Mary Ingerson LLC Dog Training/ Canine Care Taker

06/12/2024

💯!

Inconvenienced
Kathleen Beckham

Years ago, I had a baby horse, and when he was about 18 months old, I had the opportunity to have an equine chiropractor work on him. He was wiggly and squirrelly, and I apologized to the chiropractor for that. “That’s okay,” she said, “Little babies haven’t learned how to be inconvenienced yet.”

That was big for me. So big. “Inconvenienced.” I hadn’t thought of that before, but it was the perfect word for it. We don’t want our horse to tolerate being hurt, or being treated unfairly, but he dang sure needs to be able to be inconvenienced.

From that day forward, “being inconvenienced” became a more thoughtful part of my horse work. I started to see some of the “issues” students were having with their horses as having to do with the horse’s inability to be “inconvenienced” without becoming very anxious. I also saw the stress that some of my students experienced when they knew they were going to inconvenience their horses. It turned out it was, indeed, a “thing.”

The ability to be inconvenienced and be resilient about it, it’s a skill. It’s a skill for people, it’s a skill in dogs, and it’s a skill in horses. It’s a skill that needs to be purposefully taught, and then carefully developed and expanded over time. It should be part of any training process for horses, because it’s something that they don’t necessarily come “from the factory” with, and it’s something they really need to succeed in the human world we insist they live in.

For a horse, “being inconvenienced” can be things like being asked to work while other horses are eating, standing tied, not being fed first, being turned out or brought in a “non-preferred” order, standing next to strange horses and not being allowed to socialize, having their feet picked up, going down the trail while other horses speed by, having veterinary work done, getting in a trailer or other small space, not being allowed to graze while working… I think you get the picture. Once I started thinking about my horse being “inconvenienced,” I saw it everywhere. Gosh, a LOT of a horse’s life in the human world is inconvenience. I also started to see how much stress a horse who had not learned to be resilient about being inconvenienced could experience.

It’s not always possible to remove the inconveniences in our horses’ lives, and I’m not sure that’s the way to go anyway. A horse who is resilient about being inconvenienced develops many other positive qualities because of his ability to be inconvenienced. He learns to self-soothe, he learns to think before he reacts. He learns patience and he learns to be flexible. He learns not to get stuck in patterns and expectations. He learns to be softer and more thoughtful. He learns to be calmer and quieter.

A horse who develops the ability to be inconvenienced as a principle of his training/life is less likely to be herdbound, gate sour or barn sour. They’re more likely to trailer load easily, to tie quietly and to learn whatever we are trying to teach them. It’s kind of the “secret sauce” of horse training, if you know about it.

Being inconvenienced might start very small. The first time one of our youngsters is inconvenienced might be the first time we have him on a lead rope and he wants to go left and I want to go right. Or he wants to eat grass and I want to take him for a walk or take him over to get his feet trimmed. So it might start very small at first. But I’m aware of it. I’m aware of when he’s inconvenienced, and I’m aware of how much inconvenience he’s able to take, for his stage of development. I am carefully and thoughtfully, methodically building his “fitness” to be inconvenienced.

Those little, fleeting inconveniences will turn into bigger ones eventually, like being left outside or in the barn by himself, or standing tied to the trailer all day, or working in the rain, or working while the farm is being fed. Those are much bigger inconveniences than being asked to turn left when you want to turn right. A working horse, or a horse we want to be able to take places and do things with, he’s really got to be able to be inconvenienced. That makes him much safer and more fun to be with.

Being inconvenienced is also about a horse being practiced at changing his mind. So he can practice thinking about one thing (“I want to go sniff that horse over there”) and change what he’s thinking about (“Hey horse, let’s go over here, away from that horse, and do a stop/back/bring our front end around.”). To do that, we have to be able to decipher what our horse is thinking about, and then become proficient at causing him to change his thoughts. Horses who can’t change their thoughts do not deal with inconvenience very well, while horses who are good at changing their thoughts will be much better at being inconvenienced.

