Meanwhile back at the ranch....
Worked at the barn again, today, saturday. Not all that exciting for most folks, but horses are the postitive influence and motivation in my life. They are so happy when someone fulfils their basic needs and I am glad to do it. How would you like to live in a 12 by 12 box waiting around for someone to do something for you? When they see me, they know that I will take care of them. I give them plenty of hay, their favorite, a little grain and water, then they get to go outside weather permitting, or if they can`t go out together, i`ll walk them out individually and let them snack on some grass while I scratch all the itchy places they can`t get at. Some horses will get in the act of mutual grooming. Magic for instance--I mentioned her the other day in the audio blog. She is a very loving horse.

When I worked at a certain performance horse barn, I felt like a prison warden. At the barn where my horses are kept, I feel more like a school marm, say. While not all performance horse barns treat their horses bad, The lives that some performance horses lead are disturbingly cruel and even if not horribly cruel, not always in the best interest of their equine health and well being. These horses seldom get to be real horses or socialize in any meaningful way with those of their kind. They live in a kind of institutionalized system where everything is regemented and cooly objective-- like a horse factory, whose end product is a glossy show horse that at least by appearances riders/owners can just jump on while the horse happily and obediantly performs and entertains in whatever discipline it has been trained in. They are kept stalled unless working or lunging in an arena, or performing at a show, and when they are done they are put away, seldom with the opportunity to graze ( the almost constant grazing and foraging horses do is imparative to a healthy equine digestive system) in a pasture or even in their stall except for the twice a day feeding of grain and hay, which also includes the plethora of nutritional supplements and medications that would rival a football players diet. They are not allowed to expend any unnecessary engery running around in the pasture, why, they could get hurt that way!--lose money being on stall rest for an injury when they could be performing. Performance horses are kept in an objectively sterile environment and must learn the language of man, and only man, usually by force and all kinds of training devices and restraints. (well this is not only limited to performance horses per say, many horses are trained by using artificial aids and learning to avoid pain and all of it is not cruel per say) The advantage to keeping horses this way is that the horse, being a highly social animal-- its acceptance and participation within the herd imparative to survival-- will learn look to the human for both its physical and emotional needs and will crave human attention in any form, thereby more apt to do exactly what the human wants without question--to the point of jumping off a cliff if you asked it--and if it won't-- you get rid of it and cut your losses. My experience has been that when in a stall with these horses they are so deprived by the physical presence of any warm body, you become either a toy for them to play with, grabbing your clothes and trying to pull you around the stall, or they are trying to climb all over you to get you to love on them. Ha, sounds like some of my dates! Some are so desperate about this that it makes them dangerous and you have to set limits no matter how much you really do want to cuddle up or play with them. You have to shoo them away and then be stuck with that pitifully dejected look they give you. That part about that one particular job caused a lot of grief for me. It made me extremely sad because I was constantly reminded that these horses craved such companionship not because they had naturally affectionate personalities, but the way they were kept and handled forced them to be that way. I found it hard to be objective in the way I handled them, knowing every minute I was with them I was training them. I did not want to "train" them to do something that would get them later whipped for disobediance, because that is what people did to them there, almost in an arbitrary way. It really depended on the mood they were in, not that the horse misbehaved so much. I didn't stay at that job for long, but on leaving did shed some tears for the horses I got to know very quickly, but had no power or clout I could use to improve their circumstances. Goodbye and good luck, dear friends.

But the life of some horses and the way we view them has improved somewhat, the natrual horsemanship hype has educated owners that horses should be allowed to be horses; it may allow for a longer life span (not good if you want to keep your maintanence costs down) and a longer and more successful career as a performance horse. The clinicians have been able to demonstrate that you can enjoy your equine partner, and get the same results using training methods by using the body language of the horse and by teaching them to "yield to pressure" whether applied directly or psychologically, to get them to do what you want. (I can attest that it does work and actually it is quicker than some of the conditioned response methods--though CR is also is a basis for natural horsemanship, and any animal you want to train, including humans!) but there are many skeptics. Skeptics who actually use some variation of natural horsemanship without even knowing it. NH as a published method of horse handling and care has been around a long time--Xenophon, a greek general published a book on just that.

Anyway, I didn`t intend to write an essay on Natural Horsemanship--but I practice it myself in earnest, because I want my horses or any others I come in contact with to get as much joy out of our relationship and interaction as I do, while at the same time knowing how to be safe around horses--as much as you can anyway. The benefit is that I connect with them on their level, I am a part of their herd and they are a part of mine and I am important to them and them to me. Horses, in their natural environment are very reasonable and practical animals--much more so than humans and I think that`s why I like horses so much. They teach me to keep things simple, they help me prioritize what is important in life. To horses the most important thing in their lives is to be included. That takes care of everything else for them. to be excluded and forgotten means death. So, I have been included in their social heirarchy--and of course I am at the top because you must be to be safe around horses--but to me, that makes me feel important, and as long as I am around horses, it gives me a reason to keep going and not give up,