PIK a Journey with Horses

11/12/2024

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20/11/2024

Back with my main man! Unfortunately Yukon has blown a tendon a few months ago so his riding career is done, but at 22 he’s given me 20 years of experiences so I’m happy to just shower him with treats and play liberty games with him which he prefers anyway! Maybe the first trick I can teach him is how to take a good selfie?

19/11/2024

When you’ve been home for three days and Rain decides that she’ll put herself in the yard to wait for breakfast while you duck across to the neighbours first! She let herself in the yard then closed the gate. If you zoom in you’ll see the gate is not latched! The other two horses were nowhere to be seen! I wonder how long she was preparing to wait? And yes she was rewarded with breakfast when I got back! She’s got me sorted!

16/09/2024

When you actually listen to the horse they tell you all you need to know.

06/08/2024

It’s not completely harmonious at feed times but it’s certainly improved hugely from when she arrived with hind legs flying whenever feed was present!

03/08/2024

When you think you haven’t been doing much with your horses but they’re all now self loading in the float and the unstarted 4 year old can go somewhere like Equestrian Park for only the second time and acts like an old soul. Winning no medals is still winning to me. Love my ponies. Even better news is Rain is finally much improved so hopefully it sticks. Huge thanks to Raquel just one of people that help my horses live privileged lives!

01/08/2024

Happy horses birthdays to all my specials! They bring me so many smiles, and sometimes a few tears generally if frustration, but the joy is priceless!

27/07/2024

I love how much this horse trusts me. With over 20 years together Yukon knows I will never ask him to do something he can’t manage. The worried eyes are there but he gives his all. This gully is slippery so crossing in snow, that he’s only ever been in a couple of times in his life gives him hesitation. The girls run off. But the next video is them trusting his judgement.

22/07/2024

This

A while ago, I was sent a pony for schooling that had napping (not wanting to go forward) and contact issues.

Upon its arrival, I did a through check over of its body and quickly found wolf teeth present (which cause major contact issues) and a bony change in its knee. Because of its wolf teeth, schooling was pointless at this stage, but I also wanted to investigate the knee further before doing any more work with the pony.

When I asked the owner if I could have the pony flexioned and xrayed by a vet, she told me that the pony was only going to be a kids pony anyway, so the knee wasn’t a concern for her. Yet the pony was showing significant napping behaviours, a behaviour that only presents when a horse associates major discomfort with what is being asked of them. And I had a strong feeling that, like most poor behaviours, the issues for this pony were pain related.

Because I wasn’t prepared to work with a horse I didn’t think was structurally sound, I paid for x-rays myself and the findings weren’t good. The pony had several bone spurs in the knee and substantial arthritic changes. More than enough findings to suggest that ridden work was extremely uncomfortable for it and retirement was the kindest option at that stage.

Sadly, this is an issue I see frequently when working with horses with behavioural issues. Most commonly, an owners first ‘go to’ is to have the horse ‘trained’ through the issue, but most of the time the problems we deal with as riders and handlers are not a training issue, but rather a discomfort or pain issue. Sure, a dominant trainer can override the issues for a while, but it doesn’t actually fix them and it severely affects the welfare of the animal in the process.

Before a behavioural issue is addressed through training, the horse should be well evaluated by an expert; including having their teeth checked, feet rebalanced, tendons flexed, legs and spine xrayed, scoped for ulcers, eyes checked, blood tests, seen by a chiropractor or body worker, properly saddle fitted and bit changed and then an assessment of the rider should be made to see where mistakes might be happening in their training. Even if nothing is found in these checks, you cannot rule out deeper pain issues such as adhesions, tumours, muscle tears, reproductive issues, misalignments, digestive issues etc. which can be nearly impossible to find without an autopsy or highly specialised appointments.

At the end of the day, horses are extremely willing and forgiving animals, so if they keep expressing poor behaviour, it is just because the cause of that behaviour has not yet been diagnosed and fixed. We always try to live by the statement, ‘Find the solution, don’t punish the symptoms.’ All behaviour is a form of communication and it’s our job to figure out what our horses are trying to say.

10/07/2024

This is a well written piece. This is why when people ask if I’m riding my new pony I answer no, we’re just getting to know each other first. She’s been here about 10 weeks now and her herd bound and food aggression is greatly reduced as she begins to feel more safe and ‘home’ with us. Don’t give up on a good horse because you’ve not given them enough time to be safe, which will take much longer than your timeline sometimes.

