“The Dog With No Teeth – Wasted Fear with Horses”
There’s a very emportant horse topic
you need to understand.
And that is…teaching your horse to
conquer his fear of those horse eating monsters.
One thing you gotta understand is this.
It’s not just the horse that needs the
help – it’s also his rider.
After all, a rider who’s not confident
can unwittingly encourage a horse to escalate
his fear.
Then a wreck is sure to happen.
Part of helping a horse overcome these
fears is also YOU overcoming yours.
It goes like this.
You have the brains.
Your horse has the brawn.
You have reasoning power.
Your horse does not – he reacts and
responds.
He doesn’t think like you and I.
Where you and I see a plastic bag rolling
across the prairie…he instantly thinks “THREAT”.
We tend to get a little miffed when the
horse gets scared at these seemingly harmless
things.
But, isn’t it fair that the horse can
get scared?
You get scared at things you don’t
understand, right?
So do I.
But therein lies the key.
And that is this.
You, me, and the horse get scared at things
we don’t understand.
Fear of the unknown.
Once we understand it, it doesn’t have the
power over us it once did.
There’s a great story about a little boy
who used to walk home from school every day.
But there was a problem he had.
There was a house he had to pass by every
day to go to school and get home.
The problem was that house was home to
a dog that would bark, snarl, and run after the
little boy every time he passed by the house.
Day after day the boy would sweat bullets
knowing he’d have to pass the house at a dead run
to avoid getting bitten.
One day he decided he’d had enough. He
was sick of running all the time.
This time…today…he was going to face
the dog.
No more running.
As he approached the house, his heart rate
increased. He was feeling the fear.
He started walking past the house.
He could hear that dog coming.
He started to run but then remembered today
he was going to face the dog.
He took a deep breath and turned around to
face the dog.
The dog stopped dead in his tracks and barked
at the boy like a crazed arsonist.
Then the little boy noticed something
astonishing.
The dog had no teeth.
That dog couldn’t have punctured a balloon.
The boy realized that all this time he was
scared of something that could not have hurt him.
In a way, that’s how you want your horse
to understand the spooky objects.
We want him to understand they have no
teeth either and that they won’t harm him.
But it’s up to you to lead him and get him
understanding this.
Will you ever get him fearless of everything?
Likely not.
But you stay safest when he’s looking to you
for help and guidance and work with him to make him
calmer and calmer.
That means you have to step up.
That means you have to boost your confidence
too.
That means when he freaks out that you can’t.
You have to take control and get him back
to you.
You can learn a great deal of how to do this
with your horse if you work him through an obstacle
course.
As I’ve said past emails, Vickie
Weigel set one up for us to film a while back.
I described how she starts with
poles and moves them closer together
as the horse gets more comfortable with them.
As the poles move closer together, your horse
has to look where to put his feet.
And remember this.
When the poles are closer together, he sees
one obstacle – not several poles.
All they see is the white on the ground and he
doesn’t know if it’s going to open up and swallow him
or not.
Thus, your job is to let him know it’s okay
and you’re secure with everything.
Again, this is the very stuff that Vickie shows
in her DVD on helping your horse conquer his horse-eating
monsters.
If you want to know more about it, click on the
following:
Read More About Horse Eating Monsters HERE
OK… that’s it for today. Stay safe out there!
Charlie
P.S. Last chance on the Christmas Specials. Click below:
http://horsetrainingresources.com/Christmas.html
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