Once clinic season starts, I spend a lot of time in the truck, driving down the road. From my base in South Carolina, I usually head west until I literally see the Pacific Ocean in front of me, and I hang a right. Then I go north until I hit my friend Kyya’s place in Washington state and then hang another right and head back east, ending up eventually back in South Carolina.
I figured for our mid-summer, I’d jot down some of my “truck thoughts”. These are just various thoughts prompted by situations or discussions or things I’ve seen along the way. I tend to keep a notebook nearby most of the time that I just write things down in, from addresses and directions to songs I hear on the radio that I like.
Any one of these thoughts could become a future newsletter article in and of itself, so I figured what I’d do is take a “poll” of sorts, and if you’d like to see one of these ideas fleshed out and expounded upon, let me know at kathleen@kathleenlindley.com and I’ll write more on the subject that gets the most inerest.
Truck thoughts:
Connect the reins to the feet. Connecting the reins to the head is nice, and to the mind is perhaps the ultimate goal. But connecting the reins to the feet is pretty practical for many of us and may keep us safe when the poop hits the fan.
The horse’s eyes go, then the ears. The nose goes, then the front feet follow the nose and the back feet follow the front feet.
Get your horse really good in the halter. How he goes in the halter is how he’ll go in the bridle.
Trailer loading issues are often leading issues. See above.
Decide what degree of perfection is acceptable.
One day, as soon as you see/feel something with your horse that’s not as you’d like it to be, stop right there and work on it. If we did this once in a while, many of us would be doing a bit more work on the ground.
Learn about horses. Learn about their expressions, their movement and their culture. Learn about anatomy and biomechanics. Watch herds interact.
We can’t answer a question someone (horse or human) hasn’t asked.
Movement is life. Lack of movement culminates in rigor mortis. We want to facilitate movement and stay away from rigor mortis.
The frame of mind of the horse (and the person) can be equally, if not more important than what they’re physically doing at the time.
The shape or posture the horse carries himself/herself in while we ride him can help him or hurt him.
When we’re confused about what to do or what to believe, we can often rely on truly classical principles. These ideas have at least stood the test of time.
If you have a trailer loading issue, do not wait until the last day of a clinic to work on it. That’s not fair for the horse, yourself or the clinician.
Start at the beginning. It’s an exercise in futility to try to start at the end.
Look at the horse and consider how you would perceive him/her if you did not know “the story”. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck. Consider real evidence first.
Neither pity nor fear are a good foundation for a healthy relationship.
Consider that a horse who is pitching a fit in his work may be confused, ill prepared in some way, unsound of mind or body, or may be trying to get fired because he can’t up and quit. Not every horse likes every job, and sometimes they like the job okay but don’t like how they’re being shown how to do it.
A round peg fits better in a round hole than a square one.
Horses have an easier time changing, evolving and/or moving on than people do.
Know yourself and you’ll know your horse.
Forward and straight. Without those two things, we don’t have much to build on.
“In order to do good, you have to actually do something.” Television commercial
We can only teach what we know.
Softness with structure – it’s like dancing. The frame partners dance in is soft, but it has structure so the leader can direct the follower. If the frame was too soft, the follower wouldn’t have enough information.
It can feel good to be led well.
Pressure and release. If we get confused or stuck in a situation, if we can simplify things all the way down to whether we should be applying pressure or applying a release, it may help us get unstuck.
Get the mundane things really good and the more complicated things will be easier.
If our horses were ever (whether intended or not) to enter the general market, it seems like the most common things horses get beaten for are running people over or bumping into them, trailer loading problems, and troubles with picking or holding up their feet. It’s our responsibility to prepare our horses for the real world to the best of our ability in case they ever end up there.
Our vet, farrier and other horse health care providers are not there to train our horses, nor are they there to be assaulted by our horses. Vets, farrriers, and other horse health care providers get hurt by horses they’re trying to help moe often than we might think. Some of these professionals report that many of the horses they see behave better with the owner absent. Between this and their doubts that we as horse owners have the skill or knowledge to help the horse learn the skills they need to be easier to work on, our professionals often won’t say anything about how hard it was for them to work on our horse.
It’s alright if we spoil our horses, but it’s not okay for a horse to have bad manners.
Quality of movement and quality of frame of mind.
If horses tend to act as a mirror to the person they’re with, the more athletic we’d like our horse to be, the more athletic/in shape we should be.
We need to state our goals in positive language. It is difficult to impossible to achieve a negative goal (for example: “I don’t want to mess this horse up.”)
There’s no need to apologize for doing the best we can. We can just do our best and then learn more.
When someone offers you a gift or compliment, say “Thank you.”
Show the horse what’s going to happen. Break it down and be honest.
Horses seem to have perfected the art of companionship. Their most content times are spent in still, silent side-by-side companionship. Companionship is not passionate, raucous, I’ll-die-if-I-can’t-have-you kind of stuff. Companionship seems to fulfill horses, while passion seems to cause them stress and anxiety.
Be courageous. Be effective. |
