Flexibility...HA!!

A wonderful character trait to possess, when dealing with horses, is flexibility. Without flexibility you'll find failure a lot more than success. Two examples: the day's lesson and the weather....you didn't see the weather coming, did you?

Now if you're lucky, you'll have a horse that will be flexible with you. Dino and I have differing opinions on this, he thinks not so much when it comes to flexibility. Just yesterday we had such a disagreement. The footing had dried enough, or at least in one spot, that I could work on a 15-meter circle. My plan: walk-trot just to get him moving and loosen him up. The reality: as soon as we walked into the pasture it started sprinkling. Are_you_kidding_me? I looked up to the sky and saw the storm clouds were moving Northwest. Pssst it'll pass, no biggie I thought. I was wrong, so very wrong. In the end, I didn't care. Dino did.

At the first sign of bad weather, Dino is of the school of thought: stop and seek shelter. I'm of the school of thought: suck it up and get it done. My other two horses, Angel and Sancho, would say, "Okay, if we must." "Yes, you must," I say. With Dino it goes more like this:
Dino: "No."
Me: "Yes."
Dino: "I don't want to..."
Me: "I don't really care what you want, I say yes."
Dino: "Funny you should say that, because I don't really care what you want. I say no."
Me: "I can and will make this difficult for you."
Dino: "Yeah, like I can't do the same to you."
Me: "YES!!"
Dino: "NO!!!"

An hour later, and thoroughly soaked, I was desperate to find a good stopping point. Dino was tired and nothing good was coming from our work, so as soon as I found a minuscule of good, we were done. Walking and cooling out was pointless, the flies were nasty and chased us back to the barn. Dino got a bath and then I spent close to an hour hand grazing him.

I am quite proud of Dino, we were able to work through this while a year ago this would have resulted in a full out temper tantrum. Dino would have acted up and turned nasty, I would have grown upset and overwhelmed. No, I'm not just proud of Dino, I'm proud of us together as a team.

I should point out that if your horse is acting reluctant to work, make sure there is not a reason behind it; something physically wrong with the horse or improper tack fitting. You can't ignore the signs your horse is giving you, every moment you are with your horse, s/he is telling you something and you are teaching it something. Ignoring the signs can lead to a lot of problems down the road. I knew why Dino was acting up, he doesn't like his ears wet. Silly, I know, but it's true. Whenever it rains and I insist on keep going, he does this and he also does this when it comes time to bathe him. He's fine if I'm on his body or his face, but creep up his neck to his ears and watch out!

Don't tell Dino, but the day he doesn't even act up when it rains, is the day I won't even make him work. It's all about flexibility and we can't control the weather, just how we react to it.