Many people have expressed to me great sadness over not being able to ride a beloved horse anymore. In many cases, it’s not just that they want to ride, they want to ride their own horse, whom they have spent countless hours riding, who is no longer rideable for health or other reasons.
” Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
The trail followed the creekbed then crossed it, curving like a snake up the side of the canyon. My horse stopped to drink in the creek, then scaled the rocky side of the canyon and the switchbacks, a steep drop on one side, a canyon wall on the other.
There is a spectrum from 0 – 100+ or maybe more in terms of engagement and levels of interaction for horse and human.
The other day I was working on a horse who began to swish his tail when I attempted to lift a hind leg. Obviously, this was painful for him, so he was letting me know in the way that he knows how, without kicking or biting me.
What if, every presidential hopeful had to go into the corral with a few horses? America could stand outside the corral and tally up the results. Which types of horses would gravitate to what people? Would some candidates be left off to the side?
Everyone who has taken on a rescue horse, or a horse from families who have passed them on, or a horse they have purchased, but then found the horse really is a rescue – experience the great unknown.
Liberty Foundation Training for horses is the most subtle kind of work you could be doing with a horse. Because it is so subtle, sometimes its purpose can be missed.
Continue reading Liberty Foundation Training: What’s the Point?
Have you ever met a robot horse?
There is a Norwegian story about the birth of Jesus in the stable in Bethlehem, that claims that the animals in the stable watched the birth and then they began to praise God for what they had just seen. Apparently this went on before the shepherds came on the scene. When the shepherds appeared the animals fell silent. The only ones purported to hear the animals were Mary, Joseph and the Christ child. (Originally published December 24, 2015)
Continue reading Horses and Christmas Eve: the night the animals talk
