Many years ago I was lecturing medical students in reproductive physiology at the University of Western Ontario in Canada. One of the students was a friend who was studying for his PhD with a colleague of mine. I had just finished my first lecture when my friend came up to my desk as I gathered my notes and slides and the students began to pile out of the hall.
He said, “Did you notice the 2 girls sitting behind me?”
“Vaguely,” I replied.
“Well, I overheard one of them say to the other that she loved your accent and she’d do you anywhere, anytime.”
I laughed.
It’s strange what attracts us to other people. There doesn’t seem to be any one thing. Sometimes we are attracted to people we don’t even know or don’t even like. And sometimes good people, attractive people, and people with many attributes we admire only evoke scant interest from us. It’s a mystery.
So it is with horses. We don’t know how horses go about picking their friends or their foes. Sometimes the meanest horses form the strongest bonds in a herd. Sometimes horses that make the most unlikely bedfellows become inseparable. It too is a mystery.
Yet, those of us that study and teach how to better get along with horses think we know how to have a horse like us.
I talk a lot about the importance of focus, clarity, and soft thoughts in creating a strong bond with a horse during training. But I don’t know this is true. I see the results and the benefits of that type of work, but essentially I am making educated guesses.
Likewise, the positive reinforcement advocates believe they have the secret to creating friendship and a willingness in their relationship with horses. But again, it is an educated guess.
How is it that with some horses the kindest and gentlest approach to training causes ill feelings in a horse towards people? Yet, with some other horses, it works well in creating a very strong bond?
Horses are capable of making their minds up within seconds of meeting a person. How many horses react negatively the instant they see the vet or farrier, before even being touched? I wish I could count how many people have told me that their horse hates men. Not men who are poor horse people or men who have beards or men who wear cologne. No. Men. All men. How do they know men from women?
We think we know how to make friends with horses. But do we? That’s what I try to teach. That’s all professionals try to teach. Do we know what horses really need in a friendship? Do we know what it would take for a horse to choose to save us in a house fire and not the other person? Do we know why horses that are very difficult for us to handle can be so gentle with children? Can we do any more than make an educated guess? Can we be right about some horses, but not all horses?
I’m trying to bribe Chops into being my friend OR maybe she is training me to be her slave.