You do what you can...

With what you have. Trust yourself. Trust your animal. Breathe in their love for you.

When you own an animal, any animal, that animal is "yours", to do what you will with it. But what if the will won't work? What if the animal doesn't accept your will? Do you beat it? Yell, rant, take away toys? Yank on the horse's mouth? Get a stronger bit? Rake your spurs into their sides? Give that dog's choke chain a jerk? Smack your kid on his butt?

Only rarely do these methods work, and when they do, the effect is either sporadically successful, or elicits fear in the animal, the next time that situation arises.. Over time, they can recover. Trust takes a long time to re-build.

In various, extreme cases, where safety for the animal is the issue, or the animal is ClearlY flouting or endangering the human leader, they are necessary.
And if the timing of the touch is PerfecT, and ConsistenT, and never harshly, angrily bestowed, the animal, heck, the human will learn.

Thanks, BlueHeron.

I had never "struck" Flip before last weekend. It wasn't any more than a light tap. Flip yelped as if I had cut off one leg. Flip was really saying "Dammit, okay, I get what you've been saying. I've been ignoring you. I get it." Her recall has since improved to perfect. I respect Flip even more, for showing me that she was listening, I just hadn't made my self clear enough to her. Flip had happily allowed me to feel soft for her, poor Flip. Flip had a rough start, Flip is super submissive. Pah. Not:)

I had several epiphanies while reading the Merle's Door book. Can you tell? Probably not yet. I'm still drying my eyes, and honking my schnozz. Merle had the life any dog would lose a limb for. A loving, calm, honest, energetic owner. A tiny village where he could be a dog, the way dogs used to be, before we over-populated the cities and the suburbs.

Jim Wofford's article, saying over-training on the flat can dull the horse's instincts over fences, and Merle the dog's story, brought this HUGE gestalt into my head. Ouch.

Hard to explain, but suddenly, I understand my dogs and my own training problems in a whole new way.

When I have training problems, I back up to the last point where I was successful, in getting the response I want. If the animal isn't willing, I'm in trouble.

Why isn't the animal willing? What have I done wrong? If I'm positive, I mean POSITIVE, the animal is clear in my request, I will do a tap, or a growl, to get the animal's attention. That was my first time "tapping" Flip. I will probably never need to "touch" Flip again. I've regained her trust, by firmly explaining my point. Flip hadn't been totally sure that I'd meant it.

Puppy Blaze has had to endure my further mistakes in training. We all make them, but if the animal trusts us, we can and will be forgiven. I used the fear Blaze had for crinkley things to get her to go to bed, when she was a puppy. Blaze is still dealing with that fear. See what I did? I got what I wanted, with a price tag attached. The price was Blaze's trust around these things. Now, she eats before, during and after hearing crinkles, to help her regain her trust in me for this situation. I raised the fear, I have to defuse the fear.

Our relationships with our animals are all about trust. Our relationships are all about our own personalities and how they intertwine with the species we love.

GoLightly & Trust & Offence.
GoLightly, the best horse I could ever ride, showed me so much about trust. I thought of him often through the book, too.

You see, I had ridden untrustworthy horses for a very long time. Horses I