Books with Spirit – Joyfulness between horses and people

In both Zen Connection with Horses and Bobby’s Diaries – Straight from the Horse’s Mouth to You, we talk about how to handle it when we ask our horse to do something and they don’t do it. 

We suggest that even if you don’t get what you are asking for, that you stop asking and wait for your horse to lick their lips and chew, no matter how long that takes.

“What the?” I hear some of you asking as you want to read that again and seee if you’ve misread what I wrote.  Yes, that is what I mean, stop asking even if you didn’t get what you wanted and wait for The Chew.

One of the most common causes of a horses fear and resistance – indeed vast amounts of our horse’s fear and /or resistance, comes from having pressure put on them when they are confused.  You might eventually get what you want from applying that pressure, if you have a lot of skill – but the anxiety burdened horse that is the result is not what I want my partnership with my horse to feel like.

So with that in mind, here is a readers’s question: – “you know how you said even if the horse doesn’t give the response you want, you stop and wait for The Chew etc…   If you ask for something and they do something different – like you ask for back up but they go sideways instead - if you stop asking, do they not think that what they did was right because you took the ‘asking’ pressure off?  Just trying to get my head around that part as couldn’t explain it to a friend lol.”

Click here for my reply.

Here is my reply to a one time student’s request to know how to lay a horse down.

Horses can be laid down as a dominance technique or with the horse’s attitude being “yes please, you delicious human, I would love to lay down for you.”   Needless to say, the second option is my preference. 

Click here for the rest of this article about how to go about laying your horse down.

We had an interesting question on our discussion group yesterday that has prompted this blog.  The question was  how do you use the stuff in Zen Connection with Horses with your normal training and lessons?

And my answer was – don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.  i.e. Don’t throw away the things that you already know how to do – ADD the Zen Connection with Horses approach to what you already know, that already works. 

My advice is to use the audio lessons at the back of the book to develop your feel for your conscious connection to your horse, use the lessons to develop a good strong sense of what Not Quite Right feels like for you and use them to cultivate the habit of taking action when you feel Not Quite Right.

“Not Quite Right” is an early warning signal, before what happens happens.  It’s an opportunity to pay attention to BEFORE something happens, BEFORE our horse jumps out from underneath us, BEFORE we are afraid, BEFORE we get frustrated or angry.

When you apply your conscious connection to everything that you do with your horse, they will be able to let you know what changes are important to them and to you as and when they become important. 

And if that relationship is like many others that I have seen working with this conscious connection, including the one with my own horses, that will evolve beautifully – as and when we are ready.   My experience has been that as I keep listening to my horses, they let me know when they need something different or done differently.

The variety of ways in which people are applying this connection with their horse warms me up just thinking about it. 

• People are adding this connection to their lessons with trainers in all kinds of disciplines - teachers and trainers who are sympathetic to their goals with their horse and how they want to treat their horse.   
• Others use their horse as their teacher.
• There are a whole heap of people who have used the Zen Connection with Horses way of being with their horse to go on wonderful journeys of personal growth (since being excellent with horses means having a deep sense of confidence and serenity, that happens a lot!)  
• Even further, there are a whole heap of people who have realised how the deep connection with their horse is paralleled in their human relationships, to the benefit of those relationships.
• A bunch of people have even used it to find expanded consciousness – wow!!!
• Some people have added this conscious connection to their horse, to the framework that Bobby came up with, that I wrote about in Bobby’s Diaries – Straight from the Horses Mouth to You.  (Zen Connection with Horses was written after Bobby’s Diaries and reflects a much gentler and more deeply conscious approach.)

Sometimes it is appropriate that we throw out everything that has been done with a horse and start again because that’s what they need.  This is usually when a horse or a person has been chronically frightened or traumatised.   I have helped many people start from the beginning, de-traumatising as they go and it has had seriously beautiful  outcomes – you can read about some of them in People’s Stories and Readers Letters (scroll up, the buttons are on the right hand side of this page.)

But for many, many of you reading this blog,  just add the understanding that you get from the book and the conscious connection that you develop with the audio lessons in Zen Connection with Horses, to the things that you already know and do, to produce a truly outstanding result and relationship.

Click here to join us with having a beautiful conscious connection with your horse,  with my “love this book or get your money back” personal guarantee  or browse around People’s Stories or Reader’s letters if you need some more information before making up your mind.

I read a wonderful piece on leadership that surprisingly came  from my  “Daily OM Horoscope”.  It applies to leadership with horses as much as it applies to leadership with humans.  I have put the Daily OM quotes in italics for the discussion.

Click here for the rest of this blog.

