Catching with Grain, Cont’d

Regardless of whether you have taught your horse to crowd you, or if someone else did, now that you have the wisdom you can start setting the boundaries for you and your horse.  Our objective is to remain affectionate while establishing a respect of personal space.  We don't want to scare the horse off, making him head shy or getting an explosive reaction with him focusing on getting as far away from us as possible.  There is a time and place for getting a horse off of you when he is running you over and you are in danger... and this type of exercise is exactly what will help create a responsive horse that is sensitive of your boundaries and won't mow you over.

We are going to address the issue of a horse that bumps us with his head, almost like a dog asking to be pet.  As contradictory as this may sound, I want you to respond by giving him the attention he is asking for.  But give it vigorously, tons of love and attention massaging his face passionately.  If he has a halter on, use it to rub his muzzle with.  Then, when he's had enough and pulls away, hesitate, use some feel, look into those gorgeous eyes and reach out and pet him nicely, just a little bit, and then leave it at that.

Over time, with repetition and consistency, you're horse will stop insisting you indulge him, and will invite you to.  It's like the perfect kiss, where you meet in the middle, because all the indications were there that you both wanted to, but you didn't want to rush in and force it, so there's a look, and then you lean in, and finally you connect.  That is feel.  And I know it's a corny analogy between kissing and horsemanship, but go with me on it, I'm a hopeless romantic.

This same strategy can be applied to all sorts of exercises you can do with your horse that establish your bond while maintaining your boundaries.

A video demonstrating exactly what I mean by "vigorous attention" is available online on our site www.equiyoga.net.  Hopefully we will have a DVD out with all sorts of lessons addressing all sorts of issues out by summer 2007, part of an "Ideas for Horse Friends" series.

On these videos I hope to present my ideas about "Equiyoga".  I was reviewing the footage of my yoga sessions, and noticed how much I was crowding the horse.  But as I mentioned earlier, there must be a middle ground.  It is my philosophy that we should be able to touch our horse anywhere, be around any part of his body, trusting in a reasonable amount of safety.  The importance of our position in relation to the horse has been reiterated, so we should understand by now that the best place to be is behind the shoulder.  But there are times that we are going to be at the shoulder, or in front of the shoulder, and everywhere else.  Yoga, massage, shoeing, grooming... all these require for us to be around the red zones.  And so I feel it is important to address this one last thing.  If your activity requires you to be in a red zone, take note of your horse's stance.  Make an effort to get all four feet square and his body balanced, even better shift the weight onto the hindquarter.  After all, this is whole reason that standing in front of the shoulder and crowding the horse's space is bad.  And so this is how we approach the situation to make it good.

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I like to just hang out for a while and see how that horse is feeling about things. When you feel of the horse first, then you can make a plan as to what you might do next. Maybe it won't yield the best results when you try to approach him with your plan.  FEEL OF THE HORSE FIRST. Then this opens the door of communication and in the next moments to follow he will be better prepared to get with your feel. An example might be if you walked into where the horse was and you had plans for him to say, Go to the left. But he was already making plans to go to the right. In effect you put pressure on him and he collided with your energy. Where as if you would have felt the horse first, you would have known that he was making plans to go right and you could have blended in with that and followed him in that direction first, then asked him to go the
direction you were thinking about earlier.
 Cody Deering

Dear Santa-

I want to ride in a one-horse open sleigh like the song says, but if I can't do that, then just getting one horse as my present would do... Since you have reindeer, you're elves must know how to build barns, so while you're at, can I have one of them, too?

  Merry Christmas! 

The Horse's Friend Newsletter is published by T-C Equine Services.  If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, please e-mail the Editor, Tiffany Deering, tbarcequine@windstream.net.

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