Natural Horsemanship

The hunt of the perfect saddle for Bree did result in one major paradigm shift for Sarah and ultimately, me.

After lurking on Facebook trying to track down as much information on saddle fitting, Sarah came across much helpful advice but in particular, she came across Tina.

Tina not only freely gave Sarah pointers on the different saddles to try on Bree, the indicators of a good or poor fit etc. But Tina also introduced Sarah to the world of natural horsemanship.

Up to now, Sarah was the product of the traditional style of horsemanship. Break the horse until it did what you wanted. This normally involved equipment and pushing the horse for perfection. Sarah was still trying to figure out what Bree's natural tendency was; show jumping, dressage, eventing etc.?

So Sarah started out to try and find, through trial and error, what was Bree's particular bag.

I remember when Sarah returned home with her latest purchase on TradeMe. She was excited as she opened up the bag, exclaiming to me that this is incredibly exciting and she could not wait until she showed me how it worked.

Out fell from the bag a jumbled collection of ropes, pulleys and straps. My interest was piqued. Was this a new adventurous and open minded attitude of my beloved that I had not seen before? As she untangled it all and started to lay it out, I too was becoming both excitedly interested.

Trying to figure out how it all fitted together and with a professional eye calculating the load bearing of the ceiling joists, the realisation dawned on me. It was for a horse. Feeling a bit deflated, I re-joined the real world from the slightly kinky corners of my mind.

It was a device for ensuring the "correct" posture of a horse when lunging; to guide the horse in maintaining a correct bearing. Something which had employed on the European equestrian training circuits that Sarah had worked in. I personally was a bit dubious as to Princess Bree's reaction when approached with this rope / strap and pulleys contraption.

However, before we could see if Bree could be wired up for sound, Tina mentioned that she was assisting on a Bert Elstrob Natural Horsemanship clinic being held at the Silverstream covered arena in Mosgiel. Sarah should come along and see an alternative way to horse training.

I was invited along to the two day event at a reduced fee to "audit" or in other words, watch.

I had heard about horse whisperers in the past and could see that by examining the behavioural aspects of how a horse interacts with other horses, identify common methods for getting a horse to connect with you and hopefully do what you wanted. I did feel that with Bree's obfuscate nature, that she would probably benefit more from a Horse Shouter than a Whisperer

Anyway, with my interest once again piqued for an entirely different reason, I found myself sitting in the cold morning air, on hard benches watching a gathering of horses and their owners. I had a thermos of coffee, multiple muesli bars, video camera and notepad and more importantly, a cantankerous Bree. This could be quite an entertaining day and well worth the course fee.

The horses had been put into stalls on the far side of the arena, looking out onto the arena itself, while the owners stood in the arena itself listening to the instruction from Bert Elstrob on the principles of pressure and release.

As Bert talked, I noticed Bree on the far side, deftly picking at her lead rope that had been tied to the wall of the stall until she loosened it off enough to untie the knot. She then backed out of the stall and started to wander down the corridor, stopping every now and then to peer into a stall, practically give a smirk to the horse contained within, before walking to the next stall to repeat the process.

I quietly lay my cup of coffee and notebook down onto the bench and tried to ninja like, leave the bleachers and frog crawl out the side door, run around outside until I got to the sliding door that opened into the stall area,  running face to face into Bree as she made her break for freedom. Without trying to make it obvious to all those gathered in the arena, I returned the unhappy Bree back to her stall and retied her. Then it was a case of stealthily doing the reverse journey back to my coffee and notebook.

Settling back in I started to record pertinent points being made by Bert as to the importance of a consistent approach to training. “If you do what you have always done, you will always get what you have always got" was dutifully jotted down in my notebook.

Looking back up, just in time to see Bree raising and dropping her head repeatedly. Yup, she was untying her lead rope again. Once again, without trying to alert the instructor or other course participants to the undisciplined behaviour of the unruly mare right behind them, I started out on my commando course recapture the determined Bree. The look on her face as she pulled up short in front of me as I darted out in front of her was once of intense annoyance. Could I just please stop interfering!

I returned Bree back to her stall and tied up with even more knots this time. I cat like managed to get back to my seat without broadcasting to everyone.

