Anna Blake's Blog, page 23

Living the Question

“Why can’t my horse behave for the farrier?” Sarah isn’t the only one who asks this question.

Picking up feet might be one of the most under-rated skills a horse can have. It’s inconvenient for us that a horse must be a prey animal, but it’s their nature. Horses will always be horses. We may think we’re asking if we can clean their hooves, but we’re really asking if they are willing to surrender their ability to escape and put their sacred hoof into the control of a traveling predator who smells like other horse’s hooves. Is that much different than you cantering without a bridle? Trust is a question that is never really settled. If your horse is willing or even shut down, it’s easy to take hoof care for granted. If it’s a problem, or what I like to call a conversation, then it may produce as much anxiety for the owner as the horse. Bring a farrier into the mix and anything can happen.

But Sarah was asking all the right questions. “Is it an emotional or physical difficulty for him? What can we do to help him?”

When a horse has a challenge, it’s usually caused by a combination of a few things. I’ve known farriers to pick fights with horses which can leave an emotional mark. Pain is a common reason, but pain can be a bit nebulous. Is the hoof hot or is his shoulder sore? Is he sore from compensating for a different hoof? Pain from ulcers is a good enough reason to make a farrier visit an event. And then if the situation has gone on for a while, some of it is a combination of memory and habit that adds up to worry. There are so many ingredients in this moment that looking for a guilty culprit isn’t the point. Focusing on what isn’t working is a negative start, serving only to isolate the horse with his faults.

Anxiety is a natural a component of a horse’s nature; it’s what keeps them alive. If you look at it that way, it might not even be about his feet.  It’ll take some sorting out to find answers to all the nebulous questions but in the meantime, we can help him. Sarah’s idea was that I join them for her farrier visit. Sarah’s farrier is willing, we set a time and I’m there via messenger on the phone, so I can see and be part of the conversation. We say our hellos and affirm that we are all on the same page. We want to help Bear. We’ll include him in the conversation, too, listening to his calming signals.

We start slowly because horses all agree that’s a good idea. Bear gives us a tiny try and he is roundly praised. It isn’t much but now we’re in the conversation with him. Sarah’s farrier gets credit here, too. She is the lead negotiator. It’s so much easier to say we want the best, but trickier to act that way. Most of all, Bear isn’t isolated; we’re not scrutinizing him like coyotes. Instead, Bear has a squad of mismatched, mid-life cheerleaders who do more breathing than hopping up and down screaming.

Now is a good time to remind you, even if your horse stands well and seems calm, that most likely his heart rate is up, his blood pressure has changed, as well as his cortisal levels. Anxiety is the natural state of a horse and being stoic doesn’t mean it isn’t stressful. When was the last time you pulled your own anxiety out and gave it a scratch?

Sarah says, “You [Anna] don’t have THE ANSWER but you recommend just doing two hooves each time she comes to trim, plus some other good recommendations.” I always start youngsters with two feet per visit. Yes, it costs more. The farrier must make two trips. It’s inconvenient for the humans but we’re working for a life skill that goes against a horse’s nature. We are setting a course for understanding. We need to show some willingness to be invested as much as the horse is. Bear is older; he has a life of experience in the balance and re-training requires patience. We start at the beginning again, and give the horse the time he needs to change in his mind.

Was having me there a miracle cure? No. There are no miracle cures and if a horse trainer says different, red flag! Trust isn’t one of those things we can buy off the shelf.

Over a year later, Sarah says, “As Marcia [the farrier] and I go along, we are LIVING the question. We don’t have THE ANSWER (yet). But we work a compromise. Perhaps someday this will no longer be an issue for Bear. But until then, I am cool with just LIVING the question. I don’t have to have the solution to carry on.”

As much as we like answers that are tied up with ribbion, the world is more chaotic than that. Ask any horse. What if the “problem” is us being too narrow-minded and hurried to see the resolution? What’s the rush; if he lives to be thirty-five, the conversation will evolve. Living the question is a way to say it’s all a work in progress. Isn’t that exactly where we all are? Where we all want to be? Imperfectly perfect while living out our lives?

In the meantime, Sarah has invented a way of haltering. Or it could be that her horses suggested it and she listened. Either way, it’s a thing of beauty. Bear is leading from behind comfortably; he has more confidence. Best of all, she’s begun riding again. She didn’t know that would even be possible. Recently a longtime friend noted that Cash, her other horse, was so calm that he was almost unrecognizable. The big picture reveals obvious remarkable improvement, even just two hooves at a time.

What if anxiety isn’t wrong but instead an invitation to a conversation? Learning to make peace with the nebulosity of life, while holding curiosity and the willingness to listen to what we don’t like, means the conversation with a horse can continue.

Sarah’s final question is rhetorical, “Isn’t it affirmative to just be able to ‘sit’ with uncertainty?” Yes, because healing starts with acceptance.

…

A special thank you to Sarah, and all my clients and horses. You’ve been a happy reminder, as I’m top-half dressed in a Zoom lesson, that there’s possibility in this crazy year. Saying yes changes everything.

…

Anna Blake for Relaxed & Forward 

Want more? Visit annablake.com to find over a thousand archived blogs, purchase books, schedule a live consultation or lesson, subscribe for email delivery of this blog, or ask a question about the art and science of working with horses.

Join us in The Barn, our online training group with video sharing, audio blogs, live-chats with Anna, and the most supportive group of like-minded horsepeople anywhere.

Courses and virtual clinics are taught at The Barn School, where I host our infamous Happy Hour.

Affirmative training is the fine art of saying yes.

The post Living the Question appeared first on Anna Blake.

The Solitary Journey to the Heart of One Horse

I listened to a podcast interview with Jane Goodall this week. She is my personal superhero, and I will never tire of her. At 86, the primatologist’s voice is compelling. She is humble but when it comes to her politics, her love of animals and our planet, her voice rises above the din with equal parts authority and kindness. Her original dream was to sit in the jungle and observe chimpanzees. Then life happened.

