NEWS & ARTICLES : A New Horse in the Family

A New Horse in the Family (originally published in PetFolio magazine)

Note: this is NOT about buying a new horse.

9-year-old Allison just got bucked off again. Dad said the horse would "have to go" if he did it again. It always seemed to happen at the canter and only for Allison. Otherwise he was a jewel!

We worked on his body, his feet, his teeth and his tack to make sure they were fine. All was right with his world, except for this.

He did have chronic neck tightness whenever Allison rode him, but not for me. Hmmm. So we tried something different. We changed Allison's way of thinking and the horse's way of responding. One little thing was all we did.

As a result of the change, Allison won all sorts of blue ribbons at the following weekend show, and her horse was just "a happy guy". She cantered her horse around and around her arena yesterday. He bucked once, but she rode it, refocused, and kept right on going with a smile on her face. As for the horse, from the moment Allison got on, his neck was softer than I'd ever seen it before (when she rode). Seems like his mind stayed soft, too.

Allison's attitude and her horse's attitude about cantering changed simply by having Allison give him a cookie (from the saddle) after the canter work. She giggled when I told her what we were going to do, but presto -- new horse! Her thoughts were positive (she enjoys giving him cookies and looks forward to it), he began to see a positive result to good behavior (he looks forward to a cookie after canter, and gets a neck stretch in the process). Wow – could it really be that easy to have a new horse??

This isn't the first time I've changed a horse's attitude about something once seen as negative, scary, boring, difficult, tedious or questionable… Funny part is, it always seems to start with the human's change in attitude. (Please note that this is just one of many ways to develop changes of attitude!)

By Rebekka Rhodes

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