Fable Farm

For the second year in a row I participated in a demonstration on problem solving using foundational approaches to horsemanship at a local equine expo. At the close of the demo we opened the floor to questions, and someone asked me: if I had one piece of advice for folks trying to create a shift in a horse - regardless of the issue - what would it be?

I said that if there ever was a key to the universe, something applicable to every situation you've ever had and will ever have with a horse, it's the ability to get and then keep your horse's attention on you. Nothing of consequence can unfold if that isn't working in your favor, and if it isn't, you may as well save your breath and your energy until it is.

Naturally, having had some time to sit with it, I have an amendment to that.

Yes, being able to ask for the horse's attention and sustain it is paramount, whatever you're doing. That part of the answer stands, and always will.

The amendment is around how you present that ask - and when.

So often, people only notice their horse isn't truly with them at the moment they go to ask something of him - and find that his mind has quietly slipped out the door and wandered off somewhere else entirely. The natural inclination at that point is to ask louder, more firmly, to demand he come back to you. This is where the fights begin, because we've taken it to him after creating an environment where the rules are built on shifting sands and worse, we've taught him that just how intentional this approach is: that the only time we care about where he is mentally is when we want something from him. The rest of the time, he's left to his own devices.

We fall into the habit of catching, haltering, grooming and tacking up our horses with little awareness of whether they are genuinely engaged in those processes - and then wonder why conflict arises the moment we want to ride or lunge or do something. The trouble is, we don't think of all those things that came before as "doings."

The horse most certainly does.

It is deeply confusing to him when the rules seem to shift without reason or warning. It breeds anxiety, because the horse lives without clarity. When do you want his attention? When does it not matter? How is he supposed to tell the difference? Imagine inhabiting a world where you can never quite read where someone stands...until suddenly you've crossed a line you didn't know existed. This is the world a great many horses live in, quietly and persistently unsettled.

And so, it's not simply about being able to ask for and receive your horse's attention. It's about never taking a single step forward - in anything you might want or need to do together - before you have it. It's about resisting the urge to cut corners, to assume that because a horse is tolerating something he is truly present for it. Tolerance is not engagement. A horse can stand still and be a thousand miles away. What we're after is something more honest than that: a horse who is genuinely with you from the very first moment you approach him, because he's learned that your presence always means something worth paying attention to - not just sometimes, not just when it's convenient, but every single time.

Photo: Harry Whitney with a kind little ex-ranch horse we met in Tennessee
PC: Danielle Gruber