How to be your own horse whisperer – part 3
Mar 12th, 2009 by Carolyn Resnick Method
Connection is a two way street. To truly get along with a horse in shared partnership activities we need to have the social leadership skills. If we can keep adjusting our leadership to be more flexible, understandable, and intelligent the horse is more willing to form a loyal partnership and put a great effort into his performance. It’s all about being present in the moment and fully awake and knowing exactly what to ask a horse to do that starts the dance, backed with the belief that your horse will perform and then letting the horse perform without holding him to it.
A good equestrian rule to follow is that force and resistance should almost never be met by force in the training of a horse. When you lose the dance you make the connection back rather than using pressure. Slowing things down gets rid of the need to force. You can make a strong demand without force when the horse feels responsible and knows the rules. Horse love rules and boundaries and even enjoy having them enforced. The most important part about enforcing a rule to a horse is to use proper timing and attitude.
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Hi Carolyn (or Dear Abby as the case may be
I have a reoccuring problem no matter what barn I am at – and now I’m at a small private barn. When I am working with my horses, inevitably someone will come up and want to visit. I have been called arrogant, uppity and standoffish because I don’t take time away from my horse to talk over the fence. Instead I keep my focus on my horse which I feel is the right thing to do – yet no one else at the barn sees their training this way. I try to talk with people later when I’m grooming etc… but by then their mind is set.
It’s very frustrating to me and I am not sure how to deal with the human part of this equation. Is there any polite way I can let them know why I act this way?
Hi Katie, i can really understand what you mean,
i take some students out with my horses and my horses train the students very well,
the horses we take out for hikes know well when to eat and when not to eat and head up and down, now when i have new people out on hikes the biggest lesson is to teach the people to focus
you cannot expect the horse to if you dont, and then “get a little annoyed with the horse”
i think its hard for people to focus as well, hard to keep the concentration , so we walk 10-15-20 min and then take a break so the students can have a break too from focusing.
Br Stina in St. Vincent
Katie thank you for the kind words.
Katie, I have the same problem, when I lead for hours on end…..no spooking. If I lead with a child on board……..no spooking. But the minute I get on it starts. I think he has too much confidence in me being on my feet and feels lost when there is no one by his side. He doesnt spook with me on board if a friend or my daughter walks with us. So why do his insecurities change? Can I be leader on the ground but not on board?
Sue, I loved your new way to think of a lesson horse! Lesson horses to me are teachers. My mare is like your Footprint. She just didn’t work with her previous owner (who had more experience as a rider than me) but because I respected her we grew a bond and she grew with me as a rider. As I learned more she would do more for me. She was the best teacher ever, and still will adjust to the level of the rider on her back. I feel comfortable giving my friends riding lessons on her. Instead of lounging her so that my friends can work on their balance I just ask my friends to drop the reins and keep their eyes on where I go. My mare will follow me and my friends can work on their balance while I (and my friend’s seat because he/she is keeping his/her eyes on me) direct my mare where to go.
Shiela, my mare reminds me of yours though in a different way. My horse when in a group out on the trails will not spook, even if the lead horse does. When we are alone though, she will spook at things even the lead horse before did not spook at. I don’t understand why she does this.
Katrina, what would we do without people like you in the horse world? I have friends like you who allowed me to ride their horses when mine was lame or before I owned one. I try to respect their horses and wishes each time. I can understand what you are feeling. I am still in touch with the girl I bought my horse from and she asks me to ride her from time to time. It seems like a simple enough request but my horse just doesn’t like her because of the way she treats the horse. It is really hard to explain why I wouldn’t like the girl riding my horse.
oooooooooh, that is a great question! It sounds like an interesting topic
I am looking forward to the answer next week. 
-Nicole H
Dear Sheila,
I Like your question and I will answere your question on the blog and open it for discussion on my blog next week.
Good question!
Dear Katrina,
Intention is the key to connection and how to exercise the bond so it can develop deeper and deeper. By not investing in the bond the bond weakens. When we give ourself to the present moment and to our horse, the horse moves up the ladder of serving humans as a slave and becomes a trusted partner and friend. The Waterhole Rituals need to be practiced everyday to form the connection and to develop it. The more you the practice the Rituals the more you discover yourself, and the more you will get out of the experience. Time invested in this as an everyday practice equals value out in the relationship you have with your horse.
