Most people think you control a horse by controlling its head. You put on a
lead rope or a bridle and you use that to show the horse how you want him to
start and stop and turn and move his feet and disengage this or that and other
stuff. So how do you control a horse when you don’t have a lead rope or a
bridle on him? Every day, there are a lot of people chasing horses around in
pastures asking that question.
A horse-logical training system like heeding teaches people how to control
the horse’s mind. If you’ve got his mind, you’ve got the horse whether
he’s loaded with tack or bare naked. It takes a very specific discipline to
learn to do this correctly. I don’t mean discipline in the sense of obedience
or punishment. When I use the word discipline, I mean calm compliance. It takes
discipline or self control on the part of the trainer to make the horse into a
disciple or follower, to cause the horse to willingly follow your lead.
In the animal kingdom, humans are predators and horses are prey animals. In
order to work with horses, we have to figure out how to bridge that zoological
gap. We do this by establishing a pattern, a feeling in the horse, that we are
the safest, most comfortable place in the world to be rather than a predator out
to do them harm. It is simple to describe how to do this but hard to master the
program. Here are the ground rules:
Step 1. Pay Attention
Pay attention. You get the horse to pay attention to you by paying
constant attention first to yourself, then to the horse. Say hello to your
friends at the barn, scratch all the dogs and shoot the breeze with the barn
manager before you head down the aisle to get your horse, not while you’re
with him. Don’t forget to turn off the radio or put the compact disk
player and ear buds away.
In order to pay full attention to what you are doing and what your horse
is doing, you have to put any distractions aside. You need to focus and
concentrate. If that’s hard for you, start with 10 minutes and work your
way up. Eventually you want to be so focused on your horse that you
wouldn’t notice if a bomb went off or someone came up alongside you waving
a million dollar check.
Pay attention to what you are thinking, to what you are doing, and to how
you are breathing. If you’re thinking about what kind of pizza you want
for dinner, you’re not with your horse. If you’re thinking about how
your horse is going to perform at next week’s show, you’re not with your
horse right now. Keep monitoring your attention and bringing it back to your
horse.
As you are paying attention to your horse, ask yourself what kind of
feedback he’s giving you? How is he breathing? What are his eyes and his
ears signaling? Are his reactions to haltering, leading, grooming or
whatever you’re doing with him the same as the last time you worked with
him?
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