The rest of the two days was spent seeing a different approach to how to get a horse to do what you wanted. Though this is actually wrong. As was constantly stated, the horse knows everything. How to trot, canter, stop, reverse, lie down, stand up etc. as it already does this normally. What we need to learn is how to ask the horse to do this when we want it to. There is also a need to build trust in the horse that you actually are there for its wellbeing, that you are not going to put into a situation where it is in danger.

Of course, with a horse being a flight animal, most things it encounters in its day to day life is more often than not going to be interpreted as a danger. Those blades of grass, the rubbish bin, sign on the side of the road. a sheep that is giving it a funny look, all things that if a horse does not take notice of, will at some stage rear up and eat the horse whole.

The horse needs to trust you more than its own instincts. Think about that one when you find yourself in a situation where you have suddenly been given a fright. You need to instead of running away or follow you instincts, you instead turn around to someone standing nearby and patiently wait for them to give you instructions. This is what we are asking of our horses.

 I for one know that if I am in a darken alleyway and a large, imposing figure suddenly steps out of the shadows in a menacing way, if you want me to just stand there, turn to a person who I only see once a day for 30 mins and ask calmly what do they want me to do? I am going have to have a long history of trust built up with that person prior.

As the activities became more complex, there were occasions when riders had to break what was being asked of their horse into smaller chunks, get those right with consistency and then add another piece, and then another until the whole picture, or in this case activity, was consistently implemented correctly.

Even without a horse I was picking up invaluable instruction. I couldn’t wait to get my own horse to start implementing all this new knowledge.

A few months later we hosted a clinic at our newly purchased rural lifestyle block which was facilitated by Tina. We had a group of horse owners at it being taken through the building blocks of natural horsemanship. For one of the activities Tina had us pair up and sans horse, one person wore the rope head collar with eyes closed, while the second person lead them around the arena. The purpose of the exercise was to feel the pressure exerted by the rope halter on the horse.

Tina was standing there using some particularly colourful language as to why we must always be soft with the horse as the halter does cause pressure even at the lightest touch on the reins.

The High Priestess holding court

I was playing the role of the "horse" being lead around by Sarah with my eyes closed. I happened to open them to be staring directly at the previous owners of the property, the Goatleys, who had chosen that particular moment to return for an unannounced visit and who were now standing by the post and rail fence of the arena.

As I stumbled my way over to them, wearing a rope head collar and trailing a lead rope behind me, I sort of stammered a welcome to the two very devout members of the Brethren Church. I could see the thoughts running through their heads as they took in the sight of a group of heathens practicing some arcane ritual in their previous home, lead by the High Priestess, spouting profanity from the centre of the field.

In reply to my welcome and not very coherent explanation that we were not actually trying to summon the devil incarnate, but rather trying to have a better understanding of pressure and release.

Mrs Goatley returned my welcome with "hello Paul, this seems *pause* interesting...."

There was probably a lot of scripture reading occurring in the Goatley's new house, that night as our two souls were tried to be saved.

Bonding with Bree

Lets take some time out for a moment to talk about the special case that is Bree. Talking about Bree is actually Bree's favorite subject.

We had looked at a couple of horses previously and yes, they were wonderful to look at, they had all the things that a horse needed, four legs, a head, ears etc. But even I could see that there was something missing. That being a connection.

Being around a horse for the first time in a long time was exciting, but they seemed detached, aloof, not interested in the goings on that they were involved in. Sarah and I talked after each viewing as to what we thought. Surprisingly, we were in agreement. It may be unachievable, but we were both looking for that sort of Love at First Sight feeling. The gut feel that this horse was the one.

Being a bloke I was not sure if I was being stupid to expect something like that in an animal. I am a cat person. They couldn’t care less how you were feeling, as long as you were accepting of the lifetime of servitude that they expected from you as you pamper to their every whim. 

Simba in a battle of wills with a post

Getting the hang of the dog flap. It took Simba a bit longer.

With Sarah came her dogs. Two great big long haired German Shepherds. That was learning by total immersion. I rapidly had to get to grips with how dogs have a completely different outlook on life as opposed to cats. Loyal to you, intelligent and yet at the same time (as was displayed with the younger German shepherd, Simba) immensely stupid. I mean to say, we had to show him how to use a dog flap into the house or on other occasions, if you want to play fetch, this means you have to release the ball after you have retrieved it. 

