Post by Calaminty Jane on Mar 6, 2013 16:21:20 GMT -5
Kathleen Lindley
Right here is a good place to answer the question, "So what constitutes a good foundation in a horse?" I think my answer to this will continue to evolve and change as my work does the same, but I've given this a LOT of thought over the past few years. I have come to see, over time, how important a horse's foundation is to him, so I started to ask that question myself, "What matters and what doesn't?"
This stuff I'm going to talk about here doesn't have anything to do with disciplines or breeds. The foundation is at the "bottom" of a horse, and other breed or discipline-specific stuff gets layered on top. So as I see it, the foundational requirements for any horse are pretty much the same.
I won't put these in an order of importance because they're all important. Sometimes it makes the most sense to put these in a certain order when working with a horse, so then order would become important. This stuff isn't about teaching a horse "tricks" or repetitive behaviors. This is more about teaching broad concepts that the horse can generalize to the rest of his life as he matures and eventually works at a job.
I think it's important for a horse to be friendly toward people (have some reach in him) and understand safe personal boundaries around people. I want him to understand when energy in the environment has something to do with him (is a cue) and when it doesn't have anything to do with him. He needs to be able to separate this out. I want the horse to be soft and yielding to the halter yet able to follow a feel in the rope. I want the lead rope to have meaning and to be connected to the horse's feet and thereby his mind. I want the horse to be soft and yielding to a rope on any of his feet. I want him to be able to have his feet picked up with the rope, and I want him to lead by his feet and able to stop by a rope on his foot. I want him to understand the concept of restriction while at the same time, I don't want his feet to get stuck. It's important that he understands how to tie and have patience. I want him to be good around other horses and be able to be off by himself. I want him to have balance.
And what, you may ask, does this all have to do with you, the average horse owner? It has a lot to do with you and your horse. If your horse has pieces missing in his foundation or he has some misunderstandings in his foundation, he could be anxious, troubled, aggressive, spooky, difficult, "quirky" or worried. He's like a person in way over their head at work - that's really stressful. And if you're way in over your head at work, you're going to fail. It's inevitable. Because you don't have the tools for the job.
We, the average horse owner, have the ability to help our horses with their foundation if need be. But I'm not going to sell you a bill of goods here. Foundation work is often tedious and boring. Sometimes it's hard to tell if you're getting anywhere, it'll look like nothing's happening. It's not a "fast and feel-good" kind of thing, which is probably why more people aren't focusing on it. It's more the kind of thing where we wake up one day and realize we have a new horse in the pasture and we can hardly remember all the trouble we had with the old one. The average horse owner can do this work. And when we do, we will learn feel and timing and we will build something with our horse that will last a lifetime. And we need to keep that in mind, that a foundation lasts a lifetime, be it good, bad or indifferent. If we share a foundation with our horse, we always have somewhere to go, some previous understanding we can refer to when things get a little sideways. And if we have a good foundation, we have the ability to build amazing levels of refinement.
And if none of that fires you up, that's okay. Then think of it this way. The first time someone showed me how to change a tire on my car, I thought that was all fine and good, I had AAA roadside service. I had a husband. I had a brand new car. Yup. And one day, there I was, in the snow, in a canyon in Colorado, with no cell service, by myself, with a flat tire on my brand new car. And I knew how to fix it. I had been empowered to help myself and get things working again because I'd been shown how it all fit together and how to use the tools. So this stuff is kind of like that except with horses. If you know how it all fits together and how to use the tools, you can help yourself and your horse.
So now when I look at the horses, I envision the inside of that spiral staircase at Hearst Castle and try to see what that horse has on the inside of his spiral staircases. When we pull the silk back, is there anything there? For me, when I pull back the pretty stuff, I want to see earthquake-proof poured concrete. When a crisis comes, it's not the pretty stuff that saves the day, it's the foundation.
All of this is very interesting……….. but how do I get my horse to like people, be soft and willing, be confident and calm and so on. So….. how do I build this “foundation”?
All of these things are in the horses mind. They tell us how he’s feeling emotionally and what he’s thinking.
Carol
You know that I believe how you catch, halter, lead and leave your horse are the physical things that help bring about the things that Kathleen talks about. This is where all training and relationship building begins. We all do these 4 things just about every time we are with our horse. So we have practiced them 100’s of times. There is nothing we practice more. This is truly the foundation. This is what we are building everything else on. Was the quality of each of these 4 events what you want and what your horse needs. Was he soft and willing, connected to you and readily participating? Or was he inattentive, passive, unwilling, distracted or disinterested? Its these physical things that bring about the mental things we are seeking. I promise you, that if you take each of these 4 steps and scrutinize and evaluate them as you do them and then work every day to improve each……….you will notice an improvement in your horse that will carry over into everything the two of you do.
Don’t catch your horse……. Ask him to come to you….even if it’s just the last 2 or 3 steps. If he comes to you, he’ll want to stay.
Present the halter and see if he willingly halters himself. If it’s his idea, he won’t pull away. He’ll stay with you physically and mentally.
Does he lead you or do you lead him? Can you lead from 10 ft in front of him, at his shoulder, ribs or hip. Is it equal on both sides. Would he lead just as well without a rope?
Do you leave your horse or does he leave you?? I feel how you leave your horse is the most important. If he leaves me… that is feedback. I want my horse to watch me walk away with a look that says “ do you really have to go”?
The horse must first understand your request and trust you will support him until he gets it. If we make the pieces small enough and reward each small step or piece, the horse can be right just about all the time. The more he feels right the harder he’ll try. He won’t quit you if he knows you’ll help him find the answer. It’s all these little things that build understanding, trust and confidence. The more little things that are solid …… the better the foundation we have to fall back on when the horse needs help and support.
