The problem we notice on the surface is almost never the real dilemma, which is often deeply embedded in history. We have to take a step, sometimes many steps, backward to discover where the trouble started. Once we truly “see” the problem, we can then advance imaginative and diverse strategies for tackling it.
Fifty years ago the accepted method to accustom a horse to being saddled was to snub him up to a post, cinch the saddle tight, and let him buck his brains out until he accepted it. It worked, but deep down the horse never completely trusted that saddle.
We no longer believe in such methods. We sack our horses out. We get them used to a cinch, then a bareback pad, then a light saddle, then a working saddle. It is the best method — for now.
When working with horses, there is no best way, one way, right way, or wrong way to do things. Period. Whoever insists that his way is best has a lot to learn. The world is full of horsemen and horsewomen coming up with new and better ways to train horses. Horsemanship is built upon a rich history of innovations, so sooner or later the best way to do something with a horse no longer is.
Always keep an open mind that the next person — or horse — to come along just might be able to teach you something new and better.
Sometimes I am dumbfounded that an owner or handler will ask for a specific solution to a specific problem with a horse — as if there is some library where someone has catalogued every solution to every problem that ever existed in a horse. Yep, the answer is on the second floor, third stack, filed under “One-eyed horses that crib* during total eclipses of the moon.”
Only you, as the owner, have the most specific experience and information about your horse — just as with a parent and a child. Use your imagination to see how you might approach a specific problem with your horse rather than believing that there is someone out there with the magic silver bullet that will explain it all for you. Horsemanship is hard work — not because the techniques can be difficult, but because each horse requires a unique, inventive approach. Imagination is just as important as experience when working with a horse.
Horsemanship demands creativity. Use your powers of invention to deconstruct the horse’s problem. Let’s go back to my earlier example of Sonny, the Quarter Horse who is deathly afraid of water. I could ask myself: How big a puddle will he fear? Is he afraid of one that is 4 inches wide? Well, why not? So Sonny is telling me that one potential approach that I could use would be to start slowly working on the size of the puddle since there is a minimum size at which the puddle ceases to be a problem.
Imagination is how you deconstruct problems. Deconstructing problems is how you solve them. The horse’s problems are hardly ever insurmountable, but lack of imagination can make them seem so.
* Cribbing is a complex compulsive behavior where a horse grabs, say, the stall door with his teeth, pulls back and sucks air.
As predators, we tend to charge right at problems. Even our nomenclature betrays our innate aggressiveness while problem solving. We talk of “tackling” or “cracking” a problem. We even say “cut to the chase.”
Don’t run at problems. Walk up to them. Approach them obliquely, with finesse.
The greatest gift a handler can bring to her horse is creativity — and particularly when it comes to deconstructing a problem to resolve it. Mike, a friend of mine, had a horse that was very skittish around diesel tractors. He decided that he would always turn on the tractor before feeding time. The sound of a Ford 3600 diesel took on an entirely new meaning for the horse. The rumbling of the engine became music to his ears!
On the surface, the problem appeared to be desensitizing the horse to the sound of the tractor. But the answer lay in ensuring that the noise took on a positive connotation: dinnertime! Sometimes the things you think should work simply do not, and then you must be ready to create a fresh approach. A creative approach.
Look at problems obliquely and avoid becoming fixated on a “one problem–one answer” response. Instead, deconstruct the problem and evaluate multiple solutions. Try them out and look for the one that is the most elegant and the least energetically demanding for you and your horse.
“When an ordinary man attains knowledge, he is a sage; when a sage attains understanding, he is an ordinary man.”
Zen saying
Every time our horse shies away or spooks, he is telling us we need to address a problem. When we walk around or avoid a small problem, it grows exponentially into a big one. When we see the first hint of an issue, we must make a commitment to our horse that we will fix it. If we attack problems when they are small, they never have an opportunity to become major ones.
For example, someone you supervise is starting to habitually arrive late to the office. The sooner you sit down and say, “In the future, I would like you to call when you think you are going to be late,” the sooner that person will have to monitor himself to avoid having to call you all the time.
Similarly, often owners will see their horses become uncomfortable, agitated, or even outright aggressive in an effort to avoid something that frightens them. Instead, however, of immediately setting to work on outlining the problem, discovering the triggers and creating solutions, owners go into avoidance mode. They recognize the triggers but develop methods or rules to avoid setting them off. Things like “Just don’t touch his ears” or “Always come up to him with the blanket off to your left side” or “Never turn the pressure all the way up in the hose because it makes a hissing noise.”
Learn to be grateful whenever your horse reveals an issue to you. Rejoice when such issues are still small, and address them early so they can be cleared out of your horse’s life once and for all.
Horses seem to know precisely when we are running behind schedule. That is when they decide not to enter the trailer. Things are guaranteed to go haywire because we are in a hurry, so people often bring their horses to a trainer to reteach the art of trailering.
Whenever I am stuck on a problem I ask, “What if I turn the question upside down?” It can produce a dramatic shift in focus — what I call the “180-degree solution.” Here, instead of teaching the horse to get into the trailer, we teach him to get out. Every time he puts one foot in the trailer, we back him out. Two feet, back him out. Three feet, four feet, and so on.
This takes care of the horse’s primary concern: feeling trapped in the confines of that box. Instead he thoroughly understands the way out. The way in becomes trivial!
So often, problem solving involves turning the question on its head. Then the answer may just shake out in front of you.
I will say unapologetically that I love my horses, just as my grandfather did. In my partnerships with horses I have wrestled with how to express that love more fully. The lesson that horses bring to life for me is that I must work to enhance my sense of communion with other life-forms around me, animal and human alike.
I believe we once felt this immediate and palpable intimacy with all of nature. We were immersed in it and we trusted it. With the onset of the Industrial Revolution and the dawning of our Digital Age, however, we have been drawn away from that primary sense of connectivity. In a very real sense, we have banished ourselves from the natural world with all its wonders.
I believe the horse’s greatest gift to us is the knowledge that, while that sense of closeness may have atrophied, it still lies dormant within each of us and can be awakened anytime we choose. He constantly tries to teach us that we can reestablish our unity with the world around us.
We need to free our hearts of any doubt that we are energetically interconnected. Without a sense of relatedness, we run the risk of forgetting the meaning of the remarkable photograph of our Earth taken during the last Apollo mission to the moon. The splendor of that beautiful “blue marble” in space is a magnificent image of how life is bound together by its underlying unity.
Henry David Thoreau wrote during his stay at Walden Pond: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to confront only the essential facts of life, and see if I could learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” The partnership we feel with our horses is a fundamental, tangible assertion that we can make a profound reconnection. It is our birthright. We have only to reclaim it to regain the earthly paradise that has been given to us. The voice of the herd is undeniable and unmistakable.