"New Home Syndrome"🤓

I am coining this term to bring recognition, respect, and understanding to what happens to horses when they move homes. This situation involves removing them from an environment and set of routines they have become familiar with, and placing them somewhere completely different with new people and different ways of doing things.

Why call it a syndrome?

Well, really it is! A syndrome is a term used to describe a set of symptoms that consistently occur together and can be tied to certain factors such as infections, genetic predispositions, conditions, or environmental influences. It is also used when the exact cause of the symptoms is not fully understood or when it is not connected with a well-defined disease. In this case, "New Home Syndrome" is connected to a horse being placed in a new home where its entire world changes, leading to psychological and physiological impacts. While it might be transient, the ramifications can be significant for both the horse and anyone handling or riding it.

Let me explain...

Think about how good it feels to get home after a busy day. How comfortable your favourite clothes are, how well you sleep in your own bed compared to a strange bed, and how you can really relax at home. This is because home is safe and familiar. At home, the part of you that keeps an eye out for potential danger turns down to a low setting. It does this because home is your safe place (and if it is not, this blog will also explain why a lack of a safe place is detrimental).

Therefore, the first symptom of horses experiencing "New Home Syndrome" is being unsettled, prone to anxiety, or difficult behaviour. If you have owned them before you moved them, you struggle to recognise your horse, feeling as if your horse has been replaced by a frustrating version. If the horse is new to you, you might wonder if you were conned, if the horse was drugged when you rode it, or if you were lied to about the horse's true nature.

A horse with "New Home Syndrome" will be a stressed version of itself, on high alert, with a drastically reduced ability to cope. Horses don't handle change like humans do. If you appreciate the comfort of your own home and how you can relax there, you should be able to understand what the horse is experiencing.

Respecting that horses interpret and process their environments differently from us helps in understanding why your horse is being frustrating and recognising that there is a good chance you were not lied to or that the horse was not drugged.

Horses have survived through evolution by being highly aware of their environments. Change is a significant challenge for them because they notice the slightest differences, not just visually but also through sound, smell, feel, and other senses. Humans generalise and categorise, making it easy for us to navigate familiar environments like shopping centres. Horses do not generalise in the same way; everything new is different to them, and they need proof of safety before they can habituate and feel secure. When their entire world changes, it is deeply stressful.

They struggle to sleep until they feel safe, leading to sleep deprivation and increased difficulty.

But there is more...

Not only do you find comfort in your home environment and your nervous system downregulates, but you also find comfort in routines. Routines are habits, and habits are easy. When a routine changes or something has to be navigated differently, things get difficult. For example, my local supermarket is undergoing renovations. After four years of shopping there, it is extremely frustrating to have to work out where everything is now. Every day it gets moved due to the store being refitted section by section. This annoyance is shared by other shoppers and even the staff.

So, consider the horse. Not only are they confronted with the challenge of figuring out whether they are safe in all aspects of their new home while being sleep deprived, but every single routine and encounter is different. Then, their owner or new owner starts getting critical and concerned because the horse suddenly seems untrained or difficult. The horse they thought they owned or bought is not meeting their expectations, leading to conflict, resistance, explosiveness, hypersensitivity, and frustration.

The horse acts as if it knows little because it is stressed and because the routines and habits it has learned have disappeared. If you are a new human for the horse, you feel, move, and communicate differently from what it is used to. The way you hold the reins, your body movements in the saddle, the position of your leg – every single routine of communication between horse and person is now different. I explain to people that when you get a new horse, you have to imprint yourself and your way of communicating onto the horse. You have to introduce yourself and take the time to spell out your cues so that they get to know you.

Therefore, when you move a horse to a new home or get a new horse, your horse will go through a phase called "New Home Syndrome," and it will be significant for them. Appreciating this helps them get through it because they are incredible and can succeed. The more you understand and help the horse learn it is safe in its new environment and navigate the new routines and habits you introduce, the faster "New Home Syndrome" will pass.
"New Home Syndrome" will be prevalent in a horse’s life until they have learned to trust the safety of the environment (and all that entails) and the humans they meet and interact with. With strategic and understanding approaches, this may take weeks, and their nervous systems will start downgrading their high alert status. However, for some horses, it can take a couple of years to fully feel at ease in their new home.

