Is it time to start connecting deeper with your horse?

Is it time to start connecting deeper with your horse?

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Compassion?is a virtue that horses have taught me over the years. Compassion and understanding towards them as sentient sensitive beings with their own motivations, feelings, thoughts, experiences and opinions. Compassion towards my clients when they are in the hard process of learning and compassion towards myself when the pressure of figuring out a difficult horse or a deadline stresses me out.

I’ve learned to take a step back?when things aren’t easy and evaluate whether compassion would make a difference? I’ve always been a kind trainer and instructor, but personal goals can drive ambition for everyone, and we can start to rush or move hastily, and I think the horses often wonder what our deal is…?

Horses live in the now, with not much regard for the past or the future and with no inkling of what’s next. We often live in the past or the future always wanting to know what’s next. Often, we skip the step of really connecting with the quiet version of ourselves and taking the time to listen.

Recently I had a horse in training that didn’t want the halter pulled over his nose. He would fling his head around, lift it way up high and try to walk away. Several people tried to get it on him and always succeeded in the end, but despite the people “winning” the battle, the horse continued to be reluctant to be haltered.

I suggested allowing the horse to choose to put his halter on himself?so it could become something he enjoyed and was rewarded for. This is the type of training that some have started calling “relationship based” training. In this type of training, you “offer” the thing that you want the horse to do, but you don’t apply “pressure” or “pressure release” at least not in a direct form to get the horse to do it.?In other words, there is no negative or positive reinforcement.

In this example of the halter, the way I started the process was simply to show the horse the halter. If he turned his head away, I would softly move the halter slightly closer to his face until he changed his mind and showed interest in the halter. Then I would allow him to check it out. This is a game of approach and retreat with the mind of the horse. The horse begins to feel like it is his choice to look at the halter, maybe play with it and his mind now becomes curios as to what the halter is all about.

If he walked away, I didn’t follow him, I just waited with the halter until he was ready to look at it again. This might sound like something that takes forever, and it certainly isn’t a method that I would use for every training scenario, however most training methods should turn into the horse’s idea in the end, even if they originally start out differently. The whole process of getting him to stick his nose in the halter only took less than 5 minutes. After he did it, I left the halter on and went out to do some groundwork.

Next time, haltering him only took seconds?where we played this magnetic game together of him making his own choice to stick his nose in the halter. Now, he sticks it straight in. All in all, it took 3 very short training sessions to get him to do this and that’s despite putting up quite the fight previously.

The thing I love is that they are so smart, that they can even figure out what we want is to put the nose “inside” the halter, not just some random place on the halter, but inside. I’ve experienced horse solve problems many times and I’m always excited and amazed at what they already know and how much they understand what we want.

It’s quite magical really, if you give yourself the time to notice and don’t rush the time you spend with them, tacking them up like you’re on a mission from hell, riding like you have to get to your next appointment and putting them away without noticing their gentleness.

Whenever I get an unruly horse in training, I always slow down my tempo. The tempo with which I lead them, brush them, spend time with them, give lots of breaks between exercises, just focusing on being with them and breathing. I’ve never had a horse in training that didn’t improve significantly just from this simple aspect.

It’s such a lovely freeing thing to do. They were not meant to live in our busy stressful world, and we have to honor that when we are with them.

We don’t always have to accomplish something, so that we can feel successful or important or better. We are with them because they make us feel good, so we should focus on making them feel great! I know not every training session will be like this, but it should always be at the forefront of our minds, I think.

An exercise that I often do with my horses is simply to observe them without judgement. Looking at them, listening to them eat, listening to them breathe slows my heartbeat and breath and I start to release the hassle of the everyday world and tune into the present.

I follow up by imagining that I see myself through their eyes. How do they perceive me, how do they feel about me, how am I moving, what feelings am I sending out, who am I being when I’m with them. I’ve learned a lot from that and had to change a lot too. Sometimes I take it to the next level and send them thoughts or images from my mind to theirs to see if they understand and respond. More times than not?they do. I’m always giddy and excited whenever I get that gentle communication that really makes me feel connected to them. It reminds me of why I do all this in the first place.

What about you, is it time to connect with your horse?

Ride with Lightness

Celie xo