didn’t just disappear when I put my foot in the stirrup. Unbeknown to me, it had been biting me on the bum in my ridden work for a very long time.
Helping Bobby to find his Deep Comfort Zone, took the whole herd into their Comfort Zone at the time – so I didn’t need to feet “train” multiple horses. They learned from Bobby as we were working together.
I took this photo of little Blondie having her feet trimmed at liberty at the next trimming. She was another Caretaker Horse who had been very tense at trimming time. She had been one of the top ten scaredest horses I’ve ever met and considering what I do for a living – that’s a big deal!
After learning from Bobby’s happy feet training, she walked up to Cat – unasked – and just offered her tiny foot.
HOW we supported Sunny to release her PTSD
Sunny was lethal when she arrived, slamming one foot down so hard and fast that if connected with anything on the way down it would have broken bones.
We made a commitment to her that we weren’t going to make her pick that foot up. Part of that was that I wasn’t prepared to allow my feet trimmer to get hurt.
It took 5 months of walking away with the fourth foot not trimmed. It wasn’t five months of hard work, I didn’t have a whole lot of attention on it, just at feet trimming time and occasionally when I had some free time.
Whether it was me or my trimmer, we approached picking up the foot as far as felt good on any given day. We backed off when we felt the first sign of stress or tension and waited for her to signal that she’d finished processing that, by licking and chewing, stretching and yawning.
I don’t think it was coincidence that her big PTSD release happened not long after I’d worked with Bobby. The whole herd had released and learned together and changed their tension levels around feet trimming.
One memorable day that still brings emotion up in me, about 5 months after she arrived, she showed us with a whoosh of anguish what she had experienced back then – how her then trainer had tied that leg up in the air and she’d fought and thrashed, falling to the ground and fought some more there until she gave up and thought she was dead.
THAT was the stress and tension that had been tied up in her inability to hold her foot up for trimming.
Cat and I both “saw” it in our minds eye and both bawled our eyes out – the communication of that anguish was so strong and so powerful.
And from that day Sunny could pick that foot up.
What were our keys to success with Sunny and what does that have to do with your horse who doesn’t have such a serious problem?
1. The commitment to EXPANDING her Comfort Zone, instead of using force or making her pick her foot up.
2. We broke it down into baby steps. We didn’t just walk up and try to pick her foot up. I started with “Could I stroke that leg higher up without her experiencing anxiety, stress and tension?” And yeah the answer at first was “No I couldn’t!”
3. How you EXPAND the Comfort Zone is exactly the same process as releasing stresses and tensions but usually it goes a lot faster. i.e. Go as far as we can picking the foot up until we feel that first warning that tension is rising, put the foot down. Step back and wit for them to finish processing and thinking about it. They signal that by licking and chewing, often stretching and yawning as they let off old stresses and tensions. The next time you’ll get further into the task of picking up the foot happily.
4. The willingness to walk away for five months with the job undone was a major key to success. What’s five months of crappy feet compared to a lifetime of bottled up trauma and the health and behavior issues that went with that?
5. Our appreciation of how utterly wonderful she is also part of our success. She adores the appreciation of being able to be a “good girl”. She has a dicky foot that needs a bit extra sometimes and these days she’ll come sidling up to my current feet trimmer (who’s studied with me and also listens) and parks herself next to Kathryn’s tools for that tiny adjustment that will make that foot more comfortable.
But what’s even bigger than the techniques?
It’s who we are BEing with our horse that is the biggest key to success. It’s that open-hearted willingness to understand what’s really going on with this feet problem – that we talked about at the beginning of the page – that is the biggest key to success.
It’s listening to our horse – both our WILLINGNESS to listen to them and our ABILITY to listen to them via the unique way that each of us experiences our FEEL for our horse.
It’s our horse’s confidence that we can be relied on to take action on what we “hear” and Feel, that takes the pressure off them so that they CAN think again and even enjoy learning how to have happy feet. Just pause for a moment and think about how incredibly wonderful that would be – that our horse could ENJOY learning how to have happy feet?
More on what’s a lot bigger than techniques.
It’s being prepared to walk away with the job not finished, because that’s all our horse can deal with today. When you’re working like this, walking away unfinished does not teach them to not pick their feet up. There’s a whole co-operation thing that starts happening that makes that kind of attitude a non event.
It’s being OK for us to make a mistake and OK for our horse to make a mistake – in fact we WELCOME “mistakes”. Have a feel into THAT! 🙂
And last but not least,
When we apply the same Feel that we use to help our horse have happy feet – when we apply that to our other relationships and use it to navigate our lives, then the ups and downs of life become MUCH easier to deal with.
For me, it meant understanding my anxiety and frustration and anger, so that these emotions are fleeting now – finding a wisdom that I didn’t know I had and finding an enjoyment of life with the real me.
Again, here’s the webpage with that list of steps to get into your horse’s Comfort Zone that will help your horse to have happy feet at feet trimming time.