A Sensible Plan

A pretty young nurse was on her first shift with a nurse that had been around the ER a decade or two. The older nurse immediately gave the young women time worn advice.

"Listen, do not date any of the cops and the paramedics that you meet in here," she warned.

"No need to worry about that. My future husband is a farmer," the young nurse responded.

"That's interesting. Where does he live?," she asked.

The young nurse responded, "Well I have no idea. I have not met him yet."

The best news that I see on the educational front is that more young people are interested in agriculture. They are not interested in being a factory worker that treats livestock as if they were machines. They are interested in being part of a true culture of of growth and life. My daughter and her husband work very hard on their second jobs as horticulturists. She loves her egg operation. Last night they showed me their outlay for their advertising/marketing program for the spring. He was in the Peace Corp. They both have Masters degrees.

When my daughter was young I do not imagine that she ever had a dream to marry a farmer, but it is obvious that she is glad that she did.

I Just Might Have Been Wrong Again

I might have to back off of my belief that there has not been a song composed since 1932 that was worth the trouble of tuning up before you play it. Hank Williams was a poet that came very close but his best work still does not fair well when put up against ancient songs that percolated through the mountains, like Pretty Polly, Will the Circle Be Unbroken, and Angel Band. Bob Dylan put together some nice lyrics on occasion. Townes Van Zandt, Emmylou Harris, even John Denver all wrote songs that were nearly as good as the ancient ones.

But this computer is allowing me to walk back through time to find some lyrics from the late 60's and early 70's that are crisp, clean, laconic, and tell you enough to make you want to know the story behind words. His name was Gram Parsons. Drugs and alcohol silenced him, but not before he wrote "In My Hour of Darkness", a song that I just found that really hits home for anyone old enough to have lost people close to them. I knew who he was, but I did not know the quality of his lyrics. "In My Hour of Darkness" is among the best five songs that I have ever heard.

Which brings us to the topic at hand. Beginning the first Monday night in Novemeber I will be getting together with some of my little riders and showing them how to play a range of acoustic instruments,--- mandolin, banjo, dulcimer, autoharp and maybe a few more. Equally important, they will be learning the lyrics to the ancient songs and the rhythms of old time music. I expect that they will be learning a bit about Gram Parsons too.

The Little House is back now to what I want it to be--a place to relax and a cultural/ educational center. We have a first rate library of works on horsemanship. Art classes are held twice a month upstairs. Music will be going on weekly. Daddy thinks that the little house is about 120 years old. Momma was born in it.

It got a new lease on life. Turns out that it is a great place to listen to recordings of Emmylou Harris and Gram Parsons.

The Corolla Wild Horse Fund Does Not Do Hospice Care

The Wild Horse Fund is not an organization whose function is to help the wild horses go gently into that good night. It is not an organization whose only function is to pick up injured and dying horses and wring our hands about them while we watch the entire herd go extinct because of the machinations of bureaucrats.

The horses would be one step away from being gone, but for the work of the Corolla Wild Horse Fund and the strong leadership of its Executive Director. The struggle to save the horse has been long and hard. It will take longer and will get harder. Keep the faith. Support the Wild Horse Fund.

It Is The Relationship That Matters

Let's just pause here for a moment and look at a training story. There are many different ways to approach natural horsemanship, but when done properly they all come back to the same thing--using forms of communication that the horse instinctively understands to tell the horse what you want it to do while developing the kind of relationship with the horse that makes the horse delighted to do what you want it to do. Some systems are simple. Some are layered and complex. Which ever system suits one best is entirely a function of one's personality. For example, many may take comfort in a very specific program that sets out very specific goals to be attained before one seeks to attain the next set of very specific goals. Such a system is not for me. I prefer a comfortable t shirt to a straight jacket in every case.

