I am astounded at how imaginative humans can be in in making a horse bend to their will. Are we going to use our imagination to support the horse to be everything magnificent and wonderful that they can be? And have them escalate US into our excellence as well? Or are we going to use our imagination to shut them down, screw them over?
This rant is caused by doing a healing session this morning on a lovely natured quarter horse who has some muscular skeletal problems and what he showed me as the cause, had me shaking my head at how imaginative people can be in their desire to have a horse submit at all costs.
This little horse had been hobbled with his head tied down to his leg. The effect of that on his mind, his body and his spirit… jeez… I just shake my head and thank God that we have the means to help him to release that.
Because I earn my living helping horses and people to understand each other and heal, I come across this kind of stuff far too often. I could tell you dozens of stories of things horses have shown me and told me that make me stand up and yell ” Enough! Stop!”
We need to know though, that these are not evil people who do these kind of things. They are ordinary people just like you and I, who simply don’t know how to get what they want – even better than what they want – nicely.
How can we help these physically, emotionally and spiritually injured horses that we see and hear about, to HEAL? How can WE make it better for them?
How can WE, yes you and me both, make a difference in the world? How can we make a difference in OUR part of the world? How can we use our imagination FOR the horse instead of against them?
By BEing the change that we want the rest of the world to be.
By being not just a good example but a GREAT example…
… By finding joy in our horse and have people envious of that, saying “How can I have that kind of joy too?”
… By you and your horse supporting each other to express the magnificence of who you BOTH are, so that people look at you with a smile and say “That is so beautiful. How can I too have that?”
It’s not just the Frederic Pignon’s of the world that are inspiring people by showing what can be done with a happy empowered horse, although he’s doing his bit. 🙂 It’s the you and me’s. It’s Doll in this gorgeous photo showing her utterly in sync with her horse Liberty. It’s all the other beautiful horses with beautiful people that I saw in the Perth clinic and that I see doing this kind of work every day.
Feel into this photo. Feel his contentment. It’s the feelings that count when you’re wanting to make a change in the world, not what you are doing. It’s feeling good that ultimately is the best communication with others.
Intersting. Horses have shown and told me lots of things too, and their owners don’t believe me because apparently the only way for me to be believable is through horse ownership.
I don’t own a horse. I just know how to tune in to them (and animals generally) and they tell me stuff.
Why should horse ownership be the only passport for intuitive feel?
Frustrating…
Smiling here… Clearly ownership is NOT the passport to intuitive Feel, or all the horse/people problems we see wouldn’t exist! 🙂
I wonder why the frustration though? To me, feeling frustration is signal that something needs to change. It can be something I need to know, so I open up to get that understanding or it may be something that I need to physically do differently. Or in my connection to the horse, it may be THEIR frustration that I’m feeling – in which case there is something to know or do for or about THEM. Or in my connection to the human in this situation, it may be THEIR frustration I am feeling, in which case there is something I need to know or do for about THE HUMAN. And as soon as I understand about that, pfft! the frustration is gone instantly. 🙂
LOL frustration because more often than I can shake a stick at, I pass on a message that I’ve been gifted by a horse or other animal, and the owner dismisses it outright because apparently I don’t have the right “credentials”!!!
I mostly let it be, and figure they’ll hear what they need to and when. I’m just sorry for any critter whose suffering continues.
An example – I take riding lessons at a local riding school. It’s an adult group lesson 1 evening per week. Being the last riders for the day, we turn the school horses out after the class. One evening, I was riding a sensitive little mare who “told” me, quite clearly, she didn’t want to be rugged for the night. Do you think the riding school staff would listen to either me or the mare? Not a chance! Even after the mare tried to bite the staff member when she went to put her rug on, and I suggested she’d be happier without it.
The mare told me the rug was too big and cut into her neck when she tried to graze. And when I looked at the rug I could see she was quite right – it was a few sizes too big and dropped off her shoulders, ending up tight, right across her neck.
I pointed this out to the staff member and she said that’s all they had, as they were short on rugs, and better than being without. Well, the mare disagreed!
We’re doing a 6 week program called Practical Happiness for Animal Lovers
in February which will help you work through this stuff (and lots of other things
too) in detail, increasing confidence, ability to be Present under pressure (i.e.
the staff member who wouldn’t listen).
