Sunday, February 19, 2012

Strength of Bond

Like many older Parelli students I discovered natural horsemanship after years of more conventional training where horses were often treated as if they had no capacity to think and methods were often based on force or coercion. I was intrigued by the Parelli promise to put the relationship first and attracted by the bond it created between horse and human. Little did I know in the beginning that the simple task of taking off a blanket would someday serve as a test of the strength of the bond I developed with Jody, one of the most skeptical horses at our rescue.
Jody was one of the first horses I noticed when I began volunteering at the rescue because unlike the other retirees, who sought attention and begged for treats, he remained always just out of reach. A bay thoroughbred with an upside down white tear drop shaped spot on his forehead, and a thick black mane and tail that hung in dreadlocks, Jody refused to allow himself to be caught for any reason.
Every day after I fed the horses I took a curry comb and brush and entered the paddock to groom any horse that would stand quietly for me. Jody often would stand on the far side of a horse I was grooming but if I moved toward him he would walk off. After many days of working quietly around the retirees, Jody finally allowed me to touch him on his neck. I never tried to restrain him, allowing him to choose when he wanted to leave, and slowly he began to allow me to spend more time standing next to him, stroking, brushing and sometimes even working my fingers through his dreadlocks to untangle them.
Because I always allowed Jody to make the decision about if he wished to stay with me and for how long, he eventually began to trust me enough to allow himself to be haltered and held for he blacksmith. I worked with him for an entire year before he would look at me directly with both eyes and it was another few months before he actually approached me when I walked out into his pasture. He had learned to trust me enough that I was able to hold him while the vet cleaned out infected lymph nodes under his chin when he came down with the strangles that swept through the rescue herd.
Despite the trust that had developed between us, Jody remained skeptical of other volunteers at the rescue and often would not allow anyone else to handle him so I wasn't surprised when I returned from a vacation in Florida last spring to discover that Jody was the only horse at the rescue still wearing his winter blanket. The Delaware spring weather had become pretty warm and all the other blankets had been removed by no one had been able to catch Jody to remove his so as soon as I stepped out of my car, the rescue's barn manager approached me and asked if I could please catch Jody and take his blanket off.
Jody was off by himself at the far end of the pasture so I picked up a halter and lead line and headed out to get him. On the way, I stopped to greet each retiree, scratching necks and slipping treats out of my pockets for each horse I passed. Jody occasionally interrupted his grazing by lifting up his head to follow my progress and he didn't move off as I got nearer to him so I didn't anticipate any problems haltering and leading him back to the paddock. When I reached him, he gazed at me with his big brown eyes and leaned into me as I scratched his neck. He was already beginning to shed his winter coat and when I slipped my hand under the edge of his heavy blanket I could feel that he was sweating so I was anxious to remove it. But when I tried to slip the halter on, he moved away a few steps and returned to his grazing. I waited a few moments and approached him. Again he stood quietly with me until I tried to halter him, but as soon as I lifted the halter up he stepped away.
