Mr Post and the little foal
May 21st, 2008 by Carolyn
Hello. Today’s lesson follows nicely on from Victoria’s question on Monday as I like to tie my horses to a post because I think it is a fabulous way to develop a more dependable horse. Before I tie a horse, I prepare the horse how to stand still at liberty on command using the Waterhole Rituals. If it is a foal, I make certain that foal would be happy being separated from its mother and vice versa. From being tied, a horse learns that when I leave him he is responsible for standing still and not fussing.
At the beginning of the training, I tie him with a knot that I can pull loose immediately he might suggest he would try to pull back. The theory is that in early training if a horse never experiences pulling back, he will not choose it as an option later on when he is fully trained.
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Dear Carolyn,
I recently found your blog and signed up to have it sent to my email. I wanted to let you know how much I appreciate reading your answers to people’s questions. They are written in a clear and compassionate way, and are somehow wonderfully encouraging to me as a horse person. I have been following your material in general for awhile. Before that, as someone who had never handled or ridden horses until age 40, I watched video tapes from Linda Tellington Jones (ground work) to teach myself how to interact with my recently acquired young horses. (Yes, I know, everybody but me says I did it the “wrong way around”.)
The very small exposure I had to “conventional” horse handling was to later take some english riding lessons. It was enough to cause me to really shy away from what I saw was available out there and to continue my commitment to find alternative ways to interact with horses. The riding instructor had me hauling on the reins and squeezing with the legs to keep the horse in a frame. Very hard on my arms, my legs, and ultimately no sense of balance for me on the horse or movement with the horse’s movement. But the big thing was that I could hardly bear to do that to the horse. It felt awful all the way around.
My inner sense of clear boundaries and respect probably enabled me to do so much (groundwork) with horses by myself and on my own. However, I mostly felt as though I was groping in the dark with what I was doing as I didn’t have enough of a clear picture of how horses interact with each other and in their environment. In addition, I had a mountain of fear and self-doubt to work out with myself. The information you have been sharing (book, DVDs and the blog) has really helped me with confidence and has helped me to expand with clarity and energy to continue a wonderful exploration of relationship with horses. Thank you for offering written and filmed materials which been very inspiring to me!
I later had an opportunity to take a few riding lessons which were more in the style of “centered riding”. I have ridden very infrequently because I have always wanted to feel more confidence and trust in relationship with horses before riding. This has been a very slowly evolving process! My hope is that you will continue with DVDs to follow from Panadero’s Journey.
Thank you again for everything you have shared through your materials.
The Best,
Ellen