Horse Training: Taking "No" Off Of The Table

I watched Abigail as she sat on top of Taney Town at the conclusion of a morning ride. There was a bit of time available and instead of wasting that time, she used it teach the horse. The mare did not want to put her foot on a plastic surface in front of the feed shed.

Abigail never got frustrated or angry. She simply continued to ride the horse closer and closer to the plastic, anticipated each time the horse would turn away and then brought her head back around toward the target. She maintained focus on where she wanted the horse to go. 

Most importantly, she gave the horse only two options--touch the plastic now, or continue working to touch the plastic in a moment. Turning and leaving the plastic was never presented as an option for the horse. 

She gave the horse a multiple choice test and "no" was not one of the choices.

When we teach that mastering natural horsemanship requires one to master the concepts behind the workings of a horse's mind  instead of trying to memorize a series of techniques of training, this is what we mean.

Here is a picture from several years ago of Emily and Looking Glass. Emily was the first person to work with Legacy. In order to halter him for the first time she entered the round pen alone and continued to patiently work , applying principles of advance and retreat, until the colt stood calmly to take the halter.

She worked with him for five and a half hours to accomplish the task. Her success was a tribute to her patience, but it was even more so an example of taking "No" off of the table.

Taking "No" off of the table is one of the most important life concepts that one can learn from the round pen. When setting out to do a task such as training a horse one of the most important steps that the trainer can take is to remove "No" as an option for one's self. Determine to do the thing and then do that thing. 

It is not too hot or too cold to train. It might be too hot or too cold to train for hours but the weather allows for some time with the horse. Procrastination never helped train a horse. 

President Grant wrote that, like everyone else, he had certain habits and superstitions. He said that one of his peculiarities was that, as long as he could remember, when ever he set out on a trip he never allowed himself to take a step backwards from the destination that he had chosen. 

Persistence breeds resilience and resilience breeds success--in the round pen and in life.