The loyalty was something else to behold. I remember vividly the moment soon after Sarah and I started in our relationship, rolling over in bed during the middle of the night, to come nose to muzzle of Simba. He was just sitting there beside the bed, all 40kgs of him, just staring at me, basically asking me just what my intentions were with his owner. After a few frozen moments of us both just eyeballing each other, I sort wiggled myself back down under the protective covers of the blankets, peeking out every now and then to find Simba still sitting there, as if reminding me that in an instant he could have me by the neck, drag me out outside and make me just plain disappear. Message received loud and clear.

When we went to see Bree, the thoughts of love at first sight not being applicable to animals was dispelled. She was beautiful. A 8 year old black standard breed mare, standing at 15.1 hands high. When she moved it was graceful and her black coat shone. Her horsey smell completed the round out of ticking all the boxes where our senses were involved.

The next part should have been the raising of a red flag. As mentioned before she had never raced, only getting by on her looks, and she knew it. What a princess. Everything that happened around her was by royal decree. Sarah wanted her. I was smitten by her. Two things never good when going into negotiations to buy something.

The negotiations were quite tense with emails, phone calls, offers, counter offers and at the last possible moment, a possible rethink of instead of being an outright sale, instead a lease. Sarah was not happy with that. In the past she worked with many horses for other owners, bringing them on to a high level of turn out for showing, only to have them sold on. Then having to start the process all over again. 

A firm and final offer was made for Bree. I do not know if it was the offer or the heartfelt email from Sarah that clinched the deal, but we were soon the proud owners of Beyoncé. 

Beyoncé. That was Bree's real name. That was the first to change. Soon other changes started to occur. To transport her from her old home at a friends place to a paddock that Sarah had somehow managed to find and rent in North Dunedin; required several hours trying to get her onto the float. 

The regal manner in which Bree had carried herself during the visits and test rides prior to purchase also changed. She suddenly became a horse that could trip over her hooves on the flattest of ground, stumbling from place to place. She didn’t like her hooves being picked out and started lashing out with her rear legs, ears pinned to her head displaying her displeasure. 

This lack of not wanting to be handled did cause some moments of hilarity when we noticed that soon after arrival she had a patch of mud fever on a rear leg. The best we could do to get near it with a salve was a dressing with the ointment applied, at the end of a long bit of twisted wire so we could dab it on from a safe distance.

I could see a lot of Sarah in Bree. A princess, temperamental, strong willed and neither backing away from a challenge. Sarah, to her credit, never gave up on the strong battle of wills that was starting to develop.

The free spirit that is Bree

Twice a day, before and after work, Sarah went to work on Bree. Handling her, picking her feet out every visit, lunging, walking around the paddock with Bree on a lead. Just bonding and reaffirming to Bree that she was the only horse in the world and yes, it was only appropriate that all must fawn over her. 

Me, I also visited the paddock every day to repair fences, assist in distracting Bree whilst her feet were picked up time and time again. Making sure that there were no casualties from the battle royals that use to ensue whilst the lunging of Bree occurred. Oh, and picking up Bree's poo. Lots of poo. Soon Bree was following us around the paddock (more I believe in just making sure that I had not missed any of her "offerings" and inspecting everything was in order in the way that she wanted it.

Sarah soon felt that they had got to a stage in their relationship for a ride. I think that the result of that first ride could be best described as the "looks like a fish, moves like a fish, steers like a cow". I may have muttered under my breath that the only thing soft about Bree was in-between her ears. Subsequent rides allowed Sarah and Bree to start to develop an understanding. Sometimes the understanding between the both of them was that both refused to do what the other wanted. A partnership made in heaven.

I followed these rides along the streets of north Dunedin and into the forest tracks of the greenbelt on foot, walking the dogs. On occasion, Sarah graced me with having a turn riding Bree. I did not like it. I felt I was going to fall off of the saddle, as it seemed to have way too much excessive movement. 

Bree's aforementioned flat back, no withers approach to being a horse caused a great gnashing of teeth whilst trying to find a saddle that fitted. Also as mentioned before, the Barefoot came to the rescue and provided comfort to both horse and rider.

