This page is about the connections I have with the animals in my life and what they have taught me and continue to teach me everyday. I will share experiences that have shaped the life I live and explain why I do what I love and who I am. I want this page to serve as a vehicle to help people understand the importance of the equine mind and well being as well as the emotional and spiritual aspect of our existance.
Another thing I have found along the way is "it depends". Every single situation is different and a question in the horse industry could almost always be answer with "It depends". Does my horse need shoes? Well, it depends. Does my horse need...fill in the blank? Well, it depends. So I ultimately feel that no one knows better for a horse than owner. The owner will make a decision based on knowledge from professionals, personal experience, and what works for them in their situation. There should be no judgement from others as to their decision because no one could possibly know better for that situation.
To further see updates on personal situations, learning experiences, and case studies you can visit my blog.
Mind
Horses want to work with us. They do not want to balk or refuse our requests. This is not in their nature. We all have good and bad days and when the horse is having a bad day we should respect that and save the lesson for another day or work with it differently. This will not only increase the bond you have with your horse but provide more room for growth and learning to occur. I know that as humans we have agendas to keep but saving face in front of a client and pushing a horse past his emotional or physical limits just to prove your point, is inherently wrong. You will gain more respect from horse and client if you respect the situation as it is, and respectfully wait until another day for the lesson or approach the lesson differently. Not to mention pushing a horse past its mental capabilities instills no trust or respect in you from the horse's point of view. They want to survive until the next day and if you push them past their breaking point the horse may not feel like they could survive. Just think about the last time you were at work and your boss forced you to repeat the same insane task over and over and over. How did you feel? It probably started off just fine, and then your boss tweaked his request. Then you got frustrated cause you thought you were doing it right. Then you got angry that you had to keep doing it. Then you stopped caring and wished it would end. Then maybe you thought it would never end and live to see another day (very exaggerated). Not to mention you are upset with your boss for not realizing you were trying so hard to get it right. Wow! Sounds like how a horse might feel too. This ruins his motivation to show up for work refreshed and ready to give you 110%. Like I said before horses want to work with us if we just give them praise and acknowledgement for good work.
In the wild, horses are free to roam and take in all sorts of stimulus. In stalls, it is more like jail. Reduced stimulus can lead to dysfunction of the body and more importantly the mind. They develop all sorts of annoying habits to break up their mundane world. They crib, pace, weave, paw, become depressed, become destructive, or angry. These horses are telling us they are not happy with the situation. We need to listen. These behaviors can roll over to how they interact with us and other horses. Horses that aren't able to freely socialize with other horses don't understand boundaries. They can push our buttons, we push back, and it becomes a test of wills. I realize this is not true for all horses. But we need to stop and ask ourselves, why is my horse doing that? We should be willing to change the situation to help our horses be truly happy and thrive. Horses can learn to cope with being in a stall but freedom to move about with other horses is essential to healthy physical and mental development and relationships.
Stall bound horses can also develop health issues. My own mare developed allergies and was bordline heavey. She was on antihistamines and allergy serum injections. She was on water soaked hay cubes and special feeds. Despite all efforts her coughing remained. She was stalled from 5pm to 8am. A large amount of horses are kept this way and with no problems but it wasn't working for my girl. Eventually our situation changed and she now lives outside 24/7. No coughing and no special feeds or hay. Her respiratory health has dramatically improved. I feel that when horses are kept more naturally (outside 24/7) many of their health and behavioral issues go away.
