 by Ellen Hansen PICARO, the rascal. He is like the wind - a gentle breeze sometimes and a roaring storm at others...he is growing and looking at the world with wonder; fearless and curious as can be....to see him move makes me full of joy and I adore his beauty and grace ...every day he takes a step closer to my heart and shows me how the true soul of a horse can grow so free yet trusting if allowed to do so... I love all of my horses and they are getting very close to me, too. But there still are all these bad memories from previous experiences lingering in their mind, and these surface once in a while....Picaro, my little rascal on the other hand is lucky enough to grow and learn to trust without these negative impacts, and clearly shows it in his fearless , trusting and spunky manner.... I was alone with me and my horses most of the time....tight woven exclusive clubs are not my thing, neither the show ring and there is nearly no other way to interact and communicate efficiently with other horsepeople, at least I thought so...I read books and books and books, selected the theories that made sense to me and developped my own philosophy, along with the help of my horses... And then I learned to surf the net, found discussion forums and found Majo's website...and here it was, black on white, the very essence of my own philosophie, put down in words that described my own thinking nearly to the point...after some letters back and forth Terry asked me to write something about me and Picaro, my wonderful Iberian Warmblood Colt...well, I am a product of my own history, so I have to start there... I grew up in Germany and learned riding the typical way - strict, military style teachers. Horses and riders had to function, and although there was a lot of knowledge about the mechanical procedures there was not much alternative thinking about the true nature of the horse accessible... I was trained mainly Dressage and am still thankfull for the drill and the knowledge I got. Without this I would not have the necessary basic knowledge about a lot of riding issues. I was as horsecrazy as a girl can be and had this dream - still have it today...I dreamt of the perfect relationship with one of the most noble animals - the horse. I dreamt of trust and respect on both sides, I saw myself interacting on mere thought and riding without any force... and a dream it seemed to stay...till I immigrated to Canada, got myself an acreage and revived my passion again after ten years without horses...I aquired two Icelandic Geldings and started to ride again....I lived alone far from town and relied on myself and again - books....the eternal source of wisdom...I found John Lyons, Pat Parelli, Linda Tellington-Jones, GaWaNi Ponyboy and others and a new world opened for me... I saw Videos of horses that move willingly and collected with no rein contact, saw round-pen training, saw interaction between horse and human as I always dreamt of... It was and still is a journey, to truly let go from old habits and believes, especially when I reach a point of innertia with the horse...I always was quite content if the horse did what was requested and wasn't mean ...but with my new horizon I was not content with this goal anymore...I saw and felt how much distance there was between me and my wellbehaving horses...especially if it came to simple day to day situations where trust and communication is required...I finally moved closer to town and got more horses, first Fire my QH/TB and then a few months ago, Picaro...my little rascal... I love all of my horses dearly, but with him it is special...the older horses all have a history, and I don't know anything about their past...they all had more or less a few bad habits and generally no trust and sometimes lack of respect...I worked with them on it, used my own new methods that seemed straight forward and applicable to our situation...we are learning together, and my own learning curve is as steep as my horses'...but it seems that once they lost trust (maybe in repeated traumas?), there is something gone, or at least burried very deeply...I just get so far and not further - depending on the horses mentality this can get close to wonderful or not very close....I am still in the process, always will be, and hope that time will teach me better and show me a way to find their total trust.. Picaro on the other hand is so true and unspoiled....he just has to learn trust and respect but doesn't have to unlearn anything...he is a handful and very dominant, so I am very happy about all the "horsewhisperers" that wrote books and share their knowledge...in the end I have to trust my intuition and read the horse, but without knowledge this would not be very successful, I think...with him I actually feel strongly that I can get the relationship I was always dreaming of...well, whenever I loose faith I look at Majo again and know it is possible... Sometimes I am getting quite depressed, since I feel like I lived in a soap-bubble...it is one thing to assume that there are a lot of things that aren't as they should be, and another thing to actually get confronted with it on a daily basis...since I never had much communication with other horsey people, I happily went headfirst into all the discussion topics I found on the internet....just to find out that the downside of getting connected to people all over the continent is to get also confronted with a lot of depressing opinions and ways to handle horses.. I was bewildered to find a lot of people that don't know anything about horses, already bought one or two and then asked what to do with them...horses biting, kicking, rearing and bucking allover...horses sick, injured or just in pain...riders asking for fast fixes in categories that they even didn't have much knowledge about...trainers or private horsepeople that use or advice cruel methods..and so on....I feel strongly, especially in horse psychology, that everything usually has simple reason, but needs an extended procedure to analyse the cause...after that there should be a "simple" step by step solution available...what I mean is, that horses are not people and have their own behaviuoral repertoire...usually there are only a few causes for "misbehaviour" - lack of respect and therefore lack of trust, asking too much too soon, communication failure and pain. Horses tell us things in a way that we have to sometimes look somewhere else to find the true cause...once it is clear what the problem is, there should be a clear and easy way to overcome the problem - no gadgets or complicated procedures...no extra ropes and bits and spurs, but rather less than more...and definitely no approaches that impose senseless pain on the horse and/or endanger human or equine safety.. I feel truely sorry for all these horses that get measured with human conceptions -"she does this with no reason", "he is taking advantage of me", "I love my horse and never hurt it, but it bites and kicks", and so on...so many horses get pushed very far very early, without the proper basics..or they don't get pushed at all and get pushy themselves....the first and main important base is respect, and if achieved properly this creates trust Gawani Ponyboy, Pat Parelli, John Lyons, and many other horsepeople know this and try to find a way to let other people know it and learn it...I don't believe in following blindly, so I think that everybody can get very far with mixing knowledge and common sense...and when we reach a state of innertia, there is nothing wrong with looking for help somewhere else... Terry says he is impressed with my attention to bringing up Picaro.... thank you, Terry! To me it seems so natural to lay foundations as early and as consequent as possible...besides establishing a clear hierarchie and being dependable in my actions I "test" and extend Picaro's trust by exposing him to any kind of things that might or do make him scared, and I go along as the situations pop up...for example the blue tarp that he was afraid of, three weeks after I got him...my first goal was to lead him around it on a slack leadrope without him trying to turn his back to it or trying to run into me...next step was to lead him on there and having him stand on it, with a halter....additionnally I routinely do round pen work (John Lyons) and got him to follow without a halter, so the next step was going on the tarp without it...with all the snow in winter we have a snowblower, and he is the only one in my "herd" that didn't run away at first sight but rather kept an inquisitive small distance, so this was easy to build onto......the same with our little all around tractor...or on New Years we had a big bonfire, and I lead him close to it, practising to stand and face it for some time...or when I go on "walks" with him there are fire hydrants, parked or running big trucks, all kinds of little lawn machines and noises, and everytime I feel him tensing up it is time for another lesson in trust...it is winter now, and not much to do with all this snow....this year I will look further into Natural Horsemanship and see how Picaro likes to "play"... I do realize that a lot depends on character and disposition, and I have a bold, spunky and self reliant horse here....this makes it easy overcoming his natural fear and flight instinct and harder to gain respect...other horseowners have different challenges....everybody makes mistakes on the way, and I think the secret lies in the ability to know when something doesn't work and then to find a different way to approach things....thank you Terry for the opportunity to talk a little bit about me and my biggest passion, horses... The thanks goes to Ellen for sharing this wonderful story! |