While there were some glimmers of sunshine in the stormy relationship between Bree and Sarah, the majority of the time it was a battle of wills. An irresistible force meeting an immovable object. Time and time again Bree felt that the programme of activities that Sarah had decided upon did not take into account her calendar. Bree had booked in a restful rejuvenating lie on the grass in the sun, possibly followed by an al fresco lunch down by the stream. Instead Sarah had planned a morning of lunging, basic handling and carrot stretches to free up Bree’s range of movement. Diametrically opposed plans.

This relationship all changed though not long after Bree's arrival. we were up at the paddock after work doing all the necessary things to ensure that Bree maintained the lifestyle to which she had become accustomed, when Sarah noticed a bit of blood on Bree's mouth. Thinking this was a bit strange Sarah had a look inside Bree’s mouth to see if she had bitten her tongue.

What she was not expecting to see was a horizontal laceration across Bree's tongue, right through causing a large section of the tongue to be hanging in place by a small thickness of tongue muscle about a centimetre wide.

The action stations button was pushed. Whilst Sarah was on the phone lining up vets, I cruised around the paddock trying to see what she had cut herself on. The only thing that it might have been was a piece of fencing wire sticking out and Bree had somehow run it through her mouth to lacerate her tongue. But that really didn’t make sense even for Bree.

The vet was summoned who inspected Bree's mouth. With her jaws clamped open with what looked like a metal instrument of torture, the damage was able to be properly assessed. It did not look good. Bree would have to be anaesthetised and have the tongue stitched back together. The vet was unsure if the stitches would be enough to stop the tongue from falling apart. She would have to consult with another vet down in Southland. We were told to prepare ourselves for the possibility that without the ability to eat, Bree may have to be put down.

Whilst the vet was examining the wound, she found embedded in the tongue the tooth from a small dog. The vet thought that the tooth belonged to something like a little terrier. It seemed that Bree must have opened her mouth at the wrong time with a small dog in the vicinity, which then latched onto her tongue, shredding it as Bree pulled away.

The Tooth

While the vet consulted with her colleague, I made contact with our equine insurance people. We had taken the insurance out on Bree two weeks prior and so it was with a heavy heart that I updated them on the situation. expecting to be informed that they would not be able to cover an injury so soon after taking out the insurance policy, I was immensely relieved to hear that Bree would be covered, to submit a claim once the surgery had been done and the person on the other end of the phone took time out to empathise with me as to how shocking such an injury would be and their hope that the surgery would be successful.

I have never forgotten the kind words that this person said in what was a situation that had the potential to turn completely devastating.

Still looking good? Still looking good!!

In preparation for the surgery, Bree had to be taken to holding stables the night before the procedure. Apart from the fact that she was not allowed to eat anything, we could tell that Bree was considering this turn of events as only proper and was looking forward to a bit of one on one pampering. It also helped that a stallion in a nearby holding area had noticed Bree as she sashay past and was voicing his approval at such a sexy wee vixen moving in next door. Bree could have been the next Maybelline model the way she was tossing her head, making sure that the stallion saw her flowing mane and saucy looks.

The next day, with another vet to supervise the operation coming up from Invercargill, Bree was anaesthetised and her tongue stitched. When we visited later that day, the vet said that there were some concerns around how well the stitches would hold and only time would tell. Bree would have to be kept of hard feed for period until the tongue had a chance to start mending. Knowing Bree’s love for food, we were not entirely sure how we would break this news to her. However at this stage Bree was still totally a space cadet, high on the drugs the vets had given her.

It was time to take her home. As we didn’t have a float we borrowed one from a fellow horsing person Linda. It was her paddock that we had moved Bree to after the dog incident. We didn’t feel that it would be safe for Bree in her old field in case the dog returned and we had a repeat event.

We loaded Bree into the float and started the journey home. We had a particularly steep hill on the way back to navigate, with a small winding road. 

With our Nissan terrano struggling to pull the weight of Bree, the float and the two of us up the hill, we soon had an entourage of cars behind us, all probably not thinking thoughts of good wishes to us and admiration for attempting to climb up the hill with what looked like a severely underpowered vehicle.

