CHAPTER 1
Open-Minded Does't Mean"Sucker for Anything"
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I had always considered myself open-minded. But I hadn't really thought muchabout what that meant until someone suggested I was close-minded when it came tohorsemanship.
On a damp March day in 1991, I took a riding lesson at a local stable. I waslooking for something physical and animal-related to add to my life. The lessonwas entertaining but not compelling enough to draw me back.
Two months later I stopped by a former riding buddy's place. The first thing sheasked when I walked up to the door was "you wanna buy a horse?" I chuckled butthroughout our visit her question stuck in my mind like a dream that you can'tquite shake. Do I want to buy a horse? My friend, a great salesperson, evensaddled up a couple of her riding horses and we went for a short ride.
The rhythmic clip-clop of the horses' feet plopping along the back road wasrelaxing, and it was refreshing to be outside in the waning sun of a springafternoon. When we finished, I took another peek at the horse for sale.
That week, I found myself doing some research about the current expenses ofowning a horse. Then I did some soul-searching. Did I really want theresponsibility of a horse? Was I willing to add commuting to a boarding barn tomy schedule? I had a pretty cushy lifestyle; did I really want to shake it up? Iguess so. Within a month, Bud was mine.
The key to my plan, however, was that my new life with horses would be differentfrom my old life with horses. There were many things about that former horseworld that I did not like. The frustration, for instance, of getting a horse tostand for the horseshoer. The way horses bring out my lack of patience,especially when I need to do something like load them in a trailer. Andespecially the dreaded chain lead rope.
One way that many horse people use to attempt to control horses when handlingthem is a lead rope with a several-inch chain on the end that wraps around thedelicate part of the horse's nose before clipping to the other side of thehalter. This chain, when snapped, is supposed to add some control. It alwaysmakes me cringe, though; I suspect it damages the horse's nose, and it'squestionable whether or not any real control is gained with this chain. But Ihad used one of these chains on my first horse, and I used one for the first fewmonths I had my new horse, simply because I had no idea what else to do. Thatwas, until I signed up for a clinic on starting a young horse under saddle thatchanged and saved my horse life.
The clinician presented to the two dozen or so participants and a couple hundredspectators a way of handling horses that worked with the horse's naturalinstincts to make teaching things and presenting new things to the horse easierfor both horse and handler. A horse's instincts are many—the supreme concernwith self-preservation, the need to flee perceived danger, and the strongpreference to get along, expend as little energy as necessary, and avoidconfusion and chaos as much as possible.
This clinic taught me to work with the horse where it is at, use the horse'snatural instincts when you can, and try to open the door to the response youwant from the horse and shut the door to the response you don't want. And thetools you need are simple: a halter, lead rope, bridle, a saddle, and an openmind.
For several years, I hung around only with other like-minded individuals.However, I have never been much of a group person, so when I felt like I hadsome basic skills down and that I had reasonable control of my horse's feet, Iventured out into the greater horse world and rode with people outside of mycircle. And this is where I encountered the idea that I was not very open-mindedabout horsemanship. And, you know what, it's still probably true.
The horse world is full of gimmicks—reins with elastic ends that give for youinstead of the rider having to learn to give, different bits with littlegimmicks that are said to work miracles to change behavior, training methodsthat involve clickers and treats. I have never denied that any of these thingswork—they sure do. But I adamantly believe that using these gimmicks does notrepresent good horsemanship. I believe that many of them skirt around hard workand make a mockery of the horse. The horse is an incredible animal that iswilling to interact with the likes of humans. I believe those of us who chooseto interact with horses (it is certainly not the horse making that choice!) areobligated to treat them with respect—which includes expecting them to treat uswith respect.
And so I remain somewhat close-minded, I guess, in that I have found one way ofworking with horses that gives me criteria to use in assessing other methods,and it has served me well so far. I've saved a bundle of money not buying thegimmicks. And I'm dedicated to the idea that to have deeper relationships, youneed to do the hard work, to get beyond the physical, beyond appearances. ButI've come to realize that I am also open-minded in the sense that althougheverything I do when I work with a new horse has to fit into a certain criteria,I am open to all sorts of things within those parameters. If something doesn'twork, I try something else—that fits within my criteria. And that holds truewith every aspect of my life, whether it is spirituality, business, or justwatching television.
Anger and a Half-Ton Horse
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Getting angry with a horse is like trying to fight a forest fire with a squirtgun—there is no question you are out powered. A horse's reaction to human angergoes in a couple directions: she gets defensive or she gives up in defeat. Thefirst is something you probably don't want to experience, the second is downrightdepressing.