So, next time you move your horse or acquire a new horse and it starts behaving erratically or being difficult, it is not being "stupid", you might not have been lied to or the horse "drugged" - your horse is just experiencing an episode of understandable "New Home Syndrome." And you can help this.❤

I would be grateful if you could please share, this reality for horses needs to be better appreciated ❤
‼️When I say SHARE that does not mean plagiarise my work…it is seriously not cool to copy and paste these words and make out you have written it yourself‼️

06/07/2024

Kirsten Baker exactly what we went through with the little mare float training on Friday!

A while ago I attempted to create a course to help people develop a 'schooling programme' for a horse. But in the development of it, I kept stalling.

However many times I wrote out flowcharts of different exercises for different horses and situations, I would just cross them out again. They looked pretty, but I knew it wasn't actually going to equip people with what they needed to be of most use to their horse. I watched a film many people were raving about concerning classical schooling and felt my soul fall away. This was just about 'Getting-horses-to-do-things'. And If I wasn't careful, that's where I was headed too.

That little, 'Hello, hello, excuse me' voice kept raising its hand. 'Erm, what about this specific thing that has shown up today?' 'And what would you do if you felt this? Or your horse showed you this?' I just couldn't pin it down. It felt like it was going against everything I believe to be true about being with horses. My heart said no to the idea of programmes or systems or flowcharts. Or a series of exercises which could be applied anywhere, any time.

Each time I would go out to start filming, my plan would dissolve in light of what my horse was showing me today. In fact, the very act of trying to do this exposed how far South I had headed in my current trajectory with one of my horses - Fuego - so I went right back the drawing board and started all over again.

The internet is so full of people who are SURE. This is right and this is wrong and I am very certain of those facts. I feel like the more time I spend with horses and people, the LESS sure I get. The more I am OK with good enough, and working things out as you go along, with a focus on the questions rather than the answers.

I have spent thousands of hours (and pounds) accumulating knowledge. Which has shown me knowledge is only as good as feel. I have loved getting really clear about certain principles of training to be lead by. But these have to be matched with practice, and that practice may result in a reframing of your principles. And ultimately that there is no formula which you can pin down into any kind of programme. Argghhhhh....

I had to take a long time out to consider what was true for me at the moment. I do believe that both the human and the horse have a huge capacity to learn. I do see inter-species relationships which feel good on both sides. It is possible that a horse body and a human body can help each other out, I have worked with committed riders who over the years have become incredible horse people all in their own right. Who no longer need regular lessons because they are working things outforthemselves. I have seen horses blossom with an approach we never would have considered 'At the start' (wherever that is...)

I am much less certain now that I know an entirely right way to do things. I envy those who are so sure they have all the facts and all the knowledge. That horizon of certainty is becoming ever more distant - the longer I spend with people and horses.

Instead I believe that humans are incredible problem solvers, as are horses. Given the right support, conditions and containers each person can work things out between themselves and their horses in a manner which suits them best. They may be able to take some information which I and others can share, hold it up their own relationship with their horse and see how that sits. They can be given some questions to ask and pointers to consider and step into the role of student of the horse.

Thankfully the universe is just a great and wild experiment. That gives me the courage to allow this little obsession of humans and horses to be part of that grand petri-dish too. I am grateful that some others seem up for being part of this also.

Watch this space for what I actually feel is going to be most useful...

05/07/2024

Coming in for dinner from the paddock across the creek. No one wants to miss their dinner!

05/07/2024

My happy place and theirs too I think ❤️🐴

03/07/2024

Winter pony play sessions. And Rain is doing much better with trims with sedation. Due to her injuries she was really struggling to hold her hind legs up which then meant that her angles were just getting worse as I do not expect her trimmer to put themselves at risk with an unhappy horse! We’ve done the last two trims under sedation and it’s not only allowed a better trim which helps her posture to improve and hopefully return to better biomechanics, but it also allows her to create positive memories about trimming again.

28/06/2024

Alaska aka Peanut has been here for about 2 months. She’s a sweet thing but she does have strong separation anxiety if you take any of the herd away, even if the other two are still there. She’s established herself as the lead mare from day one with strong follow through with double barrel communication. She has a good training base with humans and I’m taking it slow. Today I did some Masterton with her and then we went just for a short walk to graze some roadside clover. I just have to keeps reminding myself to have No timelines. My aim is to have Every interaction with her build on her positive experience with people. Building her confidence with me will hopefully help her have confidence in herself within the herd so her reactions become less combative. She’s a combination of personality types of both Yukon and Ripple. Sweet and Smart!

