Books with Spirit – Joyfulness between horses and people

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.

One of the principles of the Kikkuli method of horse training is to do everything without a rider on their back before adding the rider.  So, for example, the horse would be very happy, very  fit and very comfortable at trotting a big trot for 3 kms before being asked to trot with a rider on their back for 3 kilometres.  This gives the horse great confidence and comfort at what they are being asked to do before adding the rider. 

In the Kikkuli Method, as translated by Ann Nyland (google it for more information), the horses were led from another horse’s back or maybe even by chariot (it’s a while since I read the book so I may have made that up!)

I put on a lot of weight since I stopped smoking and Bobby has been out for about a year growing a whole new hoof capsule, and he turns 17 in a few weeks, so I thought that getting him fit before asking him to carry my weight might make it easier on him.

So, using just this one principle of the Kikkuli method (there is much more to the method than this) I  built up Bobby’s comfort zone and his fitness to do about 3  1/2 Kms while I led him through the car window, on a 22 foot lead line, around one of our big paddocks.

Well, one of our discussion group members laughingly challenged me to do it at liberty (completely loose, no ropes, no nothing)  instead of on a line and I thought it would be fun to try. 

What makes the task more interesting is that the paddock that I’m working in is locked up for spring growth and has much, much more feed than their spring restricted paddocks.  So keeping Bobby more interested in what we were doing instead of eating the new fresh grass was an issue!

So here’s a photo of Bobby, I think he’s cantering,  working beside the car at liberty.  This was taken Day 3 of asking for this new task and by then he was sticking like glue with the car.  (You should have seen him tonight  – woo hooo!)

 I am carrying a carriage whip to tap on the side of the car to call him up beside the car. 

Later the same day we started teaching Bucky to do the same thing, with Bobby at the same time.  That’s gonna’ be fun!

What a star!

Fear to varying degrees is the most common of all the emotions that we experience around our horse, with anger and frustration hot on its heels. 

Oh, hang on a minute… Did you think that it was only you who had times where you lack confidence with your horse?   Did you think that it was only you who had trouble with your nerve?  Did you think that you were out there on your lonesome feeling like that? 

Heck no!   I’m happy (or not happy really) to tell you that whether they talk about it or not, most people commonly experience either fear, anger or frustration (or even all of them at once) with their horse.

And that does not one scrap take away from the fact that we mostly love ‘em to bits.

 Click here to read about what changed the way that I experienced fear around my horse.

My granddaughter Bree’s pony, Blondie (our Cremello miniature) is one of those horses who stops when she’s afraid.  I realised some time ago that that was what makes her a perfect kid’s first pony.  When Blondie gets afraid, she stops.  When she’s terrified, she freezes.  So the chances of Bree getting hurt if her pony gets a fright are greatly reduced.

Click here to read on about how we stuff that up with way too many of these wonderful beginner’s horses, bringing fear to our horse and nervousness to ourselves.

Once your horse has discovered their deep comfort zone, their back will start changing shape for the better, sometimes quite dramatically.  In every clinic I teach, I see horses backs healing under our eyes, without anything else happening except this extraordinary connection of horse and rider.

Click here to read about how you can help your horse strengthen his back for the saddle work.