Let me tell you about "Jet"(Name is changed for respect). Jet was bred and raised as a halter horse. He was kept in a stall 24/7 except for concentrated exercise. I met Jet as a 2 yr old. He was absolutely violent. He was intent on hurting you if you came into his stall. He has always handled with a chain over the nose or a lip chain to "control" him. He was always lunged for exercise and rarely let loose to move freely. I started working with him. Any level of anger at his behavior only amplified his violence. I let him loose in the arena. He would charge, bite, lunge, and kick at me. I stood patiently at the center of the ring and asked him to move away. After he would soften he was allowed to come by me. If he displayed anything threatening he was immediately sent back out. This horse had no idea what boundaries were or how to behave like a well-mannered horse around people. But having lived in a stall how could he understand. He never had a herd to show him what was and wasn't accepted in horse behavior. Through simple exercises that he understood and challenged his mental capacity he learned how to be social with other beings while respecting boundaries. After several sessions with him he began to understand these boundaries and ended up being one of the most pleasant horses I have ever worked with. I convinced his owner, who wasn't showing him or planning on it, to let him out with the herd. He was terrified that Jet would get hurt and he could but there was only one way for him to truly understand herd dynamics and be mentally happy. Jet did beautifully with the herd! It brought tears to my eyes. He was living happily with other horses, was started under saddle and was doing well with his human interactions. His eyes had a light in them they didn't have previously.
Emotions and Spirit
Emotions are labeled as bad or good; Fear vs. courage, anger vs. love, frustration vs. acceptance. While I used to think you had to be one or the other and the other being a negative place to be, I don't feel that way anymore. I feel that our emotions are more like guides. They help us become more authentic and true. Fear can be a good thing as it lets us know certain boundaries but it is recognizing this fear and respecting the boundaries it can provide helps us move past the fear and not let the fear own us.
For example: I become fearful when I approach a stallion's hind end. I smile and tell the owner all is good. I can muster through that fear but only to realize that this horse has a habit of kicking and I get kicked. Then I end up metaphorically kicking myself in the butt for not listening to that fear and stopping. Or I can acknowledge that fear and choose to work with the fear and find a different way to work with the stallion in a safe place while respecting those boundaries.
When we can be honest, truly honest, with how we feel we can interpret our feelings to be a guide for us. People are afraid of looking stupid or making a mistake, me included. So they ignore the warning signs of impending disaster to look strong and brave to others. This only serves to hurt us in the long run. We need to be honest with how we feel- be congruent. Putting on a smiley face while we are secretly scared out of our wits is not safe or honest, especially around horses. Horses, as we all know, are incredibly perceptive and honest. I can't think of one horse that has ever pretended to be happy when it was actually upset with me. Horses know what we are truly feeling even if everyone else sees we are smiling. Horses don't care if we are smiling or not. They care about how we feel and how that will affect them.
I want to share with you a couple stories to really show how emotions affect our relationships with horses. Diva, my stunning 7 year old quarter horse mare, is extremely in tune to emotions. If I have had a bad day and feel like getting on her and just forgetting about the bad day, I will have another thing coming. This forget/stuff it and force through approach causes her to shut down and become resistant to work. This only perpetuates my frustration and bad day. There have been many uncooperative rides that were not constructive in any way. However, if say 'Hey, I am having a bad day, let's have a peaceful ride and turn this into a better day." I am being honest with how I feel and Diva knows that. I am not "hiding" any thing about how I feel from her. You can't hide it from her anyway, so you better be honest with yourself. We will have a beautiful ride that will put a smile on me from inside to out as long as I am honest with her.
My gelding Jack, 14 year old show stopping buckskin pain(I mean Paint but he really can be a pain as he has a lot to teach me and I can be a bit stubborn to his lessons), will work for just about anyone but he is honest to a tee. Recently, an 8 year old girl came out to ride him. She grew up riding him and he will do anything for her. She rode him in a halter with a lead rope and he was like putty in her hands, turning, stopping, backing, going forward. She is able to be honest with him about how she feels (she is a little afraid of him) and he takes care of her. Then an older woman who also knows him well wanted to ride. He became stubborn, refused to turn, and tried to trot off in the other direction with her. She became frustrated that he wasn't cooperating and blamed him for his rudeness under saddle. She is experiencing some frustrating situations at home and hasn't been honest with herself about it. She smiles on the outside but is painful on the inside. Jack picked up this incongruence and it bothered him, he was trying to let her know that she wasn't emotionally congruent.
As much as horses carry us around literally, they can really help carry us through emotionally if we can only open our hearts and listen to the messages they have for us. Once we realize that no one is at fault and we can process our emotions, we can really open up the lines of communication with ourselves and others (horses or people).