I’ve listened to Dr. Jane’s story often but each time there is an ordinary word that rings me like a bell, and my understanding expands. It’s usually something I’ve heard before, and this time, it was something that I say myself. It was a throwaway line as she was relating beginning her work in the 1960s, talking about chimpanzees making tools and differentiating individual personalities in the group. Then, without guise, she’s singing a chimp call that sounded as holy as a church choir. In the middle somewhere she flatly states that animals are sentient beings, and they have feelings.

She used the word feelings. I usually say emotions.

Science has proved it and I know it. For crying out loud, I teach it every day. Somehow hearing that ordinary word, in her lilting voice, at that precise time, felt profound. The words joined up with memories of horses who had no “training issue” but had become mentally unstable or emotionally exhausted by training methods that brutalized their sensitivity. We didn’t care how they felt. It wasn’t new information, but the old idea was illuminated in a way that made deeper sense to me.

People were touchy about being related to chimps back then, and evolution was a hot issue. Decades later, here we are with horses. Some people will never see more than a beast of burden, and for some of us, horses are more intelligent than all the cousins on our father’s side of the family combined.

Learning is not a graceful event. Not a straight line, learning is more of a sphere where we roll around until we see all sides. One way or another we all get bucked off. Our feelings get trampled and our best intentions go sideways. Some days, we dance, we sing, we fly. Other days, we bounce, we stumble, we crawl. We all regret the blunders we’ve made and only figured out in hindsight. Other times we’ve been shamed for not punishing horses enough. I’ve never met anyone who isn’t wrestling with a heady mixture of impatience and self-doubt. Do you worry you’re failing your horse?

This week, along with Dr. Jane, I heard from three people new to the idea of calming signals and totally overwhelmed. Usually, the first thing that happens is that horses tell us something we don’t want to know. We realize that the thing we thought was affection from our horse is really anxiety. Or we started listening to the horse and now we can’t seem to lead him. Hardest of all, we figure out that the “training issue” is really pain and we misunderstood his call for help. Guilty of the very last thing we would ever want. It’s stressful enough that in a dark moment, we scream or crumble or both.

What if floundering is an ordinary step as we make the shift into deeper listening and understanding of horses? Now’s a good time to tune in to your observation skills. Pretending to be Jane Goodall works for me. I just watch, not intruding, not asking for anything. Observing cools our feelings, slows time, and opens the possibility of curiosity. Soon your horse will return your calming signals. You’ve been knocked down a notch and the good news is that true two-way communication is happening.

Learning a new idea can be exciting, but it’s just words until we go through the process needed to internalize the words by connecting to some experience we have, and then work for some understanding. We must earn our knowledge. I’ll use a different set of words, hoping to ring a bell. Learning about horses is not a flat race. It’s more like an endurance ride.

When did we get complacent about the challenge of learning? Was it listening to a huckster say that one simple training technique works on every horse? You don’t need to be Dr. Jane to know horses are individuals. Think of babies coming into the world and needing to learn our language, without another word to translate. It’s an undertaking as immense as life itself. Years will pass before a child becomes fluent, able to internalize meaning and nuance. Years of literal schooling.

Is working with horses much different than that? We are deconstructing language into a body voice but it’s still about meaning and nuance. The real difference is that we are working with a sentient thousand-pound flight animal with feelings. They aren’t like kids or dogs. It’s rightfully confusing at times because we are all Jane Goodall, both challenged and thrilled, on the edge of a discovery that is going to transform the world. Nothing less.

And in this week of threes, I also heard from three people in The Barn School who experienced a “peaceful proximity” event. It’s a moment that was brand new and profound, but with longtime horse companions. It happens when we don’t try. When we ask for nothing; when the air is still and we haven’t agitated the horse with threats or cajoled him with sweet talk. In that quiet place, the passive action of observing creates a sort of vacuum that calls a horse in a way that all our rattle and hum never will. Did Dr. Jane discover this in the forests of Gombe? Our stillness is the invitation to a place below the surface of warm skin and pretty manes. It’s where we listen to their feelings, where we gain an understanding of their experience, and where we learn to gallop with power and kindness.

I do know this: You are in the perfect place to be taught. If you’re trying to survive a disaster, it will pass to smoother ground, and if you are riding high, you will hit a bump. One day doesn’t matter more than another. We’re in this for the long ride and that’s all about learning a new language. You have all the time you need because we know exactly where this spirited journey of bliss and drama will lead. In the end, we still love horses.

“Affirmative training is the art of understanding the horse. We train with a profound concern for the horse’s mental and physical welfare. We listen to his Calming Signals to learn his perspective. We affirm the horse’s intelligence, empowering his confidence with positive energy.”

…

Anna Blake for Relaxed & Forward 

Want more? Visit annablake.com to find over a thousand archived blogs, purchase books, schedule a live consultation or lesson, subscribe for email delivery of this blog, or ask a question about the art and science of working with horses.

Join us in The Barn. Subscribe to our online training group with training videos, interactive sharing, audio blogs, live-chats with Anna, and the most supportive group of like-minded horsepeople anywhere.

Courses in Calming Signals and Affirmative Training, as well as virtual clinics, are taught at The Barn School, where I host our infamous Happy Hour. Everyone’s welcome. Affirmative training is the fine art of saying yes.

The post The Solitary Journey to the Heart of One Horse appeared first on Anna Blake.

Calming Signals and Whiskers

I always thought of grooming as part of the warm-up for the ride. It’s the price paid up front, a thank you in advance. I spent hours currying and brushing, trimming fetlocks and conditioning tails. My horses stood quietly ground-tied to get their ears clipped and their chins trimmed. I cared for them as a meditation; an affirmation of the love and respect I had for my horse and our partnership. No one died. Without exception, my horses looked better than I did. I was taught proper grooming by the same wonderful, knowledgeable trainers who taught me to ride patiently and train by listening. We were not monsters; we were proud of our horses, followed traditions, and did what was required or advised. And scientifically, we were still in the dark ages.

This week, the FEI, (Fédération Équestre Internationale), the international governing body of equestrian sports, has banned whisker trimming under penalty of disqualification. Hooray!

