Yesterday I was told about an incredibly dangerous off the track thoroughbred who was on his third trial for a new home – you know, where they’re for sale and you take them home to see if they’ll suit you. He’s been sent back twice already – well three times if you include why he’s for sale in the first place. He’s been known to pin people against the wall in his stable, he’s picked them up and thrown them across the room, he rolled someone under his feet and stood on them deliberately, he bites and kicks and threatens people routinely. But, quote “He’s perfectly OK when she rides him and he’s a good jumper, so she can put up with all of that other stuff and thinks she’ll keep him.”
She can put up with it? WTF????
How loudly does a horse have to scream to be heard, for someone to listen and take action to help this horse? Does he have to actually kill someone? What’s the bet, that he’ll run out of people willing or agile enough to avoid the teeth and feet and off to the knackers he’ll go for dog meat – completely undeserved because it’s the wanker humans that deserve the consequences not him.
I know, I know … I get it… I slipped out of loving everyone unconditionally for a minute and I was being harsh, because none of us know what we don’t know and none of us learn until something happens to drive us to look for a different way – I spent years obliviously putting up with screaming horses – but the words reflect my frustration at the kind of thing that I still see and hear of FAR TOO OFTEN.
The horse world has changed folks!
The world is now full of horse men and women promoting all kinds of ways of treating horses kindly, of listening to them in all kinds of ways that would solve this horse’s desperate plight.
Every “problem” solved just creates a deeper bond with your horse. To have a good relationship that enables us to problem solve easily, we need to listen to our horses and then we need to take action on what we hear. (That’s something you’ll often hear me say.)
There’s a reason that we get so much success here with horses that are considered difficult and dangerous and why they’re welcome in my clinics and on my programs – it’s because we LISTEN TO THEM and even more importantly WE TAKE ACTION ON WHAT WE HEAR / FEEL. And yes there are limitations. Not everyone is going to have the skill or knowledge or athleticism for that matter, to solve every dangerous horse. For example, Sue on staff here took on two horses that were beyond my skill and athleticism at my stage of life and by crikey she and the horse’s have done a fabulous job together. But I have waaayyyy lost count of the amount of normal every day people who have solved big problems that professional horse “trainers” couldn’t solve. And they used our simple recipe of using Feel for their horse in everything that they do.
Feel brings you the ability to solve every “training” problem, Feel helps you to understand WHY they’re behaving the way they’re behaving, Feel enables you to listen to them in the way that best suits YOUR natural talents, Feel helps you find ease and even joy in things that used to be so difficult and considered “problems”.
The Key to the Kingdom of Horses is our foundation lesson on Feel, if you haven’t seen it yet, then you can grab it here…
Today’s photo credit is to Equine Behaviourist UK
I am buzzing with the energy around that quote… and the many faceted situations we can apply it. Just Gorgeous xxxx
“Every “problem” solved is just a deeper bond with your horse”? We could also say: Every problem is just an opportunity for a deeper bond with our horse. Yeah I get it… It applies to everything from solving behavioral stuff like this, to a rough trot to canter, ducking out on a jump or a glitch in a piaffe. Multi-faceted indeed…
I have a client who acquired a horse (OTTB) who had literally killed someone and had put two others in hospital. She just backed off, listened to the horse, gave it space, was willing to wait, and she never had a lick of trouble with it. It never really trusted anyone but her though.
It’s lovely to hear stories like that June. No wonder she had you for a feet trimmer! Listening is everything hey? The trouble is, you hear a lot pf people SAY that, but they don’t know how to and clearly she did…
I love that you lost that smoochy feeling for loving people for that moment and I get that!
Yes, the only way that an animal can get us to not only listen but to actually hear and taking the required action.
My question would be why is this horse this way? What has he endured that he basically said enough is enough and I aint going to trust anybody.
I have the most beautiful girl – my Surprise – who has taken 4 yes I said FOUR years for her to finally realise that I will never hurt her and now totally trusts me. So much so that I can place a fly veil on her face and put on a rug when she needs. I can approach her without her wanting to leave.
Time is of the essence and it is in their time and not yours that that trust, bonding and relationship can happen.
Love ya work Jen, but you already know that <3
And back at you Virginia. What has he endured indeed. I was in a famous racing stables to do muscle work on four horses one day and this incredibly aggressive horse would lunge from the back of the stable and try and grab with his teeth every human that walked past. It turned out that that one person would hold him in the corner with a pitchfork, while another quickly put the food in, or cleaned the box or whatever had to be done. f… me… He was on my muscle work list. By the time I’d approached and retreated from his door a few times while I was working on the other three, he allowed me into his box to work on him too. Jesus wept it’s not rocket science…
I think I should get that mounted on the arena fence “Every “Problem” Solved Creates a DEEPER BOND WITH YOUR HORSE”. 😳💡🤭💡🙄💡😁 Wow! the shift in my internal energy…! Puts a whole different spin on things, doesn’t it? I’m not solving problems to “fix” it, but to enhance our relationship….. Wow!! 😃
Wow back to you! It IS all about the relationship isn’t it? Sue from the bush has often talked about how if we come from a “fixing” perspective, we’ve completely missed the boat. It took me a while to understand that and it seems to be one of those things that has come in layers for me. Ahhh the wonderful consequences of being Present!