11/29/2024
What Do You Want?!
Sometimes in the heat of the battle (better known as the middle of a session), we find our horse and ourselves frustrated. While the number of reasons for this can be quite extensive, I want to talk about one reason in particular.
What can happen in a session as we don’t see eye to eye with our horse, is we start spiraling off in different directions. Say we set out to teach our horse to ground tie but then while correcting movement he feels heavy on the halter, so we try to fix that. Then his shoulder pushes into us so we try to soften that. Then he won’t lead up so we start working on that. We’re now a long ways from our initial lesson and nothing is any good.
Pretty soon we’re both frustrated and just arguing. Bickering like an old ill-paired married couple. This is a good time to ask yourself, “what the hell am I even after?!”
With horses, one of the largest stressors is confusion. Bringing clarity and probably with it a singular short term goal, helps in their understanding and relaxation.
So this week, when working your horse, if you start to feel frustrated just stop for a minute. Stand there and ask yourself, “what am I trying to get to happen?” And then restart your lesson with that in mind. If you try to get too many things at once, you’ll probably get none of them.
Happy Black Friday!! Forget the stores, and go work a horse! If you don’t have a horse, come to my house and I’ll sell you one! 😜🤠