Whiskers and other facial hair around the eyes are known as vibrissae. They are critical to a horse’s spatial awareness. Horses are unable to see objects directly in from of their eyes or below their nose, and whiskers are a sensory organ used to process information, including finding food, communicating calming signals, and environmental awareness such as wind direction. The highly tactile whiskers have blood-filled sacs at their base to amplify movement. They help foals find the teat after birth and have also been found to compensate for compromised vision

There isn’t much scientific data on removing these sensory hairs on horses, but it has been studied in other mammals like rats, dogs, and cats and found to be debilitating. A large part of the brain is devoted to processing nerve impulses from vibrissae in some species. It isn’t a stretch to assume similarities with horses and see it as a welfare issue.

The USA lodged concerns about implementing the recent FEI decision. Many riding disciplines and breed organizations here have a tradition of clipping. Germany banned hairless muzzles in 1998, and many of us stopped back then as well. When we know more, we can change our ways for the better. Breaking tradition is progress, and a version of political correctness exists in the horse world. Are you feeling just a bit superior that you never trimmed them in the first place? Good for you.

When I read scientific research, sometimes I need to sit with it to comprehend the words. It seems that these extremely sensitive vibrissae are hairs that have the qualities of eyes and fingers at the same time. Isn’t that miraculous? Muzzles are certainly the most sensitive part of their bodies. Humans don’t have vibrissae so we can only guess what that level of sensitivity feels like. Some horses react to us touching like it’s a raw nerve, and for others, touching seems to shut them down. Some horses get stuck in hyper-arousal and others act like they’re ticklish. And we like to tickle their noses.

Please think about that. I use the example of getting tickled to explain to humans about calming signals that are an internal conflict causing anxiety. It’s an emotional incongruence. Most humans hate being tickled but we still laugh when it isn’t funny, as a way of releasing anxiety. Laughter is a human calming signal.

It’s important to be aware as aware of these sensory organ hairs as we are their eyes or ears when reading calming signals and communicating with horses. 

Can we extrapolate a bit? Humans have always had a knack for exploiting a horse’s weak areas to control them. No wonder that huge twelve-hundred-pound horses are immobilized by twitching their nose or ear. Conversely, it’s logical that a horse would be safer and more confident with whiskers in competition and on the trail. Yay, we learned something. We have a choice to work in unison with a horse or use domination in training.

Is there a difference between a horse using their vibrissae to sense us, when we’re standing too close for them to see us clearly, and us touching their muzzle habitually? Many of us touch our horse’s muzzle without noticing. Each time a vibrissa is stimulated, it sends an alert to the horse brain at a rate of 250 mph. Did you mean to yell? We assume they’re greeting us so we return the touch as if shaking hands, but should we? If we all agree that clipping whiskers are detrimental enough to be banned, why do we have so little compassion for horses as to mangle their most sensitive noses? Should we keep our hands off their faces and put a quiet hand on their neck or bury our noses in their manes instead?

I constantly see horse lovers and even professionals, standing face to snout with horses, unconsciously tweaking noses, adjusting their forelocks for no reason, and just generally fussing with the horse’s face. Invariably the horse is showing subtle calming signals like dead eyes, trying to communicate that the human is too close, but we’re too busy loving them to notice. When the horse closes his eyes, it’s easier to think he is bonding in some mystical way than pulling inside to escape the attack we aren’t aware we’ve launched.

And that’s how it happens that a horse lover with the best intentions might groom their horse to a shine, clipping every errant hair. We don’t do it because we’re monsters. We don’t know any better, or we don’t think it through from the horse’s side. We follow traditions rather than science. We lollygag in our frontal cortex, telling ourselves stories, forgetting that a horse’s brain is focused on survival. While we sing love songs, they eternally ask if they’re safe. It’s unflattering to us to think in terms of predator and prey, but horses are hardwired for nothing else. We think we’re initiating a conversation but might we be doing the opposite?

Here’s an experiment: Stand at your horse’s shoulder, facing the same direction he is and in his direct line of view. Notice any change in his face or poll. Exhale and find stillness in the earth. Think of it as asking a question with your body, and then leaving a vacuum for your horse to answer. Every horse will respond differently according to experience and confidence. If it’s a change for the two of you, they’ll show some anxiety by moving, but hold to the experiment. Notice how much you want to touch his nose. It was the hardest habit to change for me. I had to use my pockets.

Then give your horse the confidence that you won’t clip away his sensory organs, but more than that, that you will respect that most sensitive area. No matter how much you want to touch his velvet nose or kiss that adorable snip of white on his muzzle, try to understand it from your horse’s side. Then make a conscious choice.

…

Anna Blake for Relaxed & Forward 

Want more? Visit annablake.com to find over a thousand archived blogs, purchase books, schedule a live consultation or lesson, subscribe for email delivery of this blog, or ask a question about the art and science of working with horses.

The Barn, our online training group with video sharing, audio blogs, live-chats with Anna, and the most supportive group of like-minded horsepeople anywhere.

Courses and virtual clinics are taught at The Barn School, where I host our infamous Happy Hour. Affirmative training is the fine art of saying yes.

The post Calming Signals and Whiskers appeared first on Anna Blake.

Poetry Out Loud: Horse. Woman.

This blog will get back to some sort of new “normal” soon. What a year, huh? For now, just a note to say how grateful I am for your time here with us. I so appreciate you.

Thre is a new book out and this is an audio version of the title poem, Horse. Woman. 

https://annablake.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Poetry-Horse.-Woman..mp4

Here’s the poem on the page:

Horse. Woman.

There were always horses, some light and

some dark. The woman met them in passing

or they stayed forever; some were proud and

some stayed hidden deep within. After the

gelding stumbled and fell, trapping the woman’s

leg, breaking her loose from her easy fairytale

romance, the woman and the horse stood

on equal footing. She feared her mortality as

the horse had always feared his own. Negotiation

began, internal parts of one were exchanged

with the other, melding counter to instinct, until

essential ground yielded to trust. The woman

careful to keep kindly stoic, so coming and going

was gentle for the horses, a loose hold that granted

freedom within their confined lives. The horses

answered by teaching the woman a body-voice

that other horses would recognize, granting entry

to an ancient herd running unbound across time,

beyond breed or nature. Recognizing themselves

only by who each became in service to the other.

The book is available online at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and signed copies here on my website.

New classes will start in January at The Barn School, and if you are considering joining The Barn, this is a great time. Information in the signature below.

Let’s take 2021 for us and our horses.