For the everyday horse owner, anger often arises when we can't get a horse to dosomething we want her to do—stand still while the farrier works on her feet, gothrough a puddle, get in a trailer, stand to be mounted, stop grazing along thetrail. Even aged horses who have been taught the behaviors we want them to havedo not necessarily continue with them when they come into the hands of someonewho does not know how to expect these things from the horse. Horses will always,almost without exception, work their way up or down to the level of theirhandler/rider. The less-skilled rider would do well to up his or her skilllevel. Novice horse owners often think that horses should simply understandthese things. Many times they simply don't know what to do to help the horseunderstand, which leads them both along the ugly trail from frustration toanger.
When we get angry, our horses seem to get fearful. Something about anger in onebeing seems to bring out fear in other beings. Despite the psychobabble abouthow anger can be a good thing, in my experience anger rarely, if ever, comesfrom a good place or has anywhere good to go (except perhaps to loosen frozenlug nuts on a flat tire when you are perched on the shoulder of a dark road).I don't believe horses return anger in response to anger. I believe that theyget confused when their handler is angry simply because they don't understandwhat the human is asking of them. An angry human can be very unclear to a horse—angersteals the preciseness of our timing and consistency, two essential keysto a horse's comprehension, and offers up only confusion.
A horse who perceives danger in your anger will become defensive—if you provokea horse to the point where that natural self-preservation instinct steps in, hewill strike out with his front legs, swing his rear at you and kick, or evenlunge with teeth bared. None of which is any fun to be on the receiving end of.
He doesn't care if you are the person who has fed him every day twice a day fortwo years or has brushed him or lovingly cared for him when he was sick orinjured. Self-preservation in the prey animal trumps all. If you are hiscaretaker, it may take quite a bit more pressure for that self-preservation tokick in, but when it does the horse is not analyzing who you are and how manytimes in the past you have been nice to him—horses live in the moment, andmoments that call for self-preservation draw upon every defense the horse has.
The horse who responds in defeat to constant anger is a sad, depressing sight.Most animals, especially prey animals, have a built-in mechanism that shuts downtheir senses in order to not suffer physically. As a result, of course, theysuffer mentally and become disengaged with the world around them.
But physical abuse is far from the only way a horse can be abused. I would goout on a limb and say that most abused horses are not extremely physicallymistreated but mentally abused—they are not beaten and their lives are notthreatened, but they are always in a state of worry about where that next sharpspur or stinging whip or jabbing bit is going to come in. They may be drilledand drilled and drilled with "schooling" to compete in a horse show. The horsedoesn't care about this but, in their get-along kind of way, many horsestolerate this drilling day after day after day. They do this by checking outmentally and just going along physically with what their handler wants them todo. I think we all can recall feeling like this in school!
In the right hands, a mentally abused horse can be rehabilitated but many justcheck out for life. The kindest thing may be to let him simply hang out in peacefor the rest of his days; the very least you can do is give the horse somethingelse to do than what he was doing, something to give the horse purpose in life.
When I attended my first horse clinic at age thirty-four, I got pretty angrywith my young horse as I tried to do the things the clinician showed us. Despitemy good intentions, my horse was running me over and paying no attention to meat all. No, I wasn't beating him, but I was clearly angry with the horse. And Iwasn't the only one. I heard the clinician say, "I see some of you have theability to get pretty angry with your horses. I could have some fun with that".I could envision him giving us more and more complicated things to do until myhorse and I were wound up into a red hot fireball.
I was quite certain the clinician meant that if he "had fun" with my anger withmy horse, our tasks wouldn't get any easier—and I wasn't having much fun tobegin with! From that moment on, I attempted to control my anger—that's not tosay that it hasn't surfaced over the years, but I am aware of it and can morequickly get it in check. And the more I learn about effective teaching, the lessI find anger arises—not only with horses but in my whole life. It starts to goback to that "make the right thing easy" concept—if you work on trying to openthe right doors, anger doesn't have to arise. For instance, instead of arguingwith your husband about the house being dirty, talk through the ways you canboth contribute to keeping the house neater. Not getting to anger in the firstplace paves a smoother way.
Create the Life You Want
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A friend recently told me about the difficulties she and her boyfriend wereexperiencing in their relationship. She thought they were on the verge ofbreaking up. I commented that, judging from the times we had spent together,their relationship seemed worth working on. And I said that after nineteen yearswith my husband, I knew that it is possible to have a comfortable, non-tumultuousrelationship. My friend replied, "You're lucky."
Yes, I suppose there is some luck involved. I feel fortunate and grateful forour life together, but nineteen years of a strong relationship comes from a lotof hard work, not luck.