Don't believe that this is looking the way it should

We were about three quarters of the way up when there was a loud explosion from under the bonnet and large clouds of steam streaming out. Kiddies, Uncle Paul's top tip of the day. Clouds of white vapour from an engine means steam, dark clouds mean smoke. Sarah and I use to experience panicked bystander reactions when attending motor vehicle collisions as all the steam was mistaken for smoke. Only on a few occasions have I been to an accident to find the "smoke" really was smoke. The first time I got back onto the radio to confirm with Control that the fire service had been notified as "for once, the callers are correct, the vehicle is actually on fire for a change".

With the billowing steam clouds obscuring the view in front of the vehicle, I pulled over to the side of the narrow road and we decamped from the vehicle. Reassuring the next two cars that pulled past us that no, the vehicle is not on fire, I popped the bonnet to see what the damage was. I was greeted with the sight of the entire top of the radiator missing. That’s not pretty, we could have a problem.

Hearing this, Sarah has already spring into protecting-the-baby mode. Screw everything and everyone else, Bree must be first priority. We immediately offloaded her and Sarah relocated to a convenient road access point to a nearby forestry block. I returned to the vehicle to determine if it would be credible to have the blown radiator initiate a secondary fire that would unfortunately consume the crippled vehicle, thereby solving several problems at one stroke. I was pretty sure that the insurance was paid up. Unfortunately the clearing steam clouds did not reveal a burgeoning fire and despite my valiant attempts at fanning the engine in the hope of encouraging any hotspots, the vehicle retained its unburnt status.

By this stage, all the cars that we had been holding up in our slow journey up the hill less than five minutes ago must have past us, all probably with that wry smile you get when karma is delivered a little quicker than you had been anticipating, because a newly arrived car pulled over and offered us some assistance.

The kind gentleman inquired if he could drop us off any place in town to arrange the recovery of the vehicle and float. I thanked him for his generosity and remarked as the horse always insists on sitting up front when travelling we might just leave her and Sarah behind, however if he could drop me to Linda's place that was nearby and use her Range Rover to complete the journey. The Good Samaritan looked backwards and for the first time must have seen Sarah struggling with this large horse, off and down from the road. He agreed that this was probably the smartest move as he only was driving a Honda civic hatchback.

I ran back to Sarah and informed her of the good news. "Just hurry!" She hissed through clenched teeth as she tried to maintain control of Bree. Bree, after not having any food since the day before surgery was now desperately trying got break loose from Sarah's control to gorge herself on the tall dry stalks that she found herself suddenly standing amongst. Also there were tempting blackberry bushes also within reach which were really talking to her. Obviously Bree had totally ignored the vets little speech of only eating small amounts of soft food and instead was trying to strip the leaves off the brambles. Maybe she had the munchies after all the drugs.

Leaving Sarah to the valiant struggle of trying to get the gluttonous Bree away from all things edible and some things possibly not, I re-joined our road side saviour and off we travelled to Linda's lifestyle block. With many grateful thanks to our white knight, I was dropped off at Linda's driveway and after some brief explanations was returned to the roadside carnage in the Range Rover driven by Linda's husband, Grant. 

Bree was soon reloaded onto the float (now attached to the Range Rover) and on the way back to her paddock with Sarah and Linda. I followed on behind in the crippled Nissan Terrano, one eye constantly on the temperature gauge. As soon as it started to rise, I would pull over to the side of the road and turn the engine off, waiting until the engine temperature started to decline, then off again I would drive. it only took one stop to get to Linda's and then only two stops for us to limp home after making sure Bree was tucked up in 'Linda's arena as there was no way we could trust Bree not to start eating, if we had returned her to her paddock, the moment our backs were turned.

even though we went through all these dramas and it meant a routine of careful monitoring of what and how Bree ate, numerous vet visits to see how the tongue was healing etc., it was a clear turning point in Sarah and Bree's relationship. By the time the tongue had healed sufficiently for Sarah to even contemplate putting a bit back into Bree's gob and go for a ride, Bree had changed into a horse that seemed to trust Sarah. Yes, the battles of wills would resurface from time to time, but it seemed as if Bree now looked at Sarah as a person who she would allow to be led by. Bree was noticeably more at ease and cuddly around Sarah. We could now pick up all of her feet without that feeling of potentially Bree lashing out, kicking us into a place that even Google maps could not find.

Seeing the progress that Sarah was making with Bree, that sense of partnership it was becoming harder for me to keep that urge of wanting my own horse under control. Soon I was going to have to have my own challenge to work on.