Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Sore butt, sore brain

OK. Time I divulge what happened a few days ago.

Basically, my ego took over, I got on a mare who clearly was saying to me "I'm not comfortable with this, or you" and I got dumped. It took her dumping me for me to get the point. A very wise instructor once said "See that kink in his tail? That's telling me I should keep both my feet on the ground"...she presented the kink, and I eventually ended up on the ground where I should have been in the first place.

So, back a couple steps we go. This isn't a tragedy or an accident, it was intentional and it was a response to my lack of ability to read my horse well enough to avoid such an incident.

I think this is something a lot more people need to understand. Horses, like dogs, use the smallest means of communicating something that they need to: if you get dumped, it's because you didn't listen to all the other signals your horse was giving you before he felt the need to do something drastic to get you to listen. Such was the case last week.

I ordered, upon Dr. Deb's suggestion, her book called "The Birdie Book". It's an guide to the internal workings of the horse and contains over 200 photographs of horse expression and body language with a clear description of what it all means. It's designed to help riders better understand what the horse is trying to tell us when he does certain things, things most of us ignore or try to "fix". The horse does not need us to fix him, most of the time he just needs us to listen. The we respond, he replies back, and we respond again. This is how communication goes.

This whole process is so tremendous, but it's opening me up to a whole world and new way of thinking that I probably would have never otherwise discovered. For now, I've ceased working with Stella or doing anything other than spending time in her presence and/or grooming her while I wait for my copy of The Birdie Book to arrive. You don't lose ground with horses by ceasing work, not if you were doing it correctly in the first place.

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