Tuddy wrote:
Okay - so what did you do when this happened? Do you get off and re-assure? Do you work through it? Did he ever try to do it to just get out of work? If so, how can you tell?
I believe that my horses are genuinely afraid when they act afraid because 1) they work a lot harder when they're afraid than I've ever worked them, so it's not likely that they're trying to avoid work, and 2) I don't believe that they'd be willing to go to that kind of trouble to avoid the kind of work we do.
So what do I do? Sometimes I get off and get him back to a safe place, sometimes I get off and lunge him, sometimes I get off and tie the reins to the saddle and leave him and let him look and run around until he's seen enough, and sometimes I stay on and just push him a little harder and he goes along with it. It just depends on where we are and how afraid he is.
As he's matured he's much more likely to be able to keep working even when he sees something he wants to avoid, and then is able to approach it much sooner than he would have been able to when he was younger. So in spite of my lack of "leadership", he's gained confidence.
Tuddy can be pushy, and I can tell when he is, that big old shoulder is his middle finger, but when I call him on it, he reacts appropriately, and then there are times, he pushes it further by "getting scared" of everything. And you know, he is pulling that stunt because he couldn't get away with the previous one. Do you know what I mean?
Another way to look at it is that he told you politely that he was afraid and you didn't hear him so he spoke up. Personally, I don't think they're actually trying to tell us anything because they're too busy trying to cope with the situation they're in. They know that they're somewhat compromised by our presence because we have ways to put pressure on them that prevents them from being able to escape as easily, so they try to get along until they become afraid enough that they can't.
I have no idea whether my interpretation is any more accurate than anyone else's, but that's how I see it.
I think we tend to trivialize their fears because we're not afraid of what they're afraid of, but at the same time we don't find our own fears (of coming off, or getting run over) anywhere near as trivial.
Agree - there has to be a point where we have to be able to move to the next step, or be okay with something that wasn't there before without losing their minds. Especially when you have that fragile mind as your priority every time you work them.
If we're unwilling to give them the time and exposure they need to overcome their fears then we need to become better, stronger riders so that we can ride through their reactions, because AFAIK, there's no magical way to make them just get over it.
No, I am trying not to, I feel like an absolute failure at the moment. Tuddy does want to be around people and does want to please, so I am hoping!
I'd look at it as a blip rather than a failure. This stuff happens, and no one got seriously hurt so the only reason I can see to interrupt the program would be to try to figure out what happened. And it sounds like that's exactly what you're working on.
This is where I am going to back track to so I can see from the ground, rebuild our confidence and go from there.
And no, it isn't fun some days, but the good days make up for it tho!
What I was after in the beginning were lots of good sessions, because I knew that the more good ones I had before I had a bad one, the easier it would be to "get over" the bad one. And that's just what happened.