Books with Spirit – Joyfulness between horses and people

Here’s a little bunch of insights about how watching and learning from the herd dynamics can help us humans think through what we want from our horses and maybe put some things in a different perspective.

In our herd UT is the leader – he’s very quiet about it and hardly ever has to get physical to get what he wants – except when he does get physical, by crikey he doesn’t go in on half measures.   When Mark Rashid talks about the passive leader – I think he’s talking about UT.

UT is grooming our 6 year old, Boot’n'Scoot to be herd leader.  Boots was an orphan.  We raised him in a herd, with our other horses.  He was with another horse even when we fed him 8 times a day from a bucket  (he had a very special foster Dad).   Boots is the best balanced, best natured, best mannered orphan foal that I’ve ever come across – an absolute pleasure to be around and worth every penny of the small fortune it cost to raise him.

UT is teaching Boots how a herd leader is supposed to behave – and recently, UT asked for Mel’s help in that (Boots is my daughter Mel’s horse and showing Mel’s rapid growth to an extraordinary horsewoman (yep, proud Mum, that’s me!)) 

UT gave Mel the very clear message that one of the qualities of a leader is that they can still think under pressure.  And she needed to help Boots to be able to think under pressure.  How she did that is for another story. 

But the point is, as we look and learn from the horses themselves, if we want to be our horse’s leader, if we aren’t the leader already (and very few people are), then WE too need to learn how to think under pressure. 

It’s lucky though, that leadership with our horses is not the most important thing – that recognition of them as a thinking being, listening to them, helping them through their new fears and old traumas and getting the most extraordinary co-operation from that,  is MUCH more important that leadership.  I’ll show you where you can get that co-operation at the end of this article.

UT does not allow Celtic Peace, the alpha horse, to go after young Boots too much – it has been as if he doesn’t want Boot’s confidence knocked too much as he grows up.   I remember Carolyn Resnick saying something similar - that a good mare allows their foal to develop their confidence without bossing them around too much.  So there’s another thing we humans could perhaps take notice of, in our own dealings with young horses.

Celtic Peace is our alpha horse, the dominant one, the boss and yet he always has to be on the ball cos’ they seem to be making it necessary for him to have to defend his position all the time.  He holds his position by lots of noise and action, teeth and feet.  And by crikey they do what he says – he IS the boss!  The other horses snap to attention at every charge.

UT is the only horse that Celtic Peace wouldn’t dream of pushing around.  Celtic Peace can get the others to do anything he wants. But here’s the important bit from my point of view – nobody wants to stand next to Peace and swish the flies off him – nobody wants to be with him at all.

Think about that for a minute… It is a really important point…  No other horse wants to be with the alpha horse, the dominant horse, the horse who MAKES things happen. 

So what do we want from OUR relationship with our horse? 

Are we satisfied with being the alpha horse that nobody wants to be around if they have a real choice?  (And be careful with what you think of as choice, because I can make a horse be with me with dominance even at liberty.)  Or do we want something better than that?  Something sweeter, more profound.

Leadership with a horse, is an amazing art and it doesn’t happen overnight and I suspect that there is not a single recipe for leadership that fits all situations. 

How would you like real and gentle co-operation from your horse while you explored leadership?

The book and audio lesson set “Zen Connection with Horses”  shows you how you can get the most amazing co-operation from your horse, how you can get their and your confidence.  The book comes with my personal, “love this book or get your money back” guarantee.  Click here to find out more about that book.