SWS029.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Podcasting from a little cabin on a hill. This is the Stacy Westfall podcast. Stacy's goal is simple to teach you to understand why horses do what they do, as well as the action steps for creating clear, confident communication with your horses.
Hi, I'm Stacy Westfall, and I'm here to teach you how to understand, enjoy and successfully train your own horses when your horse makes a mistake. What do you make it mean today? I'm going to share with you three viewpoints on mistakes that riders often have. And I'll explain how I see them reflected in the horse. In episode 10 of this podcast, I discussed and recommended that riders make mistakes in the right direction. A main point of that podcast was to free up your mind around the idea that you might make mistakes and how you handle your thoughts around that will matter. In today's podcast, I want to ask the question about how you treat your horse when he makes a mistake. 3 Very common thoughts around this that I see are number one, the rider does not recognize a mistake because they're not really sure what they're after. Number two, the rider views the horse as not ever making mistakes. And number three, they view it as I can't let him do it wrong or he'll learn to cheat. Let's do an example of each very commonly when the riders don't understand what they exactly want. They lack clarity. What they do generally have some clarity on is what they do not want. For example, I don't want my horse to move around when I'm saddling him. The reverse of this would be that I want my horse to stand still when I'm saddling him, and that thought will actually lead you closer to getting what you want.
Here's how it works. When a rider thinks I don't want my horse to move around when I'm saddling him. The temptation is to make corrections from the viewpoint of he did something wrong. Let's picture that this horse is standing in crossed eyes. But he's not standing very well. He's swinging left and right. So as the rider approaches to brush or saddle, the horse may swing away or swing towards the rider. In this case, often when the horse swings towards the rider, the rider will slap the horse in the belly or somewhere to say, don't push it in my space. But the lack of clarity of what is wanted, which is stand still, has not been conveyed to the horse. So the horse is left in a guessing game of having a vague idea that they did something wrong, like coming into the riders space or moving around, and they can for sure sense the frustration in the rider. But what's lacking is the riders clarity of. I'm going to set your left front foot here. You're right front for here. Then I'm going to say, whoa. And if you move, I'm going to move the right front foot back and the left front foot back and we're going to begin again.
The lack of clarity causes a lack of recognition of what's going on and a lack of clarity and how to fix it, which really ties in to the podcast about how much horses love clarity in their patterns. An example, number two, if we picture that there's a rider that thinks the horse doesn't make mistakes, that they've only lacked clarity. The interesting thing that can happen there is that let's say this handler rider is leading the horse through a doorway. Maybe they're bringing them back in from the pasture and they're coming into the barn. Or maybe they're going through a stall doorway and the horse is excited. And that horse, as they come through the doorway, bumps in to the handler with their shoulder. If the rider chooses to believe that the horses don't make mistakes, a lot of times what the rider will do is they'll make an excuse for the horse. They'll say, well, the horse just happens to be having a bad day. He's excited because the other horses in the pasture are running. He's excited because there are new horses in the barn. He's excited because the fill in the blank with any other thing. And while all of those things are true, it is interesting to note whether or not what you say there gives you permission or makes you feel guilty if you correct the horse, because if you correct the horse for pushing into you, did you do that because you thought the horse just needed more clarity from you, which is fine? Or did you do it because you thought that the horse maybe made a mistake and needed to be corrected? Or did you choose not to correct it at all? Because there are new horses on the farm and he's just excited.
So this is an area to think about. An example. Number three, I see riders that often have a thought along this lines. It's got different phrasing, but the short version is I can't let him win. Sometimes it's like I can't let him do it wrong or sometimes it's. He'll learn to cheat or some version of that. So in this example, let's picture a horse that's being asked to load in a trailer. Let's say the horse walks up to the trailer. The handlers leading them. They walk up their horse, sticks his head in, takes a look around, turns to leave. If the rider chooses to believe that they must win this, what you'll often see is a rider applying a lot of pressure to at least get the horse back to the point where the head's in the trailer, because in the mind of this rider, they were already got to that point once today.
