#80 Biggest Cause of Stress in Horse-Human Relationship

What is one of the biggest causes of stress in the horse-human relationship?

When Harry Whitney posed this question to a group of eager horse lovers on a chilly Tennessee morning in June, you could feel the energy level rise as all brains went into action trying to think of answers. 

I love it when someone shares something with me that relates to what I already know but is a completely different way of explaining it. It causes a rush of something good in my brain. I love adding in new connections, new understandings. This happened in a big way when Harry answered the question.

"One of the biggest causes of stress and angst in a horse-human relationship is that we have the horse captured but their mind is elsewhere." 

Captured. That word really got my attention. How often do we have our horses with us physically but if we didn't have the rope- they'd be somewhere else in a flash? 

Harry and Turbo during his first session. Turbo was very concerned with getting back to the other horses. This is near the end of the session when he was starting to think more to Harry and being in the pen. But you can see he's still looking out and there's tension in his neck. If Harry dropped the rope there's probably a 50/50 chance that Turbo would stay with him. At the beginning of the session it was much closer to 0. 

He encouraged us to think about how we'd feel if we were captured (or felt like we were) and we wanted to be somewhere else. Add on that the one holding us captive was asking us to do a bunch of stuff. If our mind was wanting to get out, we probably wouldn't do the greatest job of what was being asked of us. If the one holding us captive didn't understand that they needed to get our "buy in", or a change in our desire to be there, what would transpire wouldn't be the best of relationships. 

Harry went on to say something that his students will recognize, "there's trouble in the household when a horse's mind and body aren't in the same place."

When I look back over my time with horses- WOW!! How many times did I get away with things when I didn't really have my horse's mind with me. And a few times I didn't get away with it...

Helping our horses to bring their mind where their body is when they're with us is key. And then on top of that- to be able to be there with us and be relaxed and engaged. This challenges us to provide a space that is engaging and relaxing. Simple but definitely NOT EASY!

In this pic, a bit later in the session, Turbo is starting to find relaxation with Harry. He's thinking more about where he's going instead of out to the herd.

One more concept he shared that morning that fits here and might give you something to play with in your next interaction with your horse is:

Often we are so focused on telling our horses what to do that we completely miss observing and giving space for them to show us what they think...

There are times where we can't do this-  when we're in an emergency and we need to do whatever we can to stay safe- but most of the time we are so much better off (and so are our horses) when we do take the time to observe their response- even if it's just a second- before we "say" the next thing. The conversation, engagement, connection we all seek. 

I hope reading this has given you some things to chew on as well as some reassurance that you're on the right track a lot of the time. 

If you're interested in learning more about these concepts- stay tuned. There are a couple of projects in the works for the future- one with Charley Snell and one with Libby Lyman. 

There's also a video I put together a while back when I first started working with Charley (btw Harry Whitney is one of Charley's mentors) that explores the idea of getting our horse's minds with us. You can check that out here.

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