When you work with horses, especially on your own, you become your own 'trainer' with your own philosophy or rules to live by. My philosophy is something I call: The 3, 3's.
1. A horse has the mental capacity of a 3-year-old child.
2. If you discipline a horse, you must do it within the first 3 seconds of it doing something wrong. Otherwise they've forgotten and you're just being abusive.
3. When you do discipline them, only do so for 3 seconds and walk away.
I am ashamed to say that I recently broke my rules. Since this blog is titled the Ups & Downs, I thought in an effort to be honest, I must write about what happened.
A little more than a month ago, Dino started becoming aggressive. At first it was towards my Dad and it was just little things, like pinning his ears when he walked by his stall. Then one day, Dad went into his stall to change out water buckets and Dino wanted out. Dad pushed him back and while Dino stood in the corner, he charged my Dad with ears flat back and mouth open. Dad told me about it and said he got after him. At the time he stressed, "I don't trust him."
In my mind, I thought, "Whatever, I trust Dino. He wouldn't do that to me." It didn't take long before I ate my words. Our barn is 30' by 40' with the stalls along the east side wall. In the northwest corner is the hay mound, directly between the hay mound and Sancho's stall, is where the grain and bedding is stored. Our barn is an open floor plan, if the horses can't get out and we're doing stalls, we just let them out into the 'court-yard', if you will. At some point, someone was being naughty, I don't know if it was Angel or Dino, but my Dad got a rope to fasten across the width of the barn to Angel's stall, to keep them out of the hay. Okay, I was lazy in a hurry, whatever, but I didn't fasten the rope across as I was cleaning Dino's stall one day last month. He got into the hay, I yelled at him, he moved away and when I approached him he got aggressive. Laid back his ears, switched his tail, his mouth tightened...all the signs that I know is his way of telling me, "I'm in no mood."
It didn't deter me, I thought in my silly human mind, "I'm the boss here, what I say goes." So I asked Dino to move over, nothing. I told Dino to move over, nothing. Well now I'm annoyed and I made Dino move over. He turned his butt towards me and double-barreled kicked at me. I would like to think I reacted about the same as anyone would, I was angry and I immediately got after him. I made him move and continued to do so until I felt he had moved his feet enough and I gained some respect before I allowed him to stop. Remember, this is a 30' x 40' barn with three stalls, 18' from the front of their stalls to the opposite wall and about 30' from the hay mound to the front of the barn; so its about 18' x 30' of free space. Really the horses can only walk in there, maybe a few steps of trot but nothing else - there's just no room, so it wasn't like I was running him ragged. But I did keep him moving.
About a week goes by and the same darn thing happens. Dino got into the hay mound, I got after him and he kicked at me - one foot this time, the back right. He was so close to me this time, I literally had to spit out dirt and small stones. I reacted differently this time, I was angry and there was a level of fear that rose up within me and more than anything, I reacted to that fear than to my anger. I, again, got after Dino. When I went to grab his halter, he reared. He didn't strike out, just reared up. That pretty much sealed it. I was no longer thinking clearly. I can't even begin to speculate how much time elapsed, it felt like no more than 10 minutes, but I'm sure it was much longer. Needless to say, when I was done Dino was shaking with his nose to the ground.
It was at that moment that I saw what I had done to him and I immediately backed off. I was sitting on something, don't recall what, watching Dino watch me. I softly called to him and he, without hesitation, came directly to me. It would be nice if I could say we shared a moment, but we didn't. I finished in the barn and went up to the house to email my trainer. I was honest about it and asked for guidance in this situation. I even reached out to a few horse friends, who all quickly attempted to assure me it was okay. I needed to get after him and even it was done harshly, he was less likely to do it again.
Wrong.
It was like three days later and I was in Dino's stall cleaning it with him in there. I asked him to move, nothing. I told him to move, aggression. I made him move and he kicked. This time my pitchfork was the causality. He nailed that sucker and had it been bone instead of plastic and wood, he would have broken, no shattered, the bone. Of course, it would have been my knee or thigh he was that close. Once again, I got after him. Which was stupid, because at one point I was in the corner with no where to go. Which in hindsight is how Dino felt, trapped.
Every month I get four horse magazines: Horse Illustrated, Dressage Today, Practical Horseman, and Equus. One might ask, "Why so many magazines?" I like learning about new techniques and sometimes what someone writes, can resonate deeply when the right person reads it. They can see things more clearly, understand a situation better, take what that person learned - apply it to their life/situation, and it all allows them to become a better person.
The March issue of Equus had two such articles. One was titled "Get Your Horse's Attention", in which Cherry Hill talks about combating boredom, anticipation and sourness. Right now, Dino is sour. A horse who is sour will pin their ears, switch their tail, head shaking, bucking (kicking), bulk when asked to move,etc. This paragraph spoke volumes to me, "Finally, sourness can develop when the lines of communication between horse and rider are broken. In particular, the communication sequence is broken if you forget the importance of acknowledgment and yielding. If you don't yield (reward) when the horse does something correctly but, instead, you try to "hold" your horse [...]" This is not something that happened over night, our communication has been breaking down for a while now. I just kept thinking, "Winter, it's bound to happen. It'll get better when we can get back to work." I know I need to re-establish the lines of communication with Dino if we are to move past this. Waiting for the ground to thaw is not going to work here.
The second article is part of a series, "Saving Sophie". Author Ann Hardy was a journalist who adopted an Appaloosa filly, Sophie, whom was rescued from slaughter. In part III of the series, Ann and Sophie are facing their own communication breakdown. Ann found help in a new trainer, Emily, who believes Sophie's "integration into a herd was paramount. As prey animals, horses need a herd in order to feel safe. Also, the pecking order of a herd would teach Sophie valuable lessons in terms of respect and hierarchy - in other words, she would not be allowed to be a brat [...]" Dino is a race-horse-brat, he was isolated so long at the track that he really doesn't know how to act in a herd. And right now, who's going to teach him? My 23-year-old 13.2-hand Paso Fino gelding or my 21-year-old lame (read: crippled) thoroughbred mare? When it comes down to it, I am the fourth member of the heard and it's up to me to find a better way to communicate with him about what is acceptable and what is not. Again, communication.
Probably the best was Jim Wofford's column in Practical Horseman, "Our Horses, Our Teachers", which is where the title of this post came from. I love reading Jim's column every month, there is always something to learn from them. This time around Jim was really stressing just how much we learn from our horses and he goes on to list what he has learned: Patience; Ignore gender and color; Work beats talent everytime; Plan for success; Punctuality; Sense of humor; and Optimism. What stuck out at me the most was optimism. "You only need three things to be happy: Someone to love, something to do, and someone to do it with. If you love horses, this takes care of itself. "
That last day, when Dino kicked at me and got my pitchfork, I had a good cry in his stall. Just wrapped my arms around his neck and sobbed. I just felt that I couldn't put up with that type of behavior and he probably needed to go. It was at that moment that I felt compassion, but it wasn't coming from me, it was coming from Dino. You see, as I was crying, Dino had wrapped his neck around me almost laying his cheek against my ear with his nose over my shoulder. I caught my breath for a second and thought, "How weird, its like he's hugging me back." Maybe I'm anthropomorphizing here and it probably doesn't even matter, I just knew in that moment that Dino and I are in this together, that together Dino and I will ride this out and be better partners on the other side.
In the midst of all of this, Dino turned nine on February 13.