Last fall I invited a friend to work one of my two horses while I worked my other horse. This friend had to give up her horse due to economical reasons and I felt comfortable with her ability and my mares personality. I also wanted to share my horses with her because I knew she was devistated about selling hers. I decided since it was the first time she had handled the horse by herself we just took the horses out for a walk on the lead. I wanted a chance to observe her with my horse and my horse with her. Unfortunatly, during this time my friend decided to answer her cell phone 3 times one of which she stood with the horse pulling and circling her while she talked. My horse began to act up and tried to run in cirlcles round me. I was very offended at the time for a variety of reasons. I felt she was being disrespectful of my horse, and of the opportunity to spend time with my horse. The other was her lack of desire to connect with the horse. Later I felt bad for getting ticked off about the situation. I never told my friend what I thought that day, but I have not asked her back again. I am sure she wonders why. After reading your post here I realize I was right in feeling the way I did. I feel the time I spend with my horses should be spent in the moment. Not only for my safety and my horses safety, but so that my horse and I both get the most out of the time we have together.
Thank you for this post.
Hi, Stuart,
I am drinking my green drink and so is my mother. It is her Birthday Sunday.
Thanks again and I hope everything is going well with you and your whole camel family. I would like to do a feature story on you and the camels. How about it!
Love,
Carolyn
Carolyn, I am learning and changing enormously from your blogs and your Waterhole DVD!! so much of living with horses I have taken for granted, now I am opening my senses more and more. my stand-offish 21yr old mare who I’ve lived with for 10years is allowing me in her energy, and is more friendly. I have always believed that she is way smarter than me, and I didn’t want to offend her with bribing her with treats for coming to me. I’ve watched the horses lead from behind and I copied them, but this mare will just trot off if she doesn’t want to come with the others. now I make a point of leading her from behind at every opportunity just for a few meters, until she looks like she’ll trot off, then I turn the other way. I still have to go and get her with a halter, and now I take an offering of treats which she really likes! I see there’s alot of rituals to do yet.
would you talk about mares, geldings, stallions, and the subtleties of their ways of being and communicating?
mares and stallions are generally more conscious, aware and vigilant of their environment than geldings?
Today on my trail ride I really learned that my mares need the time and space to assess new things, before making their own decision about the thing’s scariness level and their appropriate response.(not scary, walk by it, or too scary, run away) In a herd I presume it would be the lead mare especially, who would make these decisions?? I was surprised that my young mare wanted to make the decision to turn and run away, a few times, even though the older, lead mare showed no signs of alarm.
I also had an example of something you talked about, the lead horse will take another horse by surprise to establish leadership. My coach, who grew up living with herds of horses in the north of England, showed me about the timing of emphasing HER decision as leader. she allowed the young mare to back away from the scary log, but kept her facing in the direction. when the horse decided to go forward, she surprised her with a good tap behind the saddle, and explained (again) that you don’t fight them while they are fighting or stalling out, wait until they are “on-side”, then give them a surprise encouragement, and they won’t take offense.
There was a another mare who lived with us for a couple of years, who was hyper-vigilant. (I called her an alarmist.) She was dominant, but not the lead mare in a group of nine. She would frequently alarm the entire herd and get them running laps of the field. They looked like they were really enjoying themselves. do you think they do that for “rehearsal” or just for fun?
thank you again for being a bright light in the wilderness!!
Thanks again Carolyn.
Hoping you’re well.
Stuart
Thanks for both of your great articles this week!!! I loved them! I am learning so much from all your articles and using your method with my horse!
–Also, thanks for you answer to my question last week about my horse eating grass when I didn’t want him to. I didn’t really notice that I have actually been letting him control the speed when I am leading him a lot of the time, so now I am working on always making sure I am setting the pace when we walk, and that is starting to help.
I am also going to start working on the head up/head down cues with him this weekend.
I really appreciate all your articles and answers to questions!
-Nicole H
Dear Kate,
It is how horses are managed that keeps them happy. Not how many people are involved with them. Horses love community. It is the introduction that is important with each person and the skill of the rider or coach. Most horses at riding schools for children are happy if the center is mindful of bringing quality of live to the horse over anyting else. Again it all boils down to managmet, attentiveness and loveing care is the secret.
The best way to bring more humanity to man is to do what you can.
Everday we are becoming more conscious, we have to be because of natural progress.
When I see ill treatment I thing how I could take better care of my own horses.
When I look around I see lessons all around me what to do and what not to do. I look for lessons and not fault. It is this point of veiw that removes the chain reaction to make a horse to be someting he is not.
From looking a the harmony, harmony grows.