So getting back to that point should be easy. What often happens here is that this handler tends to apply a lot of pressure to get back to that original point, which is in this example, the head in the trailer and that extreme pressure blocks a lot of the conversation or question or the other things that were going on there. And it becomes a very win or lose. I'm the winner or you're the winner. This is a fight between us. This isn't something we're doing together. What I choose to believe is that I'm having conversations with the horses. What is very different about a conversation with a horse than a conversation with a human is that when we're having conversations with other humans, it's very vocal. Like this podcast. And when we're having conversations with the horses, it's mostly physical. And that is because they do communicate so much physically and so much body language between each other. And they do move each other by physical touch and by kicking or biting or nudging or pushing with shoulders. So there's a lot of physical stuff that's happening there. I want to believe that I'm having conversations with the horses and I can see grains of truth in all three of these examples that I just gave. But here's my twist on them. I can totally accept that there are times that I'm unclear with my horse, especially if I'm learning something new.
But what I want to make sure is that it stays a conversation and the inside of that conversation. We stay inside of a safe zone. This also jumps back to another podcast. This very same one, Mara said make mistakes in the right direction. I can accept that there's times that I'm unclear because maybe I'm working on something new. But in that example, I will have a clear outcome. For example, having my horse stand still in the cross eyes is very clear. I might not be certain on how I'm gonna get there, but I can make mistakes in the right direction because I have a very clear end goal. Have the horse stand still and then I'm going to try different things to get there. And along the way, I am going to be judging if day three looks any better than day one or day six looks any better than day three, because that will tell me that even though I might not be perfect, I am making progress in the right direction. Or if I want to phrase it this way, I'm making mistakes in the right direction. In the second example, I can also accept that a horse can make a mistake that was unintentional. If that horse is being let in through a doorway and that horse is excited and that horse does push in to me with his shoulder, I can accept that this was unintentional.
But I do still label it a mistake on the horse's part and I still take action to correct it. One of the reasons I'm okay with saying it's a mistake on the horse's part as I start to treat these horses in a way that I expect them to carry more responsibility. That also means that I'm going to shift something in my mind that means that they are able to carry that responsibility, which means that they can make mistakes in that responsibility in very early stages. Maybe I just label it purely a training opportunity, which always is a training opportunity. But the higher level the horses, the more I am expecting them to carry that part of the relationship and stay out of my space. It makes me feel okay to label it a mistake, because just because it's a mistake doesn't mean it's a criticism. Either way, I'm still going to correct it. I can also accept that as the leader, I have a plan like loading a horse into a trailer and I'm willing to take the time it takes to execute that plan. But the major difference is I'm also looking to reward as many small movements along the way that I can. So maybe the horse does walk up, stick its head in the trailer, take a look around and decide that it doesn't want to go there.
Whatever is going on that made that happen, when that horse makes that decision, I'm going to pick up that conversation and say, hey, how about focusing yourself back in this direction instead of saying this is a failure? If I don't get the horse's head back to this exact point, I'm going to look at this as kind of curious. This is interesting. When I turn you to the trailer this time, do I notice that from 20 feet away you have some raised anxiety? Are there signs that I missed as I was leading you up there? At what point do you get anxious and when are you deciding to say no or when? Are you asking that question? So all of these thoughts change the feeling I have in my body. It doesn't change that I'm a leader with a plan, but it does change how I execute that plan. To summarize all of this, I would say you need to know where you're operating from when you're handling your horse. What I'd like you to do is recognize the thought that you're having this driving your action. Are you thinking that he's cheating you? Are you thinking that he gets a free pass because of what's going on around you?
Or are you choosing to look at it like I do? Looks like my horse has a question. This could be an interesting conversation. Thanks so much for listening and I'll talk to you again in the next episode.
If you enjoy listening to Stacy podcast, please visit Stacy Westfall dot com for articles, videos and tips to help you and your horse succeed.
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