This is not to say that horses don't also have emotional baggage they carry with them. They do. Learning which emotions belong to whom and learning to separate our emotions from theirs helps us move forward together. Then true harmony can happen between horse and human.
The horse is an amazing being. To be as large as they are and be so sensitive to minute details is truly amazing. Horses live in the moment. They don't fret about the past or worry about what is to come. If they spent all their time worrying about a previous incident they will miss what is happening right now. Horses do remember and can recall traumatic events with any given trigger. And some horses do worry. But their worry is in this moment "will that happen again?".
I have had the pleasure to work with some abused horses. They are amazingly gifted teachers and have much to offer. Some of them are written off as mean or disobedient but I feel they are largely misunderstood. I think if we take our ego and agendas out of the picture and consider the horse and the situation they are in, our opinions would change and we would be more open to having a relationship with a truly happy horse. I would like to share a story.
A beautiful mare came to my life to show me that softness was essential to work with her. I had the pleasure of meeting her when her owner was on her last ditch effort to make this mare pleasant to ride. She had me doing body work with her to resolve possible back pain. My findings were a highly sensitive horse who was in pain. Her mild back pain didn't warrant the outbursts she would have under saddle, the occasional strike with her hind feet when someone touched her, or her ability to switch instantly from quiet mare to crazy teeth baring devil. Yet I loved this horse. I seemed to understand her. I felt that she was misunderstood and pushed hard through her outbursts. Her owner had extensive diagnostics performed and she was diagnosed with navicular disease. This was an extremely helpful diagnosis as it explained her problems under saddle. However it didn't explain her attitude. My impression is that in an effort to make her behave under saddle she had to endure severe pain from her hooves. I am sure she tried to let her handlers know she was in pain but when no one listened to her as they dismissed her behavior as a witchy mare, so she resorted to violence. If you missed her pinning her ears or swishing her tail you didn't get a second chance. I now have been solely working with her hooves and body for five months. She hasn't once come after me or threatened to hurt me. I listen to her needs. If it hurts she lets me know and I back off. I help her hold her posture more efficiently to support her painful front hooves. She is as docile as can be and has a loving soft eye. I gave her the space to be herself and express herself where someone would listen. She is more comfortable than she has been in a long time and she is one of the nicest, most honest mares I have ever come across. She taught me that looking beyond the obvious (cranky mare), being present (potential for danger), and softness (her reactivity) can lead to harmonious relationships and healing. She has learned that she can say 'no' with respect and feel like she is heard.
These emotional connections shows us that we are all connected. Yes we are all physical beings, but more than that we are spiritual beings having a physical experience. As Spirits we are all connected to the Divine Source and if we all come from this then we are all connected. Everything that happens in this earthly existence to us happens to all. We all share in supportive and changing events. Even if we don't realize it is happening. Someone who you feel has wronged you isn't doing it to you but rather is a tool or catalyst for you to realize that there is always a choice. You can choose to feel hurt and upset and blame them for your feelings or choose to see that they provided you with an opportunity to grow and live in acceptance. There is never a 'me' or 'I' but rather a 'we' and 'us'. We are all in this worldly existence together. We all support and help change each other's views.
You know when someone is happy or upset... you just feel it, they don't have to say anything but you just know. When one person is happy or sad the energy of that emotion carries over to others like a sound wave carries through a radio. It ultimately affects all those you come in contact with. I can have a bad day, come home, and not say a word and my husband, dogs, bird, horses, rabbit all know that I had a bad day. Then they are upset that I was upset and then it affects all those they come in contact with. See how infectious emotions/energy is. So I challenge my self and others to be positive, be true to you and support others without judgment, this will ultimately have a positive impact. We need to find time to be quiet and support our personal growth. We need to be the change we want to see.
I once read that "love is a force to be reckoned with, that it connects us with each other and with the universal source of all being, allowing us to move mountains". I believe that anything is possible when love is what is connecting us.
*This website is for informational use only. It is in no way intended to diagnose, treat, or cure and is not to replace traditional veterinary care. The information described is from my experiences and observations.