This is different from “desensitization,” and it’s not about getting the horse “shut down. It’s not about hurting him, or flooding him, or setting him up to fail. It is literally about building the horse’s mental flexibility, by degrees. It’s methodical and progressive. It’s sometimes a delicate balance, and it can be something that takes some awareness and skill on the human’s part. It’s no different than building a horse’s physical fitness and abilities, it’s about choosing the right size steps for that horse’s fitness level.

A horse whose ability to be inconvenienced has been well-developed will be quieter, less anxious, less ulcery, and more physically and mentally balanced. They will have more brain-space available for things of our choosing.

This ability to be inconvenienced, it’s a gift to the horse. It’s a gift to him, so he doesn’t have to suffer the unnecessary stress and anxiety caused by his lack of mental flexibility. Done mindfully, it doesn’t have to be scary or dangerous. And done earlier, it’s easier. And older horse who has never been inconvenienced, that’s going to be more difficult than a younger horse with no preconceived ideas about things.

At the end of the day, this is a practical thing. We choose to have our horses live in our human world, so if they can be inconvenienced, that makes living in our world a lot easier for them. It’s a gift, not a burden to them.

Coming soon... The Attention Course: an online learning opportunity that will help you get, keep and direct your horse’s attention (thought), and in the process, become worthy of it. This is part of being inconvenienced, because it is not always convenient for our horse to pay attention to us (or for us to have to ask for his attention). If you’d like to be eligible for a discount on The Attention Course when it goes live soon, sign up for your discount here: https://www.ethosequine.com/courses

06/04/2024

With more than 600+ episodes, 2 million downloads, and 300+ five-star ratings on iTunes, the Pure Dog Talk show is the only leading purebred podcast in the world.

06/03/2024

Updated information from the University of California study on the effects of spay/neutering.

https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/when-should-you-neuter-or-spay-your-dog

06/02/2024

Start training young🐾

05/28/2024

🌟

Have a Great Day Folks ~ Michael

"17 INCHES"..........,

You will not regret reading this an excellent article to read from beginning to end. Twenty years ago, in Nashville, Tennessee, during the first week of January, 1996, more than 4,000 baseball coaches descended upon the Opryland Hotel for the 52nd annual ABCA's convention.

While I waited in line to register with the hotel staff, I heard other more veteran coaches rumbling about the lineup of speakers scheduled to present during the weekend. One name kept resurfacing, always with the same sentiment — “John Scolinos is here? Oh, man, worth every penny of my airfare.”

Who is John Scolinos, I wondered. No matter; I was just happy to be there.

In 1996, Coach Scolinos was 78 years old and five years retired from a college coaching career that began in 1948. He shuffled to the stage to an impressive standing ovation, wearing dark polyester pants, a light blue shirt, and a string around his neck from which home plate hung — a full-sized, stark-white home plate.

Seriously, I wondered, who is this guy? After speaking for twenty-five minutes, not once mentioning the prop hanging around his neck, Coach Scolinos appeared to notice the snickering among some of the coaches. Even those who knew Coach Scolinos had to wonder exactly where he was going with this, or if he had simply forgotten about home plate since he’d gotten on stage. Then, finally …

“You’re probably all wondering why I’m wearing home plate around my neck,” he said, his voice growing irascible. I laughed along with the others, acknowledging the possibility. “I may be old, but I’m not crazy. The reason I stand before you today is to share with you baseball people what I’ve learned in my life, what I’ve learned about home plate in my 78 years.”

Several hands went up when Scolinos asked how many Little League coaches were in the room. “Do you know how wide home plate is in Little League?”

After a pause, someone offered, “Seventeen inches?”, more of a question than answer.

“That’s right,” he said. “How about in Babe Ruth’s day? Any Babe Ruth coaches in the house?” Another long pause.

“Seventeen inches?” a guess from another reluctant coach.

“That’s right,” said Scolinos. “Now, how many high school coaches do we have in the room?” Hundreds of hands shot up, as the pattern began to appear. “How wide is home plate in high school baseball?”

“Seventeen inches,” they said, sounding more confident.

“You’re right!” Scolinos barked. “And you college coaches, how wide is home plate in college?”

“Seventeen inches!” we said, in unison.