I had never forced Jody to do anything he didn't want to do and I wasn't about to ruin his trust by starting now so I put the halter and lead line on the ground and gave his neck another good scratch. I knew I needed to get the heavy blanket off of him and I didn't seem to have a good option other than to try and remove it out in the field where he stood. I wouldn't worry at all about removing a blanked from my own horse Sonny if he were loose in a field but I was a very worried about trying this with Jody. I was worried because he really didn't like people working around his hind end and I was afraid that if he spooked when I was back there and ran off while the blanket was only partially unhooked, he could get him self tangled up in it, fall and hurt himself. But he seemed relaxed enough with me being out there with him even if he didn't want to be haltered so I thought I would give it a try.
Normally when I remove a blanket, I unhook the leg straps first, then the belly straps and finally the chest buckles, but I was standing at Jody's head and he had always been most comfortable with me in zone one so I decided to start there. His blanket had buckles instead of snaps at it chest closure so while he continued to graze, I slowly worked the buckles until they were undone. Then I spoke softly to him as I ran my hand along his neck and down his back, moving down his side to unhook the belly straps and unhook the leg strap on that side. Jody lifted his head to watch me as I worked at his side, but made no attempt to move off. So far, I thought to myself, so good.
Jody has always been uncomfortable when anyone is standing in zone four or five so rather than go around behind him, I walked back to his head and slipped a treat out of my pocket for him. Then running my hand along the other his body, I stepped around and reached for the other leg strap. That was when I realized that rather than being hooked normally to the rings on his blanket, the leg strap on this side seemed to be tangled with the other leg strap. I bent lower to get a good look at the problem and discovered to my horror that one of the legs straps had broken and someone had tried to fix the problem by knotting them together. There was no way to get the straps untangled from Jody's legs other than untying the knots, but the knots were crusted with manure dried mud and didn't want to budge. To make matters even worse, the tangle of knots keeping the two straps tied to each other was fairly tight against his belly and close to his sheath, requiring me to work in a sensitive area and at a spot where I knew he did not like to have anyone stay very long.
By this time Jody had stopped grazing and had craned his neck around to see what I was doing back there in zone 4. I had dropped to one knee to give myself some stability while I was desperately trying to work the stiffened knots loose and was praying that he wouldn't panic and take off. I don't know how long I knelt there working on that knot but it seemed like an eternity and I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. I knew that if Jody startled and chose to leave suddenly, I was in a vulnerable position and the blanket could easily be jerked off and become tangled around his back legs. He continued to stand with neck bent around watching while slowly the stiff material began to loosen and finally the knots were undone freeing Jody's legs.
Breathing an enormous sigh of relief, I lurched up to my feet and slid the blanket across Jody's back. When it was off, Jody blew and shook himself like a dog before dropping his head to the new green grass at his feet. For a few minutes I stood at his side, using my fingers as a curry comb and groomed great tufts of hair from his withers and back while he grazed. Then he reached around with his head and touched my hand with his nose before walking purposefully away, letting me know that this session, at least from his perspective, was finished.
Put the relationship first - it is such a simple idea but with our direct line, predator thinking, it is not always easy to do. And yet, it is often the little things, the quiet things, that we do every day when we are with our horses that builds the bonds of trust that allow us to become partners. I will never ride Jody and never play the seven games with him. He has earned his retirement. But by putting our relationship first, by allowing Jody the freedom to choose whether or not he wanted to stay with me every time I went out in his paddock or field with him, we developed a strength of bond that has allowed us each to be vulnerable in the presence of the other. And that, I think, is the mark of a true partnership.

