Autumn Equine Adventures

01/11/2022

Navigating Violence, Children, and Horses

I’ve seen it in every barn I’ve ever been at, so know that if this is you, I am not singling you out. When we know better we can do better, and generally that’s why I write these posts. So that we, as a community, can progress forward with knowledge and kindness.

It’s the smack in the face when a horse lifts it’s head away from bridling. It’s the hard kick of frustration when a horse won’t move forward. It’s the incessant slap of a crop, the intentional “giddiyup” shake of the reins, and a million other things. It’s violence. And we are teaching it to children.

There are so many ways in which the horse industry is violent, most of which we fail to see as violence. We don’t see it as violence because many of the violent acts we commit are based in tradition. In order to see what actions are violent, we needn’t look any further than our horses’ reactions.

And here’s the thing, before I get to why this isn’t great for children’s development, when we treat our horses with force and violence, even if no one else sees, it teaches the horse that violence is an acceptable form of communication with humans. They can easily start to express themselves in violent terms. Push come to shove, a violent horse will win over a violent human every time.

When we teach our children to hit, frustratedly kick, and whip animals, we normalize violence in our children, and it teaches them that violence is productive. Later in life this normalization can extend to other relationships, for example conflating violence with passion and love in romantic partners. After all, if a child loves a horse and hits them, they could easily believe someone who hits them actually loves them. And I don’t know about you, but I’d rather have less domestic violence in our society.

So instead of forcing our horses via violence to comply, we really must be diligent and do the work with them. We need to teach our children to approach a reluctant horse with understanding. Going slow, sticking with relaxation and returning to the basics will nearly always work. Having faith in a slow progression can be frustrating, but is imperative for the mental health of not only our horses, but our children too.

20/09/2022

I have openings next Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons for meet and greets and lessons.

Come out and play with the ponies!

13/09/2022

Are you a true horse lover? Are you interested in learning more about horses than just how to control their bodies through riding?

I am opening a small number of weekly spots to people who want to know all things horse. While these lessons may include riding, they are not limited by it. Students will learn how to care for horses, how to read their emotions, how to play with them on their terms, and what makes a horse a happy and healthy animal.

Not many programs out there offer the opportunity to truly explore these brilliant animals from the ground up.

Please pm for pricing and details.

13/09/2022

Wow, what a busy end to summer! With outfitting trips, summer camps, trainings, lessons, and more I got fairly behind in updating this page. Here are some photos of the adventures the ponies and I have had in the last month!

Fall programs are now open for enrollment and I will release information on openings shortly.

13/09/2022

Smoke damage and horses

This is a contentious topic for many riders, but after the last two days I feel the need to explain in detail why working horses when the air quality becomes poor is so much worse than humans or other animals working in the smoke.

The lungs of the horse are the third largest organ in the horse’s body, coming behind the skin and the digestive tract. They are huge, with the ability to hold about 55 liters of air at maximum capacity. The lungs of the horse are also far more sensitive than ours and more flimsy than most, if not all other mammals. Increasing the pressure on the lungs of a horse can easily result in capillary and blood vessel ruptures, even in healthy horses. A horse at rest only uses a small percentage of their lung capacity, about 5 liters per breath. A horse at work increases the amount of air flowing into the lungs substantially, inhaling between 5-9x the amount of air of a resting horse. Yes, this means at a slow walk your horse is breathing in a lot more air. At a trot, substantially more.

Now, let’s discuss the content of wildfire smoke. Unlike a clean burning wood fire, wildfires burn everything in their path indiscriminately, and therefore the content of wildfire smoke can include poisonous plants, dead and diseased animals, fungi, pure dirt, sticky sap, and more. That means that poisonous plants, dead and diseased animals, fungi, pure dirt, sticky sap, and more have made their way into the air and now into the lungs of anyone who inhales the smoke, including the horse. Because of their giant lung capacity and their tiny noses, these particles will remain in the lungs for a very long time and can potentially cause lung ruptures, infections, and lifelong issues.

With the increase in particulate matter also comes an increase in carbon dioxide, methane, and carbon monoxide. Carbon dioxide bonds to hemoglobin at a rate 20x higher than that of oxygen. Hemoglobin bonds to carbon monoxide at a rate 200-300x higher than that of oxygen. This means that even at a rest, once again, your horse is not getting nearly as much oxygen into its already taxed system as it normally does.

Your actions in these situations really affect the lifetime outcome of these wonderful animals. When we choose to work our horses in the smoke, or even shortly after, when their lungs have not had the time to recover that they need, simply put, this can cause lifelong damage, pain, and suffering to even the healthiest of horses. And that’s if they don’t die. So please, if you love your horse let them recover before mounting again.

19/07/2022

Nothing happens on time, just because we want it to.

It can be easy to assume that we can push things to happen faster than they should just because we are eager and impatient. But eagerness and impatience are not control. No amount of false deadlines, planning, or imposed timelines can force good quality, functional, healthy growth.

