Postby Chisamba » Sat Apr 30, 2022 3:33 am
When I was a kid I had no TV and my brothers and sister went to boarding school. I sat with the horses. I guess like most farm kids I had quite a lot of solo time while everyone else was working.Tough? I spent hours with the horses. I got mad at the mean gelding who kept picking on the smallest filly. I got kicked for carelessly walking behind a horse at its dinner. When I lay down and slept on the hay I never once was stepped on or bitten. I did notice that the main mare communicated with the smallest gestures and most calm demeanor, but the mid rank horses wete the loud, aggressive or bossy ones. I think a very similar gesture can mean very different things. I think when you read a book you get someone else's interpretation of a gesture. If you sit, stand or hang our with a group of horses you are more likely to get the horses opinion instead of Schillers opinion, Blake's opinion or ( fill in the blank) opinion on what something means. They all differ and they are all more about the humans perception than the horse.. you know how if you read a thread on Facebook. Even if you know nothing about the people commenting. Their comments reveal more about them than the subject? So is it with horse books.
For example horse calming signals are nothing like dog calming signals. One is a predator and then other prey. Flight is the last option to a dog and the first option to a horse. Logic will tell you that if you think on it. But you read a book that said it's true and you abandon logic and become a disciple. Also having lived a few decades with different horses of different breeds in different countries, horses also learn communication from their group. Groups have different languages if I may. That is why if you bring a strange horse onto a group there can often be a lot of misunderstanding in the herd. It's a ruckus it takes a few days before the communication dynamic settles. For example some mares are super tolerant of their foals. They let them jump all over . Other mares will give their foal a warning followed by a sharp punitive action. Those two foals will grow up with a very different training perception. So if Mrs natural horseman A says this gesture means the horse is communicating that, I guarantee it bull shit of the highest degree. Because it differs from horse to horse to herd to herd to reed to breed species to species. It even differs in the same horse from day to day.
We can be either amused or insulted by the same thing of two different days, based on the sun, our rest, a cheerful versus a stressful interaction at the coffee shop. Well, horses too. As a rider we know there are days when a very light leg aid has a dynamic response and then there are days when the same horse feels sluggish to the same aid. Well the same with communication. The exact same horse will have a different mood, a different gesture, from day to day. So that is, in my arrogant opinion. Be prepared to listen to, watch and learn from your horses. Try not to hang on to everything you already know. The only truth about being sure about something is that stops you from learning.
And...Nothing about riding is natural. It just isn't. Horses are the most amazing tolerant, teachable co operative creatures. Learn from them. This is my perspective.
I won't blame anyone if they stopped reading this lol