Friday, February 17, 2012

The Potential In Feeling Pleased

While I have been on my Parelli journey, I have been constantly amazed at how often a lesson I first learn while working with my horse turns into a life lesson that I can use with my family and friends. Most recently this happened with something I learned in one of my first clinics with Carol Coppinger about the potential that comes from feeling pleased.
We had been playing in the clinic with the circle game and trying to improve the elements, particularly the send and allow. Like many of the other participants, I was feeling the "clinic effect" of not being able to get my horse to do the things there that seemed to be easy when we were playing at home. I was getting a reasonably good send but no matter what I did, I couldn't get Sonny to maintain gait. He would wander around me at a walk but if I asked him to trot, he either broke gait back to the walk or he stopped altogether when he was behind me.
My horse Sonny and I are both LBIs which makes for some interesting sessions. I can get pretty focused and when I do, his opposition reflex springs into action so I try to maintain my sense of humor when playing with him. I was acutely aware of both Carol and Jane Bartsch, my local Parelli instructor, watching us and I really wanted to show them how much progress Sonny and I had made since the last clinic, but the harder I tried to get him to maintain gait, the worse things got. I was beginning to feel embarrassed by how bad we looked and them more frustrated I felt, the less cooperative Sonny became. Looking around me, I could see that many of the other clinic participants weren't having any better luck than I was and I could sense the frustration level rising.
Finally Carol told us to circle up around her and asked one of the other clinic participants who had been having trouble if she would be willing to volunteer for a demonstration. As the rest of us watched, the woman backed her horse away and tried to send it off on a circle. The horse's response was lackluster at best. It circled half a lap and stopped. The woman tried to resend the horse but he just stood there looking disinterested. Carol suggested she bring the horse back to her and start over which she did but without much improvement in response from her horse. As the woman struggled on, we could all see that her frustration growing and her horse's response becoming duller and less motivated. Standing in the circle watching, I could understand the pressure she must be feeling and could identify with her frustration. I was thinking of the hundreds of time during my journey with Sonny when I had been faced with a similar situation and how hard it was in those moments to maintain a positive outlook when my horse either didn't understand or didn't want to do what I was asking.
Finally Carol had her stop what she was doing and asked her what she was feeling. When the woman replied that she was really frustrated, Carol asked her how she thought that affected the horse. The woman turned and looked at her horse and the horse immediately looked away. It was apparent to all of us that there wasn't much of a connection between them at that moment.
That was when Carol told us that she wanted each of us to stand in front of our horses and to look directly at them and feel unhappy with them. I turned to face Sonny, and thinking about how our session had been going, didn't have to stretch far to feel unhappy. Almost instantly Sonny turned his head away from me and when I continued to focus my unhappy thoughts on him, actually stepped away from me.
"Now," Carol said, "I want you to feel pleased with your horse."
I thought about what a neat horse Sonny is an how much I enjoyed being with him. I couldn't help but smile and almost as soon as I did, Sonny turned his head and looked at me. I thought about much I loved going to Carol's clinics and started to grin. Sonny stepped toward me and started to push at my pocket for a carrot. For the rest of the clinic, whenever I felt myself becoming frustrated or a little too intense I practiced feeling pleased with Sonny. Whenever I felt pleased, Sonny became a little more focused on me and a little more responsive. I noticed that when I was feeling pleased, it was almost impossible for me to become worried about how I was doing or to feel embarrassed by my perceived lack of progress. When I was feeling pleased with Sonny I was happier and more positive and more relaxed.
While Carol's message about feeling pleased was a powerful lesson in the potential for positive thinking to improve my relationship with my horse, I recently used it to help my mother. My mother is almost 89 years old and suffers from some serious back problems. For the past five winters, I have taken her to the Florida Keys for a month so she can enjoy a break from the Delaware winters, which can be pretty miserable for someone who suffers from arthritis. She has always looked forward to these trips but this year I noticed that she was having some real anxiety about our upcoming travel.
My mother is a worrier and worries about things over which she has no control. As Mom has gotten older, it has become more uncomfortable for her to travel long distances in the car and she was so worried that she wouldn't be able to make the 7 hour drive from Orlando to the Keys that she actually considered not going to Florida at all this year. I planned our trip so it would involve only 2 hour segments in the car but by the time we left she had gotten herself pretty worked up and the strain was really visible in her face.
The first day involved a drive from our house to Amtrak's Auto train. She made the drive without any significant back pain and when we got settled on the train and I asked her how she was, she told me that she was surprised she had done so well but she was worried about the next days drive. I told her that instead of worrying about the next segment, I wanted her to feel pleased about how well she had done on the first leg. With some encouragement, I had her smiling and laughing about how good she felt. I could almost see the tension draining out of her.
For the next few days, any time she started to express a worry about something I would suggest that she "feel pleased" about something else. Pretty soon all I had to do to get her to smile was to ask her if she felt pleased. I am happy to say we are almost to the Keys and my mother is relaxed and enjoying herself. For a woman who has spent her life worrying about almost everything, and who has had to live with almost constant pain for the past few years, this has been a pretty remarkable transformation.
It is just one more reason why I love Parelli Natural Horsemanship. It really is a way to make the world a better place for both horses and humans!