Whether you are into natural horsemanship or not – even if the idea of natural horsemanship makes you cringe -  the Friendly Game, the rhythmic advance and retreat method of getting your horse comfortable with routine things that they might think are either scarey or uncomfortable, is probably one of the best things that you can do with your horse.

Click here for the rest of the blog about how to get that powerful improvement.

Hey everyone, if you have ever been confused about where to set the boundaries with your horse (either yours or theirs) you have just got to check out Carolyn Resnick’s blog  this morning – it shines a whole new understanding on the subject – brilliant!  Carolyn slips in the really big punch line without much emphasis, so read carefully.

If you are brand new to the concept of boundaries, it is about when you say “no” or “no thankyou” to your horse – and it is a completely personal thing. 

It might be about how close he or she is allowed to come to you while you are putting the feed in the feedbin.  It might be wanting your horse to stand in one place while you you tack up, as a manners thing.  (If they were moving away because they were afraid or uncomfortable in the tack, then that would not be a manners / boundary issue.)   It might be about how close that you are happy for them to be when they are jumping and rearing and playing about (which I love to watch and be part of, but not too close to me, thanks).

When your horse was young, someone set boundaries (hopefully!!) that said it was not OK to kick or bite the human. Also hopefully, they set these boundaries clearly and without traumatising or confusing the foal.  Click here for a great story about solving a problem with a really badly biting horse.

Our horse has boundaries too – which many of us humans go trampling all over in our size 9 boots, which doesn’t do much for our relationship with our horse (and there is the understatement of the year). 

Here is a REALLY big question for you to think about.  What do you think are boundary issues for a horse?  How does your horse tell you that you are trampling all over his or her boundaries?  How does your horse tell you when you are crossing or about to cross the line?

Think about that and then come back to the comments button below this article and tell me what you think.

You can probably tell that I much admire Carolyn Resnick’s work, you only have to look at the way horses move with her, to know that she is a brilliant horsewoman.  Our book “Zen Connection with Horses” fits with and adds to Carolyn’s work by teaching “feel” really well - by teaching you the following things:

• how to know when it’s time to do something,
• how to figure out what to do, which technique (if any) to use,
• how to know when it’s time to back away,
• how to know when it’s time to take a break,
• how to know when it’s time to stop,
• how to know when it’s time to start again,
• and much, much….  much more. 

Zen Connection with Horses, the book which comes with audio lessons, takes you step by step through developing a really close connection and communication with your horse – and then you add that “feel” and timing and philosophy to get great results from everything that you do.

Click here to go to the bookshop for Zen Connection with Horses  Or browse around People’s Stories and Readers Letters (see the buttons on the right hand side of this page) to see the wonderful results that people are getting from this book and this way of being with horses.

This isn’t a trick question and there is no right or wrong answer – although the answer, even just asking the question, could be incredibly important to your relationship with your horse.    We will all answer the question differently, firstly because we are individuals and then because of the different circumstances that we are feeding our horses in.  

So what was my personal answer to this question? 

• I need the whole herd to focus on me at feed time.
• I need the whole herd to be gentle with each other while I am amongst them.
• I need them to go into their individual yards, quietly and wait for me to bring their feeds.
• I need each horse to stand back politely while I put the feed in their buckets.
• I need them to move over when I ask politely with my stick or the piece of rope in my pocket.
• I need them to remember that I am there in the yard whenever I am in the yard. 

click here for the rest of the article.

I enjoyed reading Linda Parelli’s article on Hill Therapy that is in the Fluidity program.  Since that is a particularly strong area of expertise for me, I much enjoyed seeing a focus on restoring horses to good muscular and skeletal health.  

You can add a powerful improvement for your horse to that Hill Therapy Program – by adding an emotional aspect to the work.  

“What?” you’re probably thinking…

What have emotions got to do with bad posture, poor musculature, short, choppy, uneven strides and even skeletal damage? 

Well, emotions have a HUGE effect on our horse’s  physical body.  Click here for the rest of this article.

I read a brilliant article on Carolyn Resnick’s blog yesterday and had some insights about it that I wanted to share.  

You can read the full story on the link to her blog that I have put in below.  The 9 year old Carolyn had a problem with a bucking horse that she was training and asked her Dad for advice on what to do with it.  His reply was “Well, Carolyn, what are you not afraid to do with that horse?” 

What a great question!  Click here for the start of your journey to feeling really really good with your horse.

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. 

This blog is about how the behaviour and interaction of the herd leader, the alpha horse (two very separate horses) and the young horse raises some interesting questions for us humans about how we might choose to get the best from our horses.

Click here for the rest of that article.