Danielle has become a first rate trainer using the same free style, play by ear methods that I use. This is her little mustang. Danielle can catch her, saddle her, ride her through whatever terrain or obstacles that are present, and return home safely. The horse had not been handled for quite a long time. Last night Danielle rode her as if the horse had been riding the woods every day for ten years. The last time that someone tried to get on the mare she blew up badly. Danielle could have chosen to focus on what had happened weeks ago and worried about whether the same thing would happen to her. She could have decided that the horse was simply dangerous and untrustworthy and chosen other horses to ride. She could have nervously mounted up, held her breath, squeezed tightly and hoped for the best.

Instead she found a safe place to mount up and did so with cool confidence. The horse responded just as she had when Danielle trained her over a year ago. She rode off with her head down, completely relaxed.

The mare would not have done that for anyone else, unless they conducted themselves exactly as Danielle did. Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3 have their place, but the most important level is to have a level head. When she is training horses that is what Danielle has.

The Trouble With Treats

Properly done, the use of treats is a great training aid. Used incorrectly treats can train a horse to be so dangerous that it is a threat to all people within its reach.

I have no concern that treats will "teach a horse to bite...become tools to bribe him... cause a horse to be disrespectful." Careful and planned use of treats causes neither disrespect nor biting and the entire concept of "bribery" is a peculiarly warped piece of anthropomorphising. (It is about the same as fearing that giving a horse additional hay will lead to the horse committing tax fraud.)

The first real problem is nutritional and that is simple to fix. If a company is willing to charge an outrageous enough price there will always be gullible horse owners out there who think that the product must be great for horses. No where is this demonstrated better than in the marketing of horse treats. Putting a few vitamins and minerals in a handful of sugar does not change the fact that it is a handful of sugar. Sugar is never a preferred source of calories for a horse and can be lethal to one that is insulin resistant and prone to founder (Founder is now the second leading reason that adult horses are put down by vets--and is making a strong effort to replace colic as the leading reason to end a horse's suffering).

Forget about the candified, junk food treats and simply use black oil sunflower seeds in the shell that are sold as bird feed. They are relatively high in protein, filled with good fat, and also contain some helpful vitamins and minerals. The treat, when given as a reward, need not be any more than five or six seeds at a time. This eliminates the possibility of choke and allows the horse to quickly swallow the treat and return its focus on the trainer instead of spending the next five minutes standing and chewing with a complete loss of focus on the task at hand.

The bigger problem is the effect that treats have on the trainer. The trainer can come to see their role as simply doing doing something that the horse approves of. In short, a completely inverted view of the training process. If I allow the horse to view me simply as a food delivery system, I will eventually begin to see myself in exactly the same light.

I cannot train a horse under those circumstances. I can feed him, but I cannot teach him. The horse, in order to feel secure and to develop a real relationship to me must see me not as a food delivery system but as an affection and discipline delivery system. Parelli is right with his emphasis on love and leadership. Leadership (discipline) can be easily undercut by the improper use of treats. I met a horse whose human interaction for several years consisted entirely of being released from the stable and at night being fed carrots. This was a domestic horse, yet was the most dangerous horse that I ever encountered. It was the only horse that I have ever given up on trimming its hooves. The last time that I was with him I had to walk backwards out of the pasture and fight him off of me with the hoof trimming stand.

That is what a life of all carrots and no correction can produce--a criminal horse.

The last problem with treats is the simple fact that there are 24 hours in each day. Every moment that I spend with the horses must be prioritized to get the most out of that time. Time that is spent shoveling sugar into a horse's mouth is time that is not spent providing the horse with companionship and affection. The horse does not need the treat to be emotionally healthy, but it does need physical contact. It needs time spent with the trainer rubbing its neck, standing very close by, while synchronizing his breathing with the horse

The horse does not need your candy, but it does need your time. I wince when people refer to horses as their children. As a society we do a remarkably bad job of raising children. I certainly do not want that to be the model for a horse/human relationship. Unfortunately, too many people train their horses the same way they raised their children. They demonstrate how much they love both by showing how much money they spend on them. Your child needs your time much more than he needs your money.

So does your horse.