Anna.

…

Anna Blake for Relaxed & Forward 

Want more? Visit annablake.com to find over a thousand archived blogs, purchase books, schedule a live consultation or lesson, subscribe for email delivery of this blog, or ask a question about the art and science of working with horses.

The Barn, our online training group with video sharing, audio blogs, live-chats with Anna, and the most supportive group of like-minded horsepeople anywhere.

Courses and virtual clinics are taught at The Barn School, where I host our infamous Happy Hour. Affirmative training is the fine art of saying yes.

The post Poetry Out Loud: Horse. Woman. appeared first on Anna Blake.

Calming Signals: How the Farm Says Thank You.

 

 

 

It’s Thanksgiving time and I should write something special, but I feel kind of ordinary. All I can think about is how dry it is. Last week a fire started on a neighbor’s property. They got it under control quickly, but I stood with my mouth open watching. I was frozen, knowing we were most likely safe but still filled with dread. The drought is extreme, and we have almost no ground cover left. I suppose that’s some sort of backward good luck.

Fire is bad enough, but in Colorado, it often comes with severe wind warnings. Soon the threat will be snow with severe wind warnings. It was time to finish winterizing in the barn. Every year it changes because the herd is a year older. This year the big gelding needs more room for overnight walking. The herd of geriatric llamas, who have always cushed in the open, creating snowdrifts around themselves, have hijacked a stall and run. They did it mid-summer and I won’t argue. And then there’s me. I’ve undervalued my needs in the herd but each year I get older, lugging buckets and bales, I have to get smarter about how I do things. As I look for the best solution for each herd member’s needs, I add in my own. Nature has taught me to value efficiency in the winter. Looking at my two small barns, I decide to flip the barn occupants one for the other. A big decision in our tiny lives.

I started, as all good change happens, but adding a new gate. They are the ultimate luxury in a ground blizzard. I bring the new one in to replace the gate that Edgar Rice Burro can open too easily, and he follows me, I swear, looking at the latch on the new gate while I’m still dragging it. I switch it under the watching eyes of this good donkey, a mini horse, a mare, and a goat who will soon be living somewhere else. They follow my work with quiet eyes, I forget the wrench I need and they wander with me to get it. Watching this mare, her stifle problem is finally visible. I think of the years vets told me she was fine, but I decided to believe her instead. It was a turning point for both of us.

I tug the old gate over to replace a damaged gate in the other barn, congratulating myself for the sleight of hand. It’s the trickle-down we all use; when barn boots wear out and the good boots get demoted, nothing wasted. Being frugal is a matter of pride that the daughters of depression-era parents learn young. The broken gate goes to the metal recycle pile. I’ll use more gas than I get paid, but metal doesn’t go to a landfill. I’m a steward of this farm and this planet. It all matters. Then I switch water tanks so there’ll be a short tub in the place the short horse will spend his nights, and might as well give all the tubs a good scrub while I’m at it. Hours pass doing un-remarkable things.

I get a length of fencing out of the storage area. It’s two feet wide, having been cut in half for another repair a few years ago, but it’s just what I need now to line the inside of that run. The llamas are all past their expiration date and thinner than I’d like, so they get pretty tasty supplements. Arthur, the goat, crawls under the fence panel, butts them away, and steals their grain. The leg that was badly broken when he was a kid has fused and he’s aged into a peg-leg pirate of a goat. Better for all that the llamas have a goat-free zone. I use zip ties to attach fencing, a step up from tying it with twine. Zip ties prove I’m capable of evolving, too.

By now it’s dusk, I’ve tinkered the day away, and it’s time for alfalfa mush and fresh hay bags. Moving horses from turn-out to night-shelter becomes an event, the geldings cantering their new digs, sniffing the difference in the air. Our nervous bay horse is moving with more confidence, but the bite marks on the gray gelding mean something is changing, and with his history of gastric issues, I will keep my eye on him. For now, it’s a celebration.

In the other barn, just a few strides east, the thirty-six-inch mini is standing his ground in front of the mare, who lifts her tail, just because she must. The llamas hum as they eat, the goat butts at the fence separating him from his mislocated dinner. Edgar begins a series of heaving breaths, the precursor to his dinner-bell bray. In a minute, all are settled to hay. A random snort, cocked hips, this daily meal so commonplace and routine that it would be easy to take for granted, but the sky is a peachy-pink color that makes my breath catch in my throat.

There is no romance to caring for horses and each year the expenses increase. Hay prices go up, gates wear out, and fifty-pound feed bags get heavier. Include the emotional cost of watching loved ones grow older. It’s a sober moment tallying all that has been paid for this simple routine day. Have you ever wanted something so badly that the very word comes out of your mouth a full octave lower? And decades later, is it still so dear that you don’t dare utter the sacred word?

It’s after four-thirty when I get back to the house. The sun is low, and temps have dropped below freezing, but the old dog greets me at the gate. Finny is the quintessential elder- bad vision, bad hearing, bad back end. His moldy gray body bounces an inch into the air and comes down stiff-legged. He does this exactly once and then leads me to the house, stopping every step or two, disoriented. Recently, he lost his will to eat, a sure sign that the end is near, but I tried a simple thing; I warmed his dinner. It’s a small favor that’s made a difference for now.

Some would say that animals aren’t grateful for our toil, only beasts of the land. Some think we are on the edge of returning to the language we lost with civilization, as our brains took over our senses. Read their body-voice or calming signals, we understand every movement is a message relating their pain or need or anxiety. But calming signals reveal animals to be more eloquent than our language allows if we listen to their stillness without guise or expectation. There is nothing ordinary in quiet moments, each holding our own autonomy, while our shadows mingle on the ground.

Silent breath, soft eyes, lateral ears denote infinite meaning in the absence of stress. Thanksgiving blossoms in silence. Gratitude is demonstrated by peace.

 

…

Anna Blake for Relaxed & Forward 

Want more? Visit annablake.com to find over a thousand archived blogs, purchase books, schedule a live consultation or lesson, subscribe for email delivery of this blog, or ask a question about the art and science of working with horses. The Barn, our online training group with video sharing, audio blogs, live-chats with Anna, and the most supportive group of like-minded horsepeople anywhere. Courses and virtual clinics are taught at The Barn School, where I host our infamous Happy Hour. Affirmative training is the fine art of saying yes.