09/06/2024

Have your say. There are some excellent equine dentists out there who are not vets. This is non-competitive should it be restricted to only veterinarians and will make it less accessible and affordable to owners.

The ACT Government is undertaking a review of veterinary practice in the ACT to identify areas for improvement.

29/05/2024

This

A large number of people who come to me for help with their riding motivation, lack of time or feelings of self-doubt or lack of confidence are looking for a prescription or a formula that they can apply that will fix their lack of ‘not riding’.

Some arrive with the belief that the accountability provided by our relationship will be the cure to the problem. That maybe if I tell them exactly what to do on what day, if I give them a precise schedule, or the right things to action that things will once again feel ok-- that time will open up, they will become unstuck, they will once again feel motivated.

Often, if they perceive that they ‘aren’t doing enough’, scattered in amongst our conversation are their own ‘solutions’ to the problems…

Perhaps if I got up earlier? Or when this situation at work changes? Or once the kids go back to school? Maybe I can take this out and slot this in? Try things at a different time of day?

It’s not that I don’t have things to say, and I certainly offer things (I hope) that people will find helpful.

But more and more, I am faced with a reality which is this:

Most people I work with are not professional riders. They are riding or have horses for the love of it. And in amongst this, the fact they are custodians for their horses, they are also many other things.

They are often working full time, some are caregivers, many are mothers, or mothering in ways that we don’t socially recognize. The days are full to the extent of asking for 30 minutes of their time feels the same as asking them to lasso a woolly mammoth.

And beyond that, the real truth?

Most people are exhausted. Not just a little bit tired, but chronically so. Tired to the inside of their bones.

And that tiredness is not just an individual ‘issue’; it’s part of a wider, social narrative, the same capitalist system that trains us to treat how it is we are with our horses, how we take care of ourselves, the same way it wants us to engage with everything else:

As a schedule of production.

One that leads us to harbor unreasonable and inhumane expectations of what’s possible, and then gets us to turn around and beat ourselves up when what we’re able (or unable) to do falls short.

A practice of any kind- and this is different to a routine or a schedule- is an energy that we are in relationship with. Riding is not referred to as an art for no good reason. To my mind, good riding and good horsemanship are subject to the same creative muse, the same inspiriting forces as any other creative medium we are involved with.

If we think of our riding and our horsing adventures this way, our interactions become a part of a wider ecosystem; it becomes something we are in collaboration with, not in control of in the way that we might traditionally think.

Which leads us to the question:

How are you in collaboration with your riding and with your practice of the art of horsemanship?

Do you only feel ‘successful’ if you’ve ridden or worked your horse(s) ‘x’ number of times? When you have done something that the outer world will tell you means you’ve done something that is good? Where you are given two thumbs up by someone other than yourself?

If we are going to throw our relationship with riding and our horses in the same basket as any other that relates to productivity and output, then pretty soon we are going to find our relationship with our horse producing the same pressure as work, as anything else that can be both bought and sold.

And what’s more, it’s like pouring concrete on the soul.

A horsing practice is different to a routine and different again to a schedule.

Practices are fluid and responsive. They change with the seasons; of the year, but also of life. Is it not to be expected that your horsing practice will change, adapt to children, work, the fact you have been sick, the lack of available light?

This is not an individual failing; it’s something that’s to be expected. Practices are molded and informed by the complexity and fullness of our lives; often they exist not in spite of them, but because of them.

A riding and horsing practice is not a schedule. It is not a fixed routine. It is not you grinding yourself into the ground, martyring yourself to a riding schedule that leaves both of you feeling depleted instead of nourished.

What would it look like to approach your riding and horsing with a playfulness, the spirit of creative venture?

What would it look like if you lay down your beliefs about productivity, the tight schedule you might have around when and where you show up and what exactly that needs to look like?

What if you treated your riding and horsing practice like someone you loved, treated it the same you would a treasured friend?

What would it mean to step out of riding (and beyond that, how you look after yourself) as a ‘have to’ and treated it as a creative practice?

What would things look like then?

xx Jane