Making a Real Connection

     Last night I found some notes that I took while reading Imke Spilker's wonderful book, Empowered Horses.  They were notes for when I went out to work with the horses, things I wanted to remember.  Finding the notes inspired today's work, or non-work as it were.  The results were telling, to say the least.  Here is what happened:

     I got Snickers out first because he has wanted time with me for a while.  He loves clicker training, so with that in mind his regime involved teaching him to walk in step with me.  He might have picked this up otherwise, but he was partly focused on dinner so he wasn't his usual self.  Using the clicker allowed me to point out something, that it would be nice if we walked in step.  Then he easily and almost on his own started to lunge himself around me.  He was quite willing and picked up on stepping further underneath himself with his inside hind leg (to help collection).




Snickers in Winter, and  (left) in summer



    










Next was Luna, who loves being groomed.  This will be the foundation for everything else, this will be the start of trust and affection, so I went slowly and with attention.  I focused on making her feel good.  The difference is that she responds in a whole new way to that!  Her eyes close part way in pleasure, she stretches up her neck to be brushed underneath.  She sighs and stands very still.  She tells me where she is itchy.  Then we did some lunging, just walking, and she gave me a real hug.  It felt good.




Luna


     Now for the best - Tequila.  Tequila usually avoids me when I go to catch her and it takes a bit of convincing that she should hold still.  Today she stood and allowed me to catch her right away.  This was new!  Without tying her, she stood quietly while I groomed her, probably for the first time, with attention and focus.  Her head dropped as she relaxed.  She never fidgeted or flicked her tail.  She liked it!  I got the camera and took her picture.  She preened and posed for me.  It made her feel special, I think.




Tequila, right after her special grooming today.


     Then I lunged her, just at the walk, and she got the idea about her inside hind leg quickly.  Afterwards we walked around a little and looked at the sunset.  She bit my hat and we played a little.  This wasn't the Tequila I knew, it was totally different.  Her calmness and playfulness came through.  I got the feeling she didn't want to be put away.

     As I write my experiences the words of other trainers come to mind, their boasts of what "they" have accomplished.  It's clear to me that my own ego has gotten in the way of true communication with the horses.  They've tried to tell me many, many times that they didn't like what I was doing.  Today brought it home like a sledge hammer.  Wow, I totally gave up what I had done with Bella to be a "trainer". 

     It blows me away, how much of these things I already knew when I got Bella. I trusted my instincts, and with a few rare things, I might be much better today if I had stayed that way rather than learning everything I could.  But then again, I wouldn't know all this, nor would I be so wise or feel so insensitive and stupid.  

     After reading Empowered Horses I didn't know where to start, what to do.  The book also empowers the "trainer" to do whatever they think they should.  That's so scary and also so freeing.  I've felt lost until today but now I know how to proceed.  I can get one of the horses and start grooming, or with Snickers, do something with treats.  It doesn't have to take a long time, it just has to be intensive and requires my attention and focus.  That I can do, that I will do.

From Mark Nepo's "The Book of Awakening":
"...the Eskimo also teach us how to hunt for truth in the way they fashion their bait (a wolf's rib sharpened at both ends and frozen in blubber so that the bear eats it and then dies). Not by intellectual debate or esoteric study, but by risking something of ourselves, by placing something troublesome and sweet in the open.  By offering something essential from our hunger and coating it with our vulnerability, we call the greater truth into the open with the smaller. Humbly and unavoidably, the need for truth will lead us into the unexpected living of our lives beyond all images of perfection."

 How true - that's what this journey is all about!