The post Calming Signals: How the Farm Says Thank You. appeared first on Anna Blake.

Altering Time to Benefit Your Horse

You have a plan for your horse and an expectation of how it will go, but it’s taking way too long. It’s a simple task. Maybe you’ve seen someone else do the same thing easily, so you lose confidence. You’re probably doing something wrong. If you were doing it right, your horse would do the task. You know being in a hurry is a mistake, so you go still. You aren’t the sort to get loud and angry, so instead, you get quiet and willful. Check your watch, it’s taking forever. Your horse knows how to do this thing. It could be taking the bit or loading in the trailer or getting over a near-pathological fear of something foolish to be afraid of.

You are determined to take the time it takes and as you stare at him resisting, you barely notice that your jaw is set. Because you can’t pretend you don’t have responsibilities away from horses. Because for as much as you love your horse, you are at a loss. You don’t want to force things but you’re not sure how to improve the situation. You don’t have all day. It’s just the truth and that’s the good news, because more hours in this stalemate isn’t going to help either of you.

Something has to give. Have you considered changing your concept of time? How often is time your enemy? We measure time precisely but that might be an effort to make up for the fact that time is also nebulous. Time is how we label the past, present, and future. Does “in a minute” mean sixty seconds? When is “later” exactly? What is “in good time” because I’m frustrated, and my Merriam-Webster is no help. It says time is a nonspatial continuum.

You share a nonspatial continuum with your horse.

Does that feel different? Do you draw a blank? Your horse softens his poll and thinks that’s an improvement already.

Working with horses will always take as much time as it takes. Each individual horse is a composition of their unique intellect and experience. One technique will not work on all horses because horses are reading at our intent balanced with our anxiety. The old adage is that horses can tell when we’re afraid but horses sensing our anxiety might be closer to the truth. Just like a horse tenses when herdmates spook, could your horse be mirroring your anxiety? Does your horse read your angst about time but think it’s frustration with him? Does checking your watch send an unsettling nebulous warning? Does he freeze a bit or act distracted? Is he giving you a calming signal because you are sending conflicting messages, both pleased with his work but anxiously aware you’re late on your schedule?

How did a nonspatial continuum become so alarming? Could time be the invisible thing your horse spooks at? If you had all the time you needed, would you still feel impatient? Try an experiment: Change the idea of time and see what happens.

Four ways to alter time to benefit your horse:

Prepare ahead. It’s boring and dorky and Type-A but take the time to think through what you need. It takes longer to run back for the things you forgot. Do the same with your mental preparations; avoid needing to stop and start because you don’t have a clear idea about what you want. More important than the details, your horse reads an affirmative message when you are steady. When the work begins on the ground or in the saddle, mentally prepare for each transition ahead. It isn’t fair to expect a good answer if you haven’t set up the opportunity for him to respond calmly.
Go slow. It’s counter-intuitive but do you notice when tension happens? Is it when you speed up, giving in to impatience? When you look at a horse doing impeccable work, it’s because the task was trained in small pieces, one good step at a time. Be satisfied with a good effort. Greed reads as anxiety, too. Instead, make time a gift. Once you make a habit of being steady and consistent, your horse can trust you, so what looked like work becomes play. You are building a lifelong relationship; investing in a solid foundation is worth every second.
No corrections. Instead of looking at the last thing, judging it poorly, and dragging failure along, just let it go. Prepare better next time and ignore the rest. Don’t let anything kill the rhythm of your body and your horse’s forward movement. Time spent being adversarial toward yourself or your horse, even mentally, is wasted effort.
Take back control of your time. Don’t let a clock steal you from your horse. Talk less, it’s only chatter in your head distracting you. Let the air be still and time will languish there. Breathe deeply and let your horse answer with his breath. The real conversation starts here. Take five minutes and stretch it out, each second limitless. Have a calm confidence that you both have all you need, perfect right now. Let your horse settle, give him the freedom to reason his answer. Let yourself be peacefully present in each instant, interested in what he has to say. Let this moment become infinite. Hold steady for him now and become his proud legacy for others.

We’ve all lost time with horses. We start grooming and wake up from a circular trance an hour later with soft shoulders, mentally revived. We’ve spent three hours mucking after two horses and come away with a half-full muck cart and a sense of peace. Most of us can look at a photo of a horse and be lifted by his beauty. We are the very definition of a nonspatial continuum. Loving horses is the easiest thing we do. It’s our job to repurpose those timeless moments into our training sessions to benefit the confidence and well-being of our horses. It’s our job to give back in kind and complete the circle.

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Anna Blake for Relaxed & Forward 

Want more? Visit annablake.com to find over a thousand archived blogs, purchase books, schedule a live consultation or lesson, subscribe for email delivery of this blog, or ask a question about the art and science of working with horses. The Barn, our online training group with video sharing, audio blogs, live-chats with Anna, and the most supportive group of like-minded horsepeople anywhere. Courses and virtual clinics are taught at The Barn School, where I host our infamous Happy Hour. Affirmative training is the fine art of saying yes.

The post Altering Time to Benefit Your Horse appeared first on Anna Blake.

Who’s Risk-Averse?

This week a stranger asked for my prayers. She posted a photo of an incredibly young girl with a crushed skull in the ICU. She was injured by a family horse. You’ve seen these heartbreaking posts, too. People say accidents happen. Did her mom take that photo? A prayer for her, too. I can’t imagine her pain and regret.

That same day, someone posted a photo of another young girl about the same age carrying a whip and running a massive draft horse on a lead, in front of a crowd. People loved the photo. Early horsemanship skills tell us to stay between the horse and the scary thing, so we are out of his flight pattern. If anything outside the arena spooked the draft horse, he’d run over this small girl, only a fluttering blur at the edge of his vision. His shod hooves are the size of her head. Did the person who took the photo see what I saw?

I’ll give a pass to people who only know horses from fairy tales, but the rest of us should understand there is no such thing as a bombproof horse. Do we consider children disposable? What is the attraction of tiny girls with huge horses? Is this someone’s twisted fantasy?

