08/07/2020
Soooooo good!
Take a read!
PERSPECTIVE
I think the hardest thing to teach people working with horses is having the right perspective. A dictionary definition of perspective that I found on google is
"a particular attitude toward or way of regarding something; a point of view."
Answering questions on my Facebook group this morning there were two completely different posts, asking questions about their horses, and I think that the questions cannot be answered without a change in the persons "attitude toward or way of regarding something; a point of view."
Both posts were ignoring where the horse was up to, and skipping ahead to what the human wanted, and then being concerned about the results.
It was almost like a man writing into an advice column saying "There's a girl I know, she won't talk to me, she just turns away when she sees me coming, and if I follow her and trying to hold hands with her she struggles and pulls away. How do I stop her from struggling when I try to hold hands with her?"
I know that sounds ridiculous, a man would have to be completely oblivious or suffer from "Social-emotional agnosia", also known as emotional agnosia or expressive agnosia, which is the inability to perceive facial expressions, body language, and voice intonation.
A person like that would make you not want to be around them, and so if you put yourself in your horse's shoes, it becomes quite apparent why they would act a certain way.
The principles of "work with the horse you have today", "don't go to bed angry" and "they need to know the answer before you ask the question" are a big part of STTDP and all of them rely on you reading your horse and not putting your wants in front of their needs.
That last sentence is the perspective change that's needed. In order for the relationship to grow, you need to put their needs first, and your wants come a distant second. It seems like that's backward, but that is the quickest way to get your wants met.
(Photo of a Barb stallion in Morocco last year. As he got relaxed enough to lay down the call to prayer came from the muezzin in the minaret of the mosque across the road, it was one of the most surreal moments of my life ).