In order to have the life you want, you first need to know what that life is,then you need to create it. Step by step. Creating your life is hard work. It'seasy to get off track or to start to think you want a different kind of thingthan what suits you. It's also a lot easier to give up on the life you want andsimply settle for the life you get.
My horses helped me create the kind of lifestyle I have always wanted. First,having horses got me to work toward having a suitable home where I could keepthem myself. That led to the purchase of our ninety-acre farm. This was not ahome choice that came out of the blue. When I was a kid, we drove several timeseach summer to our camp on a lake. Along the country roads that wound their wayto our camp, I would gaze longingly out the window at the farm houses we passed—sturdybarns, porches, beds of flowers hugging the foundations. My cousin livedin a place such as this. I loved to visit her and her brothers and their pony.The farm we bought when I was thirty-six years old was like buying a piece ofthe childhood of my imagination.
Because horses require a considerable amount of time—at least two hours a daymaintenance if I don't want to be buried in manure, plus whatever riding time Iam willing to give them—I tend to be home a lot. When you have a ninety-acreplace with riding trails and a lake with a semi-private beach around the corner,staying home is not a hardship.
In order to be able to fit in that two hours of maintenance and ride, I decidedI needed to be able to work from home. I now work from my office in the carriagehouse writing and editing books. This was not something that happened overnight—itwas only after several years commuting to jobs in the book publishingindustry and writing dozens of articles at night and on weekends that I was ableto mount a successful freelance career.
Working at home itself requires an immense amount of discipline. I need to sitat my computer if I have a deadline, even if the sun is pouring in my windows,begging me to come outside. I need to market myself. I've had to write books ontopics I wasn't necessarily passionate about in less time than I would havepreferred in order to build relationships and get future work—and to pay thatold nag, the mortgage. And sometimes those books led to dead ends. Norelationship was built as intended, and I had to work hard not to getdiscouraged. In a roundabout way, my horses also taught me persistence.
Through it all, I had a general plan. I have deviated from the plan severaltimes, and I alter the plan as my career and interests mature and change. Butthe horses in the barn offer a framework for my life and my lifestyle. Andsometimes divergences are thrown in the way—illness, death, tragedy, or anopportunity that can't be passed up but doesn't really fit the master plan—andyou need to draw on your imagination to continue to create the life you wantwithin that divergence.
I am often asked how I can stand being so "tied down." It's as if people thinkI've accumulated horses without realizing it or against will. I created thislife, it didn't just happen. I knew exactly how I wanted to live, and I wentabout creating it. And whenever I walk into the corral and interact with myhorses—which is every single day—I realize how important this interaction is tome, how privileged I feel to be comfortable around horses. If I wanted my lifeto be different, I would work at creating a different life.
Sometimes the Walk Is Faster Than the Trot
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A concept that is emphasized by a lot of clinicians I study with is "sometimesgoing slow is the fastest way to accomplish what you want." The horsesthemselves have proven it time and again.
Time is a human invention. Horses use time as well, but their concept of time isdictated by an interior clock, not by an artificial one tacked to the wall.While hunger pangs and the physiological need for the equine digestive system tohave food constantly traveling through it control "feed time," my horses alsoseem to have certain times when they settle in a patch of sun or shade, cock aleg, take a nap, or head over the hill to check out the grazing possibilitiesthere. They don't need a clock on the wall to tell them to do these things,their inner clock knows. We humans have inner clocks, too. Our challenge is tolisten to our inner clock more often instead of getting hung up on the one onthe wall.
Many times people try to teach a horse something—as small as a specific maneuverto as grand as saddling them and riding them for the first time—with thepressure of time bearing down on them. A classic scenario for getting a younghorse "broke to ride" is to send her to a professional horse trainer whotypically has organized her or his business around a "ninety-day program"—aprogram designed for the expediency of making money, not for the good of thehorse. At the end of three months, your young horse comes back ready to ride,show, and whatever else you have planned for her. If a horse doesn't fit atrainer's ninety-day program, it is often condemned as dumb or unathletic oreven a rogue and accompanied by the recommendation to sell the horse and get amore suitable one.
The best trainer is willing to abandon "the program" and work with the horse asan individual creating a goal for a particular lesson and taking whatever timeis needed to accomplish that goal—or even changing the goal if something elsecomes up. How many times have you tried to fit something into an artificialtimeframe? Maybe it's dieting, maybe it's writing a book or teaching your childgolf. Unfortunately, we can't avoid time constraints but when we let things takethe time they need we avoid spending more time fixing things later.