Two of my training horses this week, who have been moving quite rapidly through their training, are showing signs that they need more time again. As a trainer/educator one of my top jobs is to read the stress level and processing capabilities of both horses and riders so that progress and performance are consistent.

When I walked in to her yard today, full of hope that Whiskey was ready for both the saddle and bridle to today, she came trotting over to me. Her face was swarmed with flies. Hundreds of them crowded her belly and legs too. I knew at that moment that my ambitions would need to be put on hold and my job for the day instead would revolve around making her comfortable.

I started by spraying her down with the fly spray I mentioned a few posts ago, but the flies didn’t seem to care much and she was very clearly still in a world of itch and annoyance. (Again, fly control is essential and fly spray isn’t necessarily the best alternative.) There wasn’t much I could do for the poor girl to get the flies off her any more than with the spray, so we spent our time taking her mind off the flies.

Play is essential. With training horses (and people), it’s easy to get wrapped up in trying to make progress, when sometimes what we really need is a distraction, or a reset. So today we played. For an hour, she got to take her mind off the flies and focus on learning to play fetch. It’s a great mental challenge for the horses, easy enough to make steady and exciting progress, and can translate to many skills later down the road.

So yeah, she had fun. For an hour, in my presence, she could be at peace. When I left I knew she would go back to being bothered mercilessly by the flies. I couldn’t fix that. But next time she sees me, her nervous system will remember that she was able to relax and get reprieve around me. Even if we have to spend another couple days on play and not direct progress, her happiness will be kept and therefore, when we are able to get back to making quick progress with work, her performance and mental state won’t have suffered so much.

14/07/2022

Whiskey is being a bit of a ham today!

08/07/2022

Lunging can be done on straight lines too. You can and should know how to move at distance from your horse on the ground.

https://online.fliphtml5.com/vloeh/gdky/
The Side effects of lunging by Jean Luc Cornille.

07/07/2022

Let’s talk about fly spray!

It’s gross. It’s leaky. It smells terrible. Your horse probably hates it, or at the absolute most tolerates it. I guarantee your horse doesn’t love fly spray.

Every time I desensitize a horse to fly spray I use the following process:
1) Let the horse smell and confront the bottle.
2) Have the horse watch as I spray it on my arm.
3) Let the horse smell my arm.
4) Let the horse smell the bottle again.
5) Spray myself again. Let the horse smell me.
6) Rub some on the horse’s neck giving them some really great scratches as I go.
7) Spray the bottle out into the open air away from the horse, where they can still see it.
8. Spray around the horse without actually spraying the horse.
9) Spray the horse.

It is important to keep the horse untied and use no force during this process. Fly spray is unnatural, in smell, in practice, and in feel. The quickest fly spray desensitizing I’ve ever done in this process took 10 minutes.

Today when I sprayed my arm with the fly spray, a bioethical brand I hadn’t seen before, my arm started to burn. It’s 6 hours later now, and my arm is still burning. It hurts, my skin is dry, and as much as I tried to wash it off, it sunk into my skin alarmingly fast.

I invite anyone who uses fly spray to try to spray yourself down and live with it for a day. If you can’t or won’t, I invite you to ask yourself why on earth you would do that to your equine buddy!

Non-toxic methods of fly control:

-My favorite method for fly control is the Buglyte 3 in 1 feed through. This works extremely well in closed herds because it must be fed to all the horses to work correctly. It’s affordable and effective and I haven’t met a horse who won’t eat it. It is also made of natural ingredients.

- Dr. Bronner’s Peppermint Soap! Is there anything this stuff isn’t good for? I wash my horses with it in the summer. I wash myself with it in the summer. I wash my dog with it in the summer. It helps and is excellent!

- Fly predators: they work but they’re an invasive species. As anyone who knows me knows, I do not like disturbing our natural flora and fauna with invasive species of pests.

- Fly protection: this is your fly sheet and your fly mask. These have the added bonus of being UV protective, a benefit especially to our darker equine buddies.

- eqyss marigold spray: if you want you and your horse to smell like lovely old ladies who also don’t get flies, this is the stuff for you!

Whatever you choose, please understand that your horse is just a horse. You always have the opportunity to be kind to them. Some methods are kinder than others. If you’re asking your horse to do something that would cause you pain or grief, find another way if you can.

07/07/2022

You can no sooner control a horse than a raging river. When you swing your leg over that saddle, your choice is either to find your place in the flow or try to fight it. The latter will leave you exhausted. The former will leave you exalted.

05/07/2022

This is a great read on how a horse's system works. If you read this and want some help retooling your horse's diet for maximum health, contact me!

https://www.succeed-equine.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/What-are-we-doing-to-our-horses-REV.pdf

05/07/2022

Whiskey is very, very tired after a long night with the fireworks. I took advantage of her sleepiness to do some more work with getting her comfortable in the saddle.

You can be productive and tired! When you are too tired to care, getting through some of the mundane, low energy work can be really beneficial.

05/07/2022

Photos from past adventures!