I am reminded of the early years of my sons’ formal education. He would come home distraught because he just didn’t understand something. We would sit down and I would search for different ways to explain the same thing to him. Finally we would hit on the right one and everything would fall into place for him. It is the same with your horses, or dogs, or cats, or people. You search for just the right way to say something that this “being” will understand, in the right way. Then…everything falls into place. You then add to that and build a vocabulary between the two of you. I could never stroke my own ego more than when someone sees me simply wag my finger or softly point and my horse is already in motion. Who needs ribbons and trophys? Now, on a more personal note, I’m finding the more I relate with my boy on this level, the harder he “tries” until he tries too hard and gets himself all confused! I always have to giggle and get him to stop and really listen to me SLOWLY. Then we flow. So much of what we discuss here, seems to me, is just going back to being that horsecrazy 12yr. old girl with her first horse and a big field. Just a place to be after school, hangin out with your best friend with no other agenda. Almost a half century later I find those are still the best days. Just him and I and the earth, nothing else.
I think this is an important point about “our’ focus and connectedness. I know from my own experience teaching and working with horses that I have to remind myself at times to focus more when I am working and have drifted away to other thoughts unconciously and some of my students are often not connected at all and I try to make exercises to help them focus in. Even if it’s just for a moment or two…some of them are tough!
Kate your question is one that I think a lot about.
I give lessons on some of my horses, and I want those horses also to feel happy with their jobs – I want them to WANT to give lessons. They do! Because my rule is that anyone who wants to ride them MUST have the connection first.
Students must pass a kind of “test” before they get to have lessons, and the horses are the judges. A lesson is two hours long, so that the first hour or so can be spent on various different bonding activities, including sometimes Waterhole Rituals. If and when the student rides, the horses only do what they agree to do, and I don’t correct them for not performing… so that keeps things within the students current capabilities. If the student doesn’t yet know how to sit in balance on a horse as she walks, then the horse will probably stand still… and the student can spend their time doing stationary excercises.
It works really well, because these horses love being with people, and love activities, and care about each individual that they work with.. in direct proportion to how that is returned to them. So, they do have a connection to everyone. I think it IS possible… If the person who is in charge of things makes it possible.
When there is no such ‘quality control” of the students though.. Yeah.. I think it’s very sad.
Seems that the popular definition of a “lesson horse” or “school horse” is a horse that will perform it’s known job for anyone, regardless of their lack of connection or how poorly they communicate or ride.
The definition of a school horse that I prefer is ” A horse who is open minded and has a positive outlook towards people, is kind and safe, only performs a particular request when the rider is in balance and communicates the request pleasantly and in an understandable way, from a feeling of connection.”
I love Carolyn’s comment “When a horse bonds with you, his choice, he automatically understands what you say. Then you hardly need to train, you can just tell him what you want.”
This has been my experience with my “lesson horses”. And that they can form bonds with many different people, on an individual basis.
For example, one of my horses, Footprint, is really gentle, so she gets really small children. I’ve watched her respond PERFECTLY to a tiny five year old’s requests for her to walk and halt and turn, even though the little child was completely unco-ordinated, and was riding bareback and with only a single rope rein and halter. Because the little child had spent a lot of time with her, building up a bond, and was really clear about what she wanted to ask. Then I’ve watched Footprint with a new adult student who thought they know a little about riding… and Footprint refused to take a single step. But a month later, after spending very little time “riding” but lots of time doing other things, and sitting on her and feeling her movement, and understanding her own body and Footprints body, Footprint could offer her lateral movements without tack, from a really subtle cue.
Footprint’s ability to bond and relate individually to different people would break down though I’m sure, if I had an expectation that she MUST perform in a certain promised way for students, regardless of how she feels about them. The only reason it works, is because SHE still has the choice. So I guess I’m pretty lucky in that I can be selective about taking only students who are willing to work in this way, and I can allow my horses to vote.!
Cheers, Sue
It has been amazing to me how many problems have just disappeared seemingly on their own as my connection to my horse deepens (grass snatching being one of those). He weighs less and less on the lead and on the reins, he responds to what I say to him, and my groundwork and riding get more and more subtle, his responses lighter and quicker. We’re learning each other!
I do buy that some “training” can help with immediate problems, but ultimately it is your connection to your horse that will keep you both safe and happy.
But I have a question – all this stuff is working beautifully for me and my gelding, and I’m really the only one who ever rides him – but how about horses who are ridden by many people and/or lesson horses, where a connection to everyone is not possible? How to make their jobs/lives more enjoyable? I often wonder this as I have to board my horse and see lots of other animals who do not have the benefit of consistent daily connection to any one particular individual.
When I don’t get the “oops I’m sorry” from my horse when I have corrected him on something, I always figure I’ve done something wrong in his eyes and have learned that slowing down and relaxing is the only way to get him back. He taught me this by stopping dead in his tracks when I goof. It’s as though he is saying to me “Now, Pam, you know you screwed up, let’s start over can we – then he waits for my response. I know it sounds a little nuts and I even hesitate to say this, but it is the truth. This is why he is the best teacher I could ever want and I believe that if you just pay attention to what they are saying you will find the truth with your horse. I’d also like to say that paying attention to what they are saying didn’t come easy to me at all and my horse has had to be a bit bold at times to get through to me – but he has gotten through.