Accidents do happen with horses, but many times it’s because of a human’s poor judgment. When did safety become a flaw in horsemanship instead of a worthy goal?

Meanwhile, over at the Relaxed & Forward School, a new member introduced herself. In that photo, she’s sitting quietly in the saddle slacking her rein as her curious young horse sniffed something on the ground. She said she’s pretty sure he’s smarter than her at the moment, “but I will study up and work steadily to be his kind and affirming human mentor. My risk-averse disposition must not win out over learning and growing with this youngster.”

Risk-averse isn’t a term heard much in the horse world. Usually, it’s an economics term used to describe investors who lean toward the “bird in the hand” adage. They prefer less risk and more safety with their investments.

Did you hear that strange, muffled sound? That was an immense ghost herd of horses shaking their polls and yawning. Some are damaged rescues and some are well-bred competition horses but they’re all wishing they had been her horse.

I have a soft spot for humble riders. Is she a timid rider? Maybe so but I appreciate both kinds of riders for their thoughtfulness and good intention. It’s about the horse for them. This rider is looking to find a balance between challenging her horse onward with affirmative training, while not over-facing herself in the process. It’s a productive goal. Young horses are very impressionable. How they are started impacts them for life. This time is crucial to the future of the horse. This sweet photo is not likely to go viral, but I wish it would get the credit it deserves.

If our goal is a confident horse, then don’t want to throw him into a fear response. Rather than training him to think his rider is scarier than anything else, we want the horse to come to us for safety. We want to be the calm in the chaos of the world. If we push ourselves past our limit, we are not helping the horse. Better to invest conservatively, a little bit every ride until you both become the partners each other needs. Training is an art, not a reality show.

Yes, slow and steady work, done in short sessions with time spent letting the horse process and learn can be dull to watch. It lacks the drama of cracking whips at frightened horses in round pens or having a rodeo ride on a youngster, but risking a horse’s physical welfare isn’t something to cheer. Even more so, we need to acknowledge and support the mental stability of horses during training.

A question: Are we truly timid or have we been gaslighted by other timid people hiding behind threadbare bravado? Are we comparing ourselves to riders who show off as a way of appearing tough? Is it possible that peer pressure is the same as gaslighting? According to Healthline, signs of gaslighting include:

no longer feeling like the person you used to be.
being more anxious and less confident than you used to be.
often wondering if you’re being too sensitive.
feeling like everything you do is wrong.
always thinking it’s your fault when things go wrong.

Please consider the concept that you are doing better than you think. That your conservative rides will add up in a way that builds trust, a commodity that must be earned, not stolen. Please give your horse credit for his intelligence and don’t let the external noise of expectations distract you from what you know deep down.

Horses deserve our respect. Statistics confirm that it isn’t new horse owners who get hurt most often; injuries to lifelong horse owners are more common. We get complacent, make assumptions, lose focus. It takes energy to stay present and not take horses for granted.

Do you consider yourself to be timid? Maybe it’s time for a reset. Invite a non-horsey friend to your barn and let your horse out to run. Admire his speed and athleticism. Let him gallop and snort. Then ask your friend to clean a hind hoof. She’ll proceed with feigned confidence or look incredulous, but the horse is going to read her anxiety either way because, for humans and horses, anxiety is the natural response. What matters most is finding a deal with that anxiety in a positive way.

It takes courage to be aware and cautious. It goes against a perceived and dysfunctional social norm about training horses. Thousand-pound flight animals who hear our every emotion in our body language are an honest challenge. Do we train them that humans are deceptive or that we’re honest? Is it possible to model managing stress in ourselves in an affirmative way that horses can learn from? If we approach challenges by breathing and going slow, can horses become a little less reactive and a bit more thoughtful?

One last question about the ones we’ve left out of the conversation: Who is the most risk-averse? Not humans at all. Donkeys are proudly in first place, never blindly trusting another’s opinion above their own. Ask a donkey to leave a shelter in a lightning storm and see for yourself. We call it stubborn, but it’s common sense.

Horses have a firm hold on second place. Domestication doesn’t change their risk-averse nature. Being cautious keeps them alive in a world of predators. Their prudence is a virtue when you see it from their side. Drama and fear are our mutual enemy. Being risk-averse, taking it slow and thinking twice, can be our kindest gift while training. If horses are forever seeking safety, why wouldn’t horses see caution as a virtue in humans as well?

Let safety be the new cool.

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Anna Blake for Relaxed & Forward 

Want more? Visit annablake.com to find over a thousand archived blogs, purchase books, schedule a live consultation or lesson, subscribe for email delivery of this blog, or ask a question about the art and science of working with horses. The Barn, our online training group with video sharing, audio blogs, live-chats with Anna, and the most supportive group of like-minded horsepeople anywhere. Courses and virtual clinics are taught at The Barn School, where I host our infamous Happy Hour. Affirmative training is the fine art of saying yes.

The post Who’s Risk-Averse? appeared first on Anna Blake.

Book Release: Horse. Woman.

Book Release! Available Now!

Horse. Woman. Poems from Our Lives

“It was a tough life if you was useless.” -Leafa Numbers Blake

My grandmother proudly claimed she had delivered more foals and calves than any woman in early 1900s North Dakota. Like her, we’ve found a purpose building our lives, sometimes elbow deep in dirt and blood, but doing whatever work that needed to be done. Horses have always been our north star.

For many of us, the cowboy persona has never been a good fit. Women have earned a narrative about our own lives with horses and the land. We tell a uniquely female account of living and working with horses, coming out of the shadow of cowboy hats and spurs. For us, it was never about fighting for domination. It was always about herd and home.

This poetry collection tells small stories from a women’s perspective about life defined by horses, nature, and memory.  Our feelings run deep; this might be your story too.

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You can get a signed copy of Horse. Woman. here on my website.

Horse. Woman. is also available at all online booksellers, including Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Smashwords has the eBook. Goodreads is up as well.

What a year 2020 has been. I wondered if I should release a poetry collection during this crazy year, but maybe all the more reason. There are illustrations by Rebecca Howard (https://rebheadscape.com/) from photos of mine. Please keep in mind that Indies like me depend on reviews. I’d consider it a favor.