Right here is a good place to answer the question, "So what constitutes a good foundation in a horse?" I think my answer to this will continue to evolve and change as my work does the same, but I've given this a LOT of thought over the past few years. I have come to see, over time, how important a horse's foundation is to him, so I started to ask that question myself, "What matters and what doesn't?"
This stuff I'm going to talk about here doesn't have anything to do with disciplines or breeds. The foundation is at the "bottom" of a horse, and other breed or discipline-specific stuff gets layered on top. So as I see it, the foundational requirements for any horse are pretty much the same.
I won't put these in an order of importance because they're all important. Sometimes it makes the most sense to put these in a certain order when working with a horse, so then order would become important. This stuff isn't about teaching a horse "tricks" or repetitive behaviors. This is more about teaching broad concepts that the horse can generalize to the rest of his life as he matures and eventually works at a job.
I think it's important for a horse to be friendly toward people (have some reach in him) and understand safe personal boundaries around people. I want him to understand when energy in the environment has something to do with him (is a cue) and when it doesn't have anything to do with him. He needs to be able to separate this out. I want the horse to be soft and yielding to the halter yet able to follow a feel in the rope. I want the lead rope to have meaning and to be connected to the horse's feet and thereby his mind. I want the horse to be soft and yielding to a rope on any of his feet. I want him to be able to have his feet picked up with the rope, and I want him to lead by his feet and able to stop by a rope on his foot. I want him to understand the concept of restriction while at the same time, I don't want his feet to get stuck. It's important that he understands how to tie and have patience. I want him to be good around other horses and be able to be off by himself. I want him to have balance.
And what, you may ask, does this all have to do with you, the average horse owner? It has a lot to do with you and your horse. If your horse has pieces missing in his foundation or he has some misunderstandings in his foundation, he could be anxious, troubled, aggressive, spooky, difficult, "quirky" or worried. He's like a person in way over their head at work - that's really stressful. And if you're way in over your head at work, you're going to fail. It's inevitable. Because you don't have the tools for the job.
We, the average horse owner, have the ability to help our horses with their foundation if need be. But I'm not going to sell you a bill of goods here. Foundation work is often tedious and boring. Sometimes it's hard to tell if you're getting anywhere, it'll look like nothing's happening. It's not a "fast and feel-good" kind of thing, which is probably why more people aren't focusing on it. It's more the kind of thing where we wake up one day and realize we have a new horse in the pasture and we can hardly remember all the trouble we had with the old one. The average horse owner can do this work. And when we do, we will learn feel and timing and we will build something with our horse that will last a lifetime. And we need to keep that in mind, that a foundation lasts a lifetime, be it good, bad or indifferent. If we share a foundation with our horse, we always have somewhere to go, some previous understanding we can refer to when things get a little sideways. And if we have a good foundation, we have the ability to build amazing levels of refinement.
And if none of that fires you up, that's okay. Then think of it this way. The first time someone showed me how to change a tire on my car, I thought that was all fine and good, I had AAA roadside service. I had a husband. I had a brand new car. Yup. And one day, there I was, in the snow, in a canyon in Colorado, with no cell service, by myself, with a flat tire on my brand new car. And I knew how to fix it. I had been empowered to help myself and get things working again because I'd been shown how it all fit together and how to use the tools. So this stuff is kind of like that except with horses. If you know how it all fits together and how to use the tools, you can help yourself and your horse.
So now when I look at the horses, I envision the inside of that spiral staircase at Hearst Castle and try to see what that horse has on the inside of his spiral staircases. When we pull the silk back, is there anything there? For me, when I pull back the pretty stuff, I want to see earthquake-proof poured concrete. When a crisis comes, it's not the pretty stuff that saves the day, it's the foundation.
All of this is very interesting……….. but how do I get my horse to like people, be soft and willing, be confident and calm and so on. So….. how do I build this “foundation”?
All of these things are in the horses mind. They tell us how he’s feeling emotionally and what he’s thinking.
Carol
You know that I believe how you catch, halter, lead and leave your horse are the physical things that help bring about the things that Kathleen talks about. This is where all training and relationship building begins. We all do these 4 things just about every time we are with our horse. So we have practiced them 100’s of times. There is nothing we practice more. This is truly the foundation. This is what we are building everything else on. Was the quality of each of these 4 events what you want and what your horse needs. Was he soft and willing, connected to you and readily participating? Or was he inattentive, passive, unwilling, distracted or disinterested? Its these physical things that bring about the mental things we are seeking. I promise you, that if you take each of these 4 steps and scrutinize and evaluate them as you do them and then work every day to improve each……….you will notice an improvement in your horse that will carry over into everything the two of you do.
Don’t catch your horse……. Ask him to come to you….even if it’s just the last 2 or 3 steps. If he comes to you, he’ll want to stay.
Present the halter and see if he willingly halters himself. If it’s his idea, he won’t pull away. He’ll stay with you physically and mentally.
Does he lead you or do you lead him? Can you lead from 10 ft in front of him, at his shoulder, ribs or hip. Is it equal on both sides. Would he lead just as well without a rope?
Do you leave your horse or does he leave you?? I feel how you leave your horse is the most important. If he leaves me… that is feedback. I want my horse to watch me walk away with a look that says “ do you really have to go”?
The horse must first understand your request and trust you will support him until he gets it. If we make the pieces small enough and reward each small step or piece, the horse can be right just about all the time. The more he feels right the harder he’ll try. He won’t quit you if he knows you’ll help him find the answer. It’s all these little things that build understanding, trust and confidence. The more little things that are solid …… the better the foundation we have to fall back on when the horse needs help and support.