Books with Spirit – Joyfulness between horses and people

Heidi’s email:  My name is Heidi and I am having problems with a horse I am taking care of for a friend. She is unable to ride Tilly because of Tilly’s problem, and we cannot float her back to my property so I can work with her.

Tilly lives only 30 minutes away from me but I am unable to go out there all the time so we (my friend and I) wished to bring her to my place. 

Tilly is a 6yo, 15.2h thoroughbred mare who was abandoned, and only trusts those who have a feel for horses. Although I do believe she is trying to relax, Tilly is always tense and rears up when I or others stop her from bolting away from objects, another crazy horse that she lives with, and when she feels like galloping and the rider doesn’t want to.

Tilly has only ever been floated once in her life by my friend who is very calm and never raises her voice.  That one floating was to come home (where she is now) from the paddock where she was.  Apparently she walked straight on.  She had only been trucked before that.  I didn’t think it would have made a difference, but I think it does to Tilly.

I was busy the day when my friend and another friend of both of our (who has many years experience with horses and floating them) went out and tried to bring her home in their big double horse float. They returned without success.

They tried again the next day when Iwas also unable to make it, but took another few friends to see if they could coax her on.   I was told they ended up dislocating both her back legs from her hip from putting a rope behind her bum, when she reared up and dislocated them. They popped back in and she got free and was galloping round the 12 acre paddock and couldn’t be caught again.

I went out the following day, and caught her, and as soon as she saw the horse float pull in,(mine this time as it is much lighter in color and higher roof and wider as well for the bigger horse,) when I felt her freeze and plant herself beside me.

That day I told everyone who came near me to find something else to do (you could put it that way) as she would only freak if anyone other than me or a younger friend came near. just by gently talking to her and coaxing with food, we nearly got her on, but as soon as her shoulders passed into the float, she would freak-out, by pulling her head up and jerking back, where she would then be fully afraid of the float again and my younger friend and I would have to start again and calm her down.

After 3 hours of no success, “reinforcements” were called and I was ushered out of the way and ropes were introduced, and men who thought that pulling helped.  As you could imagine, this had no effect to load her and only made Tilly more afraid.  After 5 and a half hours of trying, everyone gave up and left.

My friend’s husband wants to send her to the meat works, where they can pick her up and get rid of her he says, but no-one sees that she is trying but doesn’t know how to trust anymore.  When you ride her, she is sooo responsive to the slightest touch but feels jitters as if she does something wrong then would get beaten up.

With floating, we have ties putting another horse in, covering the bottom in hay and Lucerne, (her favourite,) and many more, but I’m afraid that she is now terrified of the float. It also doesn’t help that’s he doesn’t want to leave another certain horse in the paddock that doesn’t float either.

Any suggestions?  As Tillys life isn’t looking too good at the moment from my friends husband view. But I do believe she can do it. I just need to know how to help.

Heidi

Me again:  Float loading appears to be the least of a bunch of very big issues for Tilly – all of which are completely changeable.  I have noticed with problem solving before - the bigger the “problem” the bigger the joy at solving it… 

Here is my answer to Heidi.  And, with Heidi’s co-operation, we are going to make this email exchange a lesson in float loading and all the things that have to be happening before float loading can even happen!

My reply:  Heidi, I am glad that you wrote.  It’s hard for me to tell by email if Tilly has been behaving like that because she is terrified or because she is in pain or because she just hasn’t been taught how to behave in any other way (i.e. the rearing when you pull on her lead rope could be a simple resistance to your pull, with a bit of fear tossed in to the mix and the rearing in the saddle could even be really bad teeth.) or who knows what else – it could even be all three at the same time.

This is a big thing to do by email, but absolutely possible.  It sounds to me like you need the combination of Zen Connection with Horses and a chapter out of Bobby’s Diaries about float loading.  Zen Connection will give you the ability to listen to her and get her confidence (the Cd that you download into your MP3 player and take out to your horse takes you step by step through all that in a really beautiful way) and the float loading chapter in Bobby’s Diaries actually talks about a method of float loading.

There are many ways of float training that would be OK, provided that you used the sensitivity, the “feel” that you talked about, that you get from working with the Zen Connection lessons.  Anyone can get that “feel” that great horsemen and women have, all you have to have is the “heart and desire” to want it when you work with Zen Connection.

Now, if you cannot afford those books right now, I am happy under the circumstances to make a gift of them to you.  I do that every now and again for a good cause – and Tilly sounds like a good cause!

What would also be nice, if you didn’t mind (and it’s OK if you do mind), if we could excerpt from our emails (some stuff might be too personal to you to put in) and make it a lesson on the website, so that other people can learn too.  (And think about ways of float loading other than force! which is always a good deal.)

Just let me know, I can email you back the written parts of the book straight away – the audio of Zen Connection has to be posted out, so I would need your address. Everything happens for a reason…cheers,  jenny

Heidi’s reply:  Thank you so much for replying. Any excerpt from these emails to go on your website to be used to teach others would be great, as I have read through some previous ones and they have taught me so much already.

It would be so great if you could email the chapters on float loading from Bobby’s Diaries to me, as I am always open to new types of learning to help the horse rather than to help myself. And the Zen Connection seems a lot better way of trying to connect with a horse rather than my friend’s husbands’ way of force. 

To be given this gift from you is simply amazing, thank you. I do hope that Tilly will soon be able to tell me her problems and I can communicate back with her in a way that she can understand of me.  And show the people that do not believe in her that she Is worthwhile.

Me again:  The books have gone out to Heidi and we wait for her first reading and insights with Tilly.

The books we are talking about are Zen Connection with Horses and Bobby’s Diaries – Straight from the Horse’s Mouth to You.  Both are available with my personal “love this book or get your money back” guarantee.  Click here to go to the bookshop now.  Or browse around People’s Stories and Readers Letters or my articles about all kinds of horse issues and lessons, to get the flavour of the books.