Kindness “We are all telling ourselves stories. The question is, does your story empower you or hold you back?” -Tony Robbins By Elisha Bradburn | Photos by Denver Deschenes Elisha and Boone reflecting
You may be asking yourself, what does the story I am telling myself have to do with kindness and horsemanship? The story we tell ourselves can be either kind or unkind to ourselves and our horses. Allow me to clarify what I mean by “story.”
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mean the story you tell yourself about you, your horse, what your relationship is like, what “always happens,” and what it all means. It is all so simple, and yet so complex. Simple, as the horse really is just trying to have his needs for safety, food, comfort and play met in each moment. Complex, because we all know how much horses pick up on our feelings, conviction and confidence which are all dictated by the story we are telling ourselves. The simple “needs met” part of the kindness equation is a bare minimum, yet often overlooked, so let’s unpack that a bit first. The beginning and bare minimum kindness we owe our horses is to meet their basic needs. By needs, I mean needs according to a horse. Safety for a prey animal, such as the horse, is on top of the needs list. The horse is always evaluating whether he feels vulnerable, worried, or at ease with
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his current environment. As a part of your horse’s environment, are you aware of your effect on your horse? Do you make your horse feel confident as you are consistently trustworthy and fair? If not, sadly, you could be enough to put your horse on edge. If your horse scares you, and puts you on edge, your horse feels your anxiety and also feels fearful. After all, if his meat-eating predator is scared, shouldn’t he be too?! Safety therefore, has to be addressed first, as if you never become at ease with each other, it is very difficult for either of you to learn in this survival state. The next basic need is a species appropriate diet, meeting all nutritional requirements. Is he fed enough, or too much? Does he, at least most of the day, have access to forage to satisfy his natural grazing behaviour? Is the horse in an environment where he is comfortable? Does he have a good hair coat for the weather, or is he blanketed appropriately if you blanket? Does he have shelter for when it is very windy, wet or hot? Whether that be a treed area or a shelter of some sort. Are his feet well-balanced and maintained by a knowledgeable farrier? And lastly does your horse get opportunity for play? This is as important to his mental well-being as it is ours. The opportunity to socialize with other horses and move freely is so good for the horse’s mind and body. So, given all of this, whether the horse’s basic needs are being met can be measured empirically, so it should be easy to assess whether this basic kindness is being met. With needs met, we can move on to kindness on another level. This is where things get a bit more complex (and interesting!) and bring us back to the story you tell yourself. “He always bucks when we go on trail rides.” “He knows I am nervous, so he takes advantage and rears and bolts to get rid of me.” “My mare is cranky because she was abused in her past home.”