With gratitude to my readers who share their stories and inspire me every day, thanks so much.

Anna

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Anna Blake for Relaxed & Forward 

Want more? Visit annablake.com to find over a thousand archived blogs, purchase books, schedule a live consultation or lesson, subscribe for email delivery of this blog, or ask a question about the art and science of working with horses. The Barn, our online training group with video sharing, audio blogs, live-chats with Anna, and the most supportive group of like-minded horsepeople anywhere. Courses and virtual clinics are taught at The Barn School, where I host our infamous Happy Hour. Affirmative training is the fine art of saying yes.

The post Book Release: Horse. Woman. appeared first on Anna Blake.

Human Calming Signals: Authenticity

Some people are just so effortlessly magic with horses. They seem to do nothing, but horses hang on their every breath. The first time I saw my mentor ride, she was on an Arabian stallion, cantering the speed of a walk, and chatting casually with a client. She exuded cool in every essential way that mattered without a care to please anyone but her horse. A few months later, I came off my young horse for the first time. During his inaugural bareback ride, he walked to a halt, a couple of seconds passed, and I just tipped over in slow motion flopping on the ground by his hooves. He arched his neck around with a look of profound confusion to see me sprawled in the sand. Luckily, there were several people in the barn at the time who each tell a better version of the story than me.

Meanwhile, the horse has a look on his face, feigned innocence maybe, but you nurse your worst fear that he has a diabolical plan for your demise.

Now it feels like everyone is watching you, even when you’re alone.  More falls come soon after. Your horse starts spooking, not that your vice grip thighs are bruising his ribs. Maybe the horse gets too quiet or maybe graduates to crow hopping. It’s embarrassing so you try to make it seem like a joke or like it was your plan all along. Maybe you pull out a wild woman outfit: chinks and chewing tobacco. Full seat breeches and tall boots. You’re still coming off and there is always a list of extenuating circumstances, but you act like you don’t care. Riding isn’t as much fun as you thought it would be, but you can’t quit.

Meanwhile, your horse is starting to get a little hard to catch. He might be getting a little fussy with the bit, not that you’re white-knuckling the reins.

Cheer up: Horses aren’t capable of deceit. It isn’t a romantic notion; it’s brain science. It’s the frontal lobe that comes up with ideas like deception, duplicity, hypocrisy, and the general use of smoke and mirrors. Horses are not wired that way literally, the horse’s frontal lobe is smaller than a human, while the amygdala (the emotional and fear center within the brain) is proportionally larger. It makes sense for a flight animal. Even as it reflects poorly on us to be always thinking animals are just like us, even at our worst.

We’ve been told we need to show authority, a vague concept that usually fits like a seersucker suit on a sticky hot day. Or we’re trying to mimic a trainer on a video while tying ourselves up in our longlines. Or trying so hard to be perfect for our horses that the stink of anxiety fills the arena. We have an expectation of how a horse should respond and ours all fall short.

Cheer up. It gets better. This is my opinion, but it comes from hard-won experience. I believe humans are born with a finite amount of embarrassment and if you have horses, and especially if you take them off the property, you can easily exhaust your embarrassment resources in the first few years. We simply cannot maintain the energy to shrivel up every time something happens. Even humiliation loses its sting.

Then one day you have an amazing ride. Your frontal lobe, in a moment of uncharacteristic quiet, doesn’t leap in to rationalize or justify. Maybe you’re hungover from the night before or too exhausted to be over-controlling or maybe some trainer talked you into using a neckring, but a crazy notion appears. It occurs to you it’s time to give up on right and wrong. Blaming and making excuses has always been an integral part of the process but now it seems like a frivolous distraction from the conversation you’re having with your horse.

Then your horse blows and stretches his neck, not that you notice your thighs have softened. He blows again, with a small shake of his poll, not that you notice you’re breathing deeper. Your horse just feels wonderful, you remember that you love him all over again, not that you’re aware you’ve given him a cue and he is, as usual, trying to get along.

If a horse isn’t planning a violent takeover of the human race, what is he doing? That’s easy. He’s being a horse. He doesn’t have the brain capacity to trick himself, so he relies on his authenticity. He can depend on who he is. If we get over ourselves, we can depend on that too. The conversation gets interesting now because it becomes obvious that his behavior isn’t’ a training issue. Everything a horse does is a physical cue, a message. It comes with a hand-softening, heel-dropping understanding that everything we do is a physical cue, too.

Here is an opportunity to fill that hole left when your embarrassment dried up. You can replace it with authenticity. The word is overused and sounds trite to humans, but horses feel safe when we are in alignment, when our “talking, feeling, doing” behaviors are consistent. Horses read less anxiety and we seem less like a coyote.

Naturally, a horse would prefer authenticity instead of us prattling along saying one thing, feeling another thing, and doing a thing entirely different. Are horses not absolute masters at noticing when we disappear mentally? We abandon them when we’re easily distracted, lose focus on the conversation, or generally space out. If you want your horse to pay more attention to you, you must stay present. Calming signals are a two-way conversation, whether you’re aware or not.

Hindsight ambush! Guilt! We’re miserable for what we didn’t know; for past failures even if we had good intentions. Hold up, it just happened again! What is your horse supposed to do with your guilt? It’s just more anxiety to him. He’ll shut down a bit. Martyrdom is a drag for everyone. Snap out of it. You’re missing the point.

Could we give up ranting about right and wrong, complaining about how it’s supposed to look or how long it’s taking? Could we stop apologizing for our own shortcomings and just be at peace with the horse? And sorry, I don’t mean sitting in the pasture with them watching them graze. I mean when they need us to be unfailingly supportive, during a scary vet call or while trailer loading in an emergency. When we stop fighting ourselves and our horses, things get sweet. Can we allow our authentic self to speak loudest in the partnership game?

On a separate but related note, do you know how a forward and slow canter feels? It’s like being lifted up and held dear simultaneously. It’s like the rocking horse we loved as kids. It’s the dream we always had of the rhythm of a waltz before we knew what a waltz was. Back before our frontal lobe got in the way.

