Listen to your Horse

Always remember to listen to your horse

What are they telling you?

I remember the days when I never used to listen to my horse, it wasn't that I didn't want to, it's that the thought never occurred to me, then one day when it did I didn't know what to do! 

When I see horses ears pinned, tails wringing, face tight, lips taut, and eyes staring, to me that spells an unhappy horse. This causes me to wonder how many other people are in the situation I was, of not knowing what to do? I see a lot of the above behaviours in other peoples horses and I think to myself, what is the person doing to help the horse be happier, or have they not even noticed and if they have noticed do they care? 

My horses at times can definitely still show these things and I am forever trying to figure out why. What ever the reason I try not to let these little things go unnoticed. Be it the horses fault, the riders fault or none of the above I believe that we should all take note.

For example: I go to catch Jewel and she turns to walk away. Instead of thinking, "ohhh, you little rat bag and MAKING her be caught", I stop and ask myself why this may have occurred. In walking away (unusual behaviour as normally she comes to me, if not on her own them definitely when asked) Jewel is trying to tell me something, it is my job to acknowledge it.

In the above example Jewel could be telling me any number of things:

1. "Buzz off you mean nothing to me today".
2. "I have a sore back so am protecting myself".
3. "Walk with me to the end of the paddock and give me a new break of grass". 
4.  "Last time you worked with me you rushed me and made me feel wrong".

You may do nothing more than think to yourself, how fascinating and proceed as normal. I swear the horses feel this acknowledgement and appreciate it. If they showed example #1 I would be convincing them that coming to me really is a more appealing option, if they showed #4 I would slow down and take my time with them that day to rebuild trust. Generally you get a pretty good feel of the reason why and respond accordingly

Noticing these subtle signs you horse is giving your could be the difference between a safe or unsafe experience with your horse. Too often I hear people telling me of things that happened with their horses. Most often their sentences begin with "all of a sudden out of no where…..". I guarantee that if people started to notice these little signs the horse gives them, they would be saying this less often! 

Yes indeed at times things really do come out of the blue, who could have picked that a plastic bag would fly out at the exact second a truck whizzed by and that the horse would spook. But if your horse has been getting tighter and tighter eventually they will blow, if their tail is repeatedly swishing watch out because a buck could be on the way, or maybe the saddle is causing major damage and pain.

I in no way have perfect horses who are happy all the time, but there has to be a line where the person needs to step up and think I NEED TO TAKE NOTICE, NOW!

Simple look into body signs: Equi-search Ideas

A deeper and more spiritual look into body language and horses: Carolyn Resnick Blog: body-language-body-talk

This is me with an Australian Stock Horse stallion called Star King and Country. He god very assertive with his body language telling me to FEED HIM NOW, so here I am reminding him of his manners with my body language.