“Any Minor League coaches here? How wide is home plate in pro ball?”............“Seventeen inches!”

“RIGHT! And in the Major Leagues, how wide home plate is in the Major Leagues? “Seventeen inches!”

“SEV-EN-TEEN INCHES!” he confirmed, his voice bellowing off the walls. “And what do they do with a Big League pitcher who can’t throw the ball over seventeen inches?” Pause. “They send him to Pocatello !” he hollered, drawing raucous laughter. “What they don’t do is this: they don’t say, ‘Ah, that’s okay, Jimmy. If you can’t hit a seventeen-inch target? We’ll make it eighteen inches or nineteen inches. We’ll make it twenty inches so you have a better chance of hitting it. If you can’t hit that, let us know so we can make it wider still, say twenty-five inches.'”

Pause. “Coaches… what do we do when your best player shows up late to practice? or when our team rules forbid facial hair and a guy shows up unshaven? What if he gets caught drinking? Do we hold him accountable? Or do we change the rules to fit him? Do we widen home plate? "

The chuckles gradually faded as four thousand coaches grew quiet, the fog lifting as the old coach’s message began to unfold. He turned the plate toward himself and, using a Sharpie, began to draw something. When he turned it toward the crowd, point up, a house was revealed, complete with a freshly drawn door and two windows. “This is the problem in our homes today. With our marriages, with the way we parent our kids. With our discipline.
We don’t teach accountability to our kids, and there is no consequence for failing to meet standards. We just widen the plate!”

Pause. Then, to the point at the top of the house he added a small American flag. “This is the problem in our schools today. The quality of our education is going downhill fast and teachers have been stripped of the tools they need to be successful, and to educate and discipline our young people. We are allowing others to widen home plate! Where is that getting us?”

Silence. He replaced the flag with a Cross. “And this is the problem in the Church, where powerful people in positions of authority have taken advantage of young children, only to have such an atrocity swept under the rug for years. Our church leaders are widening home plate for themselves! And we allow it.”

“And the same is true with our government. Our so-called representatives make rules for us that don’t apply to themselves. They take bribes from lobbyists and foreign countries. They no longer serve us. And we allow them to widen home plate! We see our country falling into a dark abyss while we just watch.”
I was amazed. At a baseball convention where I expected to learn something about curve balls and bunting and how to run better practices, I had learned something far more valuable.

From an old man with home plate strung around his neck, I had learned something about life, about myself, about my own weaknesses and about my responsibilities as a leader. I had to hold myself and others accountable to that which I knew to be right, lest our families, our faith, and our society continue down an undesirable path.

“If I am lucky,” Coach Scolinos concluded, “you will remember one thing from this old coach today. It is this: "If we fail to hold ourselves to a higher standard, a standard of what we know to be right; if we fail to hold our spouses and our children to the same standards, if we are unwilling or unable to provide a consequence when they do not meet the standard; and if our schools & churches & our government fail to hold themselves accountable to those they serve, there is but one thing to look forward to …”

With that, he held home plate in front of his chest, turned it around, and revealed its dark black backside, “…We have dark days ahead!.”

Note: Coach Scolinos died in 2009 at the age of 91, but not before touching the lives of hundreds of players and coaches, including mine. Meeting him at my first ABCA convention kept me returning year after year, looking for similar wisdom and inspiration from other coaches. He is the best clinic speaker the ABCA has ever known because he was so much more than a baseball coach. His message was clear: “Coaches, keep your players—no matter how good they are—your own children, your churches, your government, and most of all, keep yourself at seventeen inches."

And this my friends is what our country has become and what is wrong with it today, and now go out there and fix it!

"Don't widen the plate."

05/09/2024

03/30/2024

Happy Easter!💐

03/29/2024

Let’s work on this…..
Give me a call, I can help!🐶🐾

Professional Obedience Trainer
Private Lessons
Board & Training
Pet Sitting- Dogs, Cats & Exotics

03/15/2024

One thing most every dog I see with anxiety has in common with each other. Is they are treated like a child and not a dog

03/07/2024

THIS ⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️SPOT ON!

TALK TO YOUR CHILDREN🐶