Looking back I’m not always proud

Looking back at some of the techniques that I used to train my horse, I’m not always proud of them.

What I know for sure is that we can’t live in the past, and accepting that we can’t change it, is the first step to forgiving myself. I can learn from it and move forward. Thankfully I learned along the way that the horse has an amazingly forgiving heart.

The horse that I have is not what I imagined that he would be when I came up with the idea to buy his mama to breed. I did not plan to raise a horse that was full of anxiety. After all, I had raised his aunt and she had turned out to take everything in stride in new surroundings (or so I thought). She didn’t panic when caught in fences or ropes.

His mama is a sweetheart of a horse. Hardly steps out of place. Doesn’t make a big commotion about things. And his daddy, well, what can we say about Mr Renegade – he always put such a great mind on his babies.

I was pretty sure that I was mixing a great potion. I wasn’t trying to get a certain colour, I was breeding for brains and bones. Although I did want a filly and one that would have topped out a 15hh max. But alas, you can’t always get what you want, you get what you need.

Who knew that I needed an anxious, one-eyed horse? I certainly would never have picked that combination.

I raised this boy, and exposed him to the same types of situations as I had with his aunt. I drug him around to different events without his mama, ponied him on trail rides with other horses, trailered him to different show grounds to see the sites. I was pretty sure that I had done my homework.

Shortly after he turned 4, he had a mysterious eye injury that required the removal of his left eye. The vet was certain that it was going to be Uveitis as there weren’t any indications of a physical injury occurring. But after the pathology report came back, the determination was bacterial infection – caused by an unknown injury.

I was advised that I may need to change the way that I handle him, but I was committed that I had done my work on his left side and that I would continue to work with him in that way, and together we would figure it out.

Unfortunately, the next couple of months, I went through quite a grieving process. I recognized the signs and tried to be aware, but there were times, when I just couldn’t control when the emotions came out. I’m not proud, but there were times that I was angry with Ozzy. I would yell and scream at him for no reason. I was mad that this happened to us (me). I was pissed off at him. And for a short time, I hated him.

Thankfully, a really good friend said something to me that brought me around. She said “Janice, he doesn’t care about his eye, he’s just looking for his next meal. And the other horses in the pasture don’t care either. They’re not making fun of him and thinking that he looks funny.”

Once I began to move past the grieving process, it was time to return to training. I soon learned that his depth perception was well out of whack, and there were the simple things like walking through the barn door, in his own barn, that was a new problem. He would rush and bump his hip. I never wanted to coddle him, but I also didn’t want to create more problems. So we did expand the width of the door, turns out, it’s a nice feature now, with a sliding door and window! I had no idea that a different door could be so nice.

He used to load on the trailer just by sending him on (I have a straight load with a manger, so the option to go ahead of him was out). When I tried to send him on, he would balk up, kick out, leap sideways, all of the stuff to avoid loading on a trailer. Along comes another moment that I’m not proud of. I resorted to having to use a helper with a lounge whip to encourage him from behind. And lo and behold he would leap onto the trailer. Problem solved! Right?

Well, not really cause I sure like to be independent and not rely on others to help me load. What if I were travelling somewhere and needed to unload and reload, I needed to do it alone.

Funny thing is, that he would load onto a slant load just following me on. One day, I decided that I would go on his right side and go up in the empty stall and BAM on the trailer he went, without any help. Turns out I didn’t have a loading problem, I had a confidence problem. Once he could see me, on he would go on.

I began to look for help online. I purchased DVDs from a popular trainer and began to apply his methods. I was working on developing him to be calm. Showing him how to be calm. All was going well, until one day I was leading him to the riding ring. We had just walked out of the barn and toward the ring when all of a sudden I was flattened on the ground as he run overtop of me. We are still not sure what happened to cause it, as this was his own yard, and he knew that I was there as I had just been leading. In that moment, once I got to my feet, I became determined to find a better way, after of course, I spit all of the dirt out from my teeth.

I had watched him for the last couple of years and knew that in his own herd, he didn’t run into those mares when all went to hell. He knew where they were. So why then did he run me over?

Well, short answer, because he could.

I had not established myself as a leader. I was not paying attention to him. Had I been focused on what he was doing or thinking, I would have noticed his concern. Also, being transparent, at that time, I may have been more likely to reprimand him for his behaviour versus figuring out a way to help him through it.

This journey has allowed me to figure out a way to be a leader. Many people that I talk to use the term “aggressive” when they think of leader. It’s no wonder that people don’t know how, because it’s far from aggressive. There are times where I might have to be assertive, but not aggressive.

When I met Warwick Schiller last year (May 2017) in Ontario, one of the comments that I had made to him was trying to feel out the balance between being too soft on letting the horse get away with stuff (nibbling, fidgeting, etc) to being too picky and micro-managing their every move.

I now understand when he says “ignore the behaviour” it’s not that you let them get away with it, it’s that you don’t reward that bad behaviour by acknowledging it, instead, reward the behaviour that you want.

When I look over the changes in my style with my horse in the past 12-24 months, I am beginning to be proud of my accomplishments. I am not erasing those “not proud” moments, but I am recognizing that they help me know where I don’t want to be with my training style.