05/07/2022

Seymour is finally ready for his owners to ride! When I first started working with this guy he couldn’t physically or mentally leave his stall. Through careful conditioning, appropriate training, and the kindness of his owners attending to his needs, this horse that should have been put down has a new lease on life. And how cool is that?

05/07/2022

Poor Seymour has been having a terrible time since I beefed it a few weeks ago. Last night I got a message from his owners in urgency, hoping I could come out and just say hi.

The bond between a horse and trainer is strong, especially with a rescue like Seymour. When I first met him last year after his rescue, he wouldn’t even move, let alone leave his stall. I was hired in part because I was the only trainer interviewed that could get him to lift a foot.

It took quite some time to get Seymour’s trust. He had no confidence and was terribly depressed from being dumped at the auction. To his very core, he was so scarred that he believed he was one false move from being dumped again. Who among us cannot relate?

In time his confidence has grown, but he always has had this feeling that if he messed up, terrible things would happen. One time he bit me on complete accident when I was giving him a cookie. I yelped. He was so upset that he hurt my finger that he wouldn’t eat treats from me for a month. I forgave him before his teeth even left my finger. He punished himself more severely than any other being ever could. Again, who among us can’t relate to self punishment?

Forward to today. When I approached, Seymour was in his stall. The very stall he, at one time, refused to leave. The door was open to his yard, but he couldn’t have been more trapped. He barely believed it when he saw me. When I offered up a cookie, he tenderly took it. I looked in his eyes and saw the heart break.

Clumps of hair and skin were falling off him from stress. I brushed him down and gave him lots of love, then left his stall.
On my way out, his owner caught me. He told me that Seymour has been acting up more and more and has been impossible to console. They had the vet out and the only thing the vet could find wrong was that he might be depressed and missing me.
As I got in my truck, Seymour walked out of his stall and smiled. As my engine started, he called for me. I promised him I’d be back for him and I pulled away.

Don’t let anyone tell you animals don’t understand heartbreak, depression, joy, right, and wrong. Seymour knows he hurt me. But I will recover. And so, in time, will he.

05/07/2022

Are you afraid to get back on him?

Today was my first day back actually working with Seymour. In the past few weeks, I’ve been often asked if I am afraid to get back on the horse who lost control of himself and hurt me. If fear was the only thing holding me back from riding him, I would have jumped up there in an instant. However, I am working on becoming the type of person who doesn’t repeat my own mistakes so instead, we worked on the ground softly and quietly.

I’ve gone over the accident in my head a thousand times and approached it from a thousand different angles, and I’ve come to the conclusion that had Seymour and I been listening to each other, things would have turned out quite a bit different. I was distracted. Seymour is used to me patiently listening to his woes, but that day, I had a few of my own woes. I was licking my own wounds as I tacked him up, meanwhile Seymour was trying to tell me he needed emotional support himself, before he could perform.

With horses, just like with people you must always be in the moment. Especially when someone lacks confidence. They need you to listen. They need to be heard and valued before we can ask anything of them.

I asked too much of Seymour that day. So then, feeling unheard and discombobulated, when I sat on him and asked him to work, it was too much. My lack of listening to him on the ground turned into a lack of him listening to me as his rider, and we both suffered severely.

Today we revisited the accident scene. Softly we approached. Seymour was distraught, eying me and sidestepping away out of sheer anxiety. I calmed him. With my controlled breathing and patience he became still. I waited until he looked to me for support. When he did, I let him come in to my side. We walked away, then approached the scene again. Working through the entire area he had bolted through, the entire area where we had failed to listen to each other, we practiced listening and connecting again. Call and answer, again and again. I didn’t ask much of him, only to still himself and then come to me of his own free will when I asked.

We ended on a high note. When I put him away he was calm and happy.

I wonder why it’s so much harder to forgive humans. As I looked in Seymour’s eyes today, I had nothing but love and grace in my heart. When a person hurts me, sometimes I really have a hard time finding grace for their actions. I’ve burned more than one bridge over human emotional equivalents to my horse accident. But then when I really think about it, I’m not sure how often humans stop, rewind, and reestablish trust in the area that was damaged. I think we may be too busy, too distracted, to truly heal. When was the last time I stopped and listened to someone who hurt me? When was the last time you did the same?

Maybe we all need to give each other more grace, more of a benefit of the doubt. What if we truly listened to other humans the way we were intended, underneath all the chatter? Maybe if we really communicated with more than just words and actions, if we didn’t hear our own fears louder than the hearts of those around us, forgiveness wouldn’t be so damn hard.

We will ride when the damage is repaired, and it will be wonderful.

05/07/2022

05/07/2022

I loved this horse!

Seymour is a big draft baby enrolled in our offsite training program. His little buddy Ice Cream likes treats so he’s training by proxy. I love going out to their stable and checking in with their world.

05/07/2022

Welcome to my training page! This will be the hub for all my future horse trainings, posts, and adventures. I will be posting some of my old posts from my various businesses here as well as creating new content. You are welcome to book trainings or lessons through this page, or leave a review if you know me. Happy horse adventures!

05/07/2022

05/07/2022

05/07/2022