What big hearts our horses have!
I am really enjoying and relating to this thread. Thanks, everybody!!
I think this really hits the nail on the head. Good leaders don’t get into fights with those that they are leading. It does not accomplish much, and it is no longer leadership in my opinion. I agree with how you said a correction should cause an “opps sorry” attitude. Correcting a horse in my mind is another way of guiding them and making sure that they stay on the right path without making it personal. So many times I see people scolding their horse for a behavior that should have been shaped before the behavior took place to begin with. It is the handler in that case that should be corrected! Instead, it seems the horse becomes the “therapeutic punching bag” for everything wrong that has ever happened to the person, and a big emotional explosion takes place with the person exclaiming that their horse dileberately tries to annoy them, and is the reason for everything that goes wrong in their life!
Good Luck Alessandra! You’ll be great!
Lori
Thank you Carolyn…
and thank you for the great story Karen. That very instructive story will stay with me as a reminder!
I have been working with a mare that is very fat and doesn’t like to move. She’d happily rear or stand still and alternate lifting her front legs, but she’d really prefer to stay in one spot all day rather than move around. I don’t feel right about letting her do those things for me all day long, because I know she’ll get sore. Right now I’m in the phase of leading her from behind, and she is starting to have some more willingness to move. But she’ll also get resistant sometimes and she’ll just stop and rear. Instead of getting upset with her, I’ll just wait until she lands to let her know I’m not threatened by her, and then I just walk slowly away. Then she almost always follows me. I’m not yet quite sure how to get the horse to feel responsible, but I have noticed that not getting upset or forcing, and instead pausing, and then going with something that rebuilds the connection – like doing something that is fun or easy for us, seems put things back into a good place. If how I am asking is just not computing for the horse, I’m starting to just drop it until I get an inspiration of another way to approach it, like you have taught.
I am noticing that when I lead this mare now, that I cluck and point, and often she’ll step right up to where I ask. No force required. It still doesn’t look like much to people who are asking me why I’m not riding her yet, but I can feel a change. Yesterday she let me put a saddle on her back when she was loose in the paddock (she has been ridden before). I just wanted to see how it fit (it didn’t).
All of these things you share with us are so powerful. Some of them seem so straight forward, like keeping your focus on the horse, but any one of them have the power to drastically shift our relationship with our horses. Thank you for your continued inspiration and support to create the relationship all of us have dreamed of!
On the rare occasion I need to ask my horse to get her head up, instead of pulling her head/mouth, I tap her on the back (as gently but firmly as will get the job done) and that always gets her to bring her head up.
I loved your story! Thank you for sharing it. The other thing I would like to add is if I cannot keep a horse from eating grass with out severe jerking of his head. How I would handle this situation is I would lead him away from the temptation until I had him trained well enough so that I wouldn’t have to jerk him and I could keep him off the grass by asking him to stand quietly with his head up.
I call this exercise that I do “Head up/Head down” and I use this exercise after I have established the waterhole rituals with my horse and he and I have a bond and connection. For more info on “Head up/Head down” look for it in the archives.
I have a story to share about focus when talking. A very heavy handed farmers wife was holding my pony whilst chatting to a group of horse owners on the farm. Pony kept moving his head, and she kept pulling his mouth with his bit in, to keep him still (he was only 4). For 30 minutes she stood chatting while pony was getting more frustrated…….she kept yanking him around by the mouth and although I thought this harsh, it was the old fashioned way of making them learn. So I just kept quiet, held back the tears until………..
Her husband called her, and she turned around, putting her back to my pony………….he had been very focused on her all the time, and took a hugh bite at her rather large bum. Everyone burst out laughing and she started hitting pony for biting. I let her smack him twice but caught her hand when it went up again. I know he MAY have deserved one for biting, but I think he was within his rights to get his own back. I took him off her, she was red with embarresment.
Moral of the story, I am always concious of how much pressure I am putting on him, as he is one of those that plans things. It makes me a better handler because I know it is a two way street with us and he will pressure me just as much as I do him. So we always stay on the nice side of things and try not to upset each other, it works well for us to the extent that even if I have to force him to do something he doesnt want, e.g. vet or going past something scary, he trusts me to always have a reason.
Hope this helps highlight the fact of staying focused on horse/pony.
This wonderful it is the first clinic about Carolyn in Italy! I will be around!
Thanks to all.