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Anna Blake for Relaxed & Forward 

Want more? Visit annablake.com to find over a thousand archived blogs, purchase books, schedule a live consultation or lesson, subscribe for email delivery of this blog, or ask a question about the art and science of working with horses. The Barn, our online training group with video sharing, audio blogs, live-chats with Anna, and the most supportive group of like-minded horsepeople anywhere. Courses and virtual clinics are taught at The Barn School, where I host our infamous Happy Hour. Affirmative training is the fine art of saying yes.

The post Human Calming Signals: Authenticity appeared first on Anna Blake.

Human Calming Signals: What’s Your Barn Persona?

How aware are we when we pull on a persona? We’re usually aware when we tidy one up to make an impression at a job interview. We might notice that we’re different at church than at Walmart. It isn’t deception; it’s just a good idea to use a different persona when pulled over by the police for speeding, (Good evening, Officer) than you use with your dog (Who’s a good boy?) Most of us have personas that use entirely different vocabularies that are more repetitive and “colorful” that we only bring out on special occasions and apologize for later.

Persona is defined as the aspect of someone’s character that is presented to or perceived by others. (Oxford dictionary.) It’s not lying exactly. I like to think of a persona as an affirmation of who I am on a good day. I’ve seen some amazing mom personas; women who’d like to scream, strike a match, and burn the whole thing to the ground, but instead smile at their toddler and ask in a calm voice, “Can I help you with that?”

Do you have a persona at the barn? I used to act more polite than normal to my vet, even when he came to treat other people’s horses. I was sucking up, hoping he’d like me and come fast for emergencies. My friend always complained to the vet about his charges and I was a little scared for her horses.

Some folks act tough, dramatically jerking their horses around like they learned to ride from western movies because they think they’re supposed to show all of us who’s boss, too. Others tickle and baby talk to their horse, so we know how bonded they are to their horses.  Some of us strut around with bravado so no one will know we’re scared. Some of us have been acting scared for so long, it’s become a habit that doesn’t quite fit. Some of us are so sick of personas that we use the barn as a persona-free zone and let others deal with the consequences.

On top of the usual human insecurities, women usually learn to have tightrope personas. We need to be smart, but not too smart. Nice, but not too nice. Being friendly, but not that kind of friendly. Having been raised to be people-pleasers, some of us hide our feelings and smile until our gums ache. Some of us develop wicked senses of humor and red wine stains. Others mope around, keeping saintly quiet, and being unfailingly, unnaturally polite. We build a pink persona to hide our darker parts.

Do horses have personas? No. They don’t pretend to be something they aren’t. That’s frontal lobe behavior and human territory. Horses are considered a motor-sensory animal. They have a small prefrontal cortex, so they must react differently than humans by definition. Horses are involuntarily concerned with their survival and their environment is a potential predatory threat until they know they are safe. In other words, they are too busy staying alive to make up personas. Besides, the other horses wouldn’t be fooled.

But our horses watch us. They read our body language, our calming signals, and intelligently search us for our intent. Humans can be a mass of contradictions. We cuddle and cry into their manes and the next moment, correct them for being in our space. We ask them to go forward while we’re pulling back on the reins. We overthink things in our big fat frontal lobes instead of listening to them.

It’s commonly said that horses feel our fear, but I wonder if nebulous anxiety isn’t more like it. Humans are more complicated than plain old fear. Can they tell the difference between frustration from work and frustration with them? If they are very capable of understanding praise, what do they feel when we’re sad? Or impatient? Can they tell if we’re afraid of being late or afraid of something they don’t see?

Sometimes we give horses the persona of being our therapist, not that they have a choice. They might have compassion fatigue from carrying our troubles, not that they know what that means either. We love to think horses are supporting our emotions when they have emotions of their own to deal with. What if what we call compassion from them is actually confusion? Are we reading their calming signals truthfully?

And yet another contradiction: we buy horses for our own needs and wishes, but horses come with history and emotion and stoic secrets, and soon they start to unravel their secrets a bit. In a perfect world, it’s at the same point that we’re aging and starting to shed, one by one, our self-limiting, people-pleasing personas as they become boring and lose their elastic. When the personas fall down around our ankles, we can replace them with a deep belly laugh a bit like the nicker of an old lead mare. If we’re lucky, we get more interested in what horses have to say than what they can do for us.

For all the chatter about leadership, and partnership, and lah-de-dah, our horses need something better from us. Maybe it’s time that the ones who can make up personas get to work. Would it be possible to build a persona that would help our horses?

This new persona would need to be one of authenticity, defined as “talking, feeling, doing” all in alignment. We’d pretend to be better than we are, working to convince our horses that humans can become reliable. The best reason to pull on an ill-fitting persona is that a horse may need it from us. When we say horses make us better people, it isn’t something they do. It’s that we change for them. We design a persona that we want to grow into for a horse; a way to make our shoulders broader to benefit some half-lame old gelding. A way to hone our energy to balance a spitfire chestnut mare.

Partnership is a persona that we fall into not when we are succeeding, but when it dawns on us that life with horses is necessarily imperfect. That both sides will make mistakes and sometimes fail, but rather than making us adversaries, it can draw us closer. In a strange way, moments of failure make horses and humans more nakedly honest. We like who we are with horses and that self-awareness persona becomes real and stays at the forefront of our minds. It turns into confidence.

Then one day, you’re riding along, when you see a hang glider with rainbow ribbons flapping in from the south, just as a small herd of elderly Harley riders towing baby strollers pulls up behind you, and you can’t even remember the last time you checked your girth. Another rider might scream at the very top of her lungs, “Oh my gawd, we’re all gonna die!” but instead you relax your legs and slack the rein with a sweet bit of praise in your exhale, gifts for a horse who can trust you.

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Next week: Human Calming Signals: Authenticity

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Anna Blake for Relaxed & Forward 

Want more? Visit annablake.com to find over a thousand archived blogs, purchase books, schedule a live consultation or lesson, subscribe for email delivery of this blog, or ask a question about the art and science of working with horses. The Barn, our online training group with video sharing, audio blogs, live-chats with Anna, and the most supportive group of like-minded horsepeople anywhere. Courses and virtual clinics are taught at The Barn School, where I host our infamous Happy Hour. Affirmative training is the fine art of saying yes.

The post Human Calming Signals: What’s Your Barn Persona? appeared first on Anna Blake.