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.