Oh yeah and google fistulous withers, print it out and show them what can happen
with rugs that pull back over the withers like that. I found a photo in one of
my lessons of an injury probably done to a horse by a poorly fitting rug with a
too large neck that jammed into the withers. Eventually it’s like a pressure
sore and will make them unhappy about saddling long before it gets this bad –
but hey very many people ignore the horse’s messages about saddling too.
Thanks Jenny. The course sounds fabulous! … and that photo looks horrible :-/ Yes, I’ll show it to them.
That mare I wrote about is definitely not happy about being saddled and girthed, either. That explains a lot.
I’ll look out for that course on your website.
Thanks so much for your input ??
You’ll get an email (or probably more like three or four explaining the course from all the different angles) in January. Gosh the results we got from the 76 people who went through it last year STILL have me smiling and shaking my head. 🙂
Thank you Jenny
You have taught me how to encourage Liberty (Midas) into good self carriage. The more he feels good about himself the better his self carriage . Like you told me, the better his self carriage the better he is at dealing with his arthritis. He is making a lot of progress and whilst his knee is still swollen he is very seldom lame now.
ThanksvDoll
Woohoo! Thanks for that update Doll! I knew his name change hadn’t held, but couldn’t remember the other name. 🙂 Ahhh Midas…
I’m posting this for someone else and removing the names to protect the innocent! lol
I wanted to respond to this story with one of my own. This type of ‘training’ or ‘breaking the spirit’ of horses is typical here in (her state in America). So very shocking when I moved here. I had no idea people could even do this or come up with these ideas.
Many years ago I joined the driving club here as I wanted to train my horse to pull a cart. The club brought in a ‘well known’ women trainer for horses and mules to pull carts. I signed up for the weekend work shop that would be followed up by private lessons through out the summer. I was really excited.
I had a horse I thought would be great doing this and had done all the ground driving with her already.
But a few things that happened at the clinic really stopped me in my tracks. Her idea to teach a horse to bend was to tie his head to the stirrup and leave him to figure out how not to fight it and learn to bend. She let the horse be like this for hours during out clinic. She then untied that direction and pulled the horses head to the other stirrup and let him stand the rest of the clinic. I really shut down during this sort of thing. It took everything in me not to cry or untie the horse.
The next thing she did was a ‘tip’ in training the cart horse. Someone brought in a draft horse that was trained to pulling already but had the tendency to ‘run away’ with the girl. Yes very dangerous but here was her solution. We need a bigger, hurtful high port bit and that will teach him. So she changed out the bit for this horse and started to drive him around the arena with out a cart. Horse was doing fine but needed his ‘lesson’ who was boss. As soon as the horse started getting strong in her book she jerked back on the reins so hard the horse sat down on his hocks! Unbelievable. She told the owner that this is what she needed to continually do to ‘teach’ him.
OK, so I am new in (this state) and don’t want to make enemies in this driving club so say nothing. I signed up for private lessons with her for my horse.
What a bust that was. I came with my horse in her bitless bridle which was all she knew. She never had a bit in her mouth. We did ground driving in the lesson without a cart and I did pick up some pointers. BUT she informed me that she would NEVER help me again unless I put a bit in my horses mouth.
I never took another lesson from her.
I don’t belong to the driving club.
Tying a horses head to the hobbles in front is typical here in (this state) .
…. ‘our’ friend is a draft horse driver. We met here in (this state) before she moved back to OR and WA. Thank goodness for her, she encouraged me to continue training with out a bit.
For what it is worth,
My comment: Jeez I must lead a sheltered life…
Perfect question. How can we help these physically, emotionally and spiritually injured horses that we see and hear about? Its curious, It seems to me that if the human was or is in a abusive “state” then they often don’t understand the consequences of their choices. Thank you for the reminder to teach by asking nicely and if the horse (or other) doesn’t respond accordingly, lets assume they dont understand the question or can’t give you the response you are looking for due to physical, spiritual or mental blocks and force will not allow them understand any better.
“Force will not allow them to understand any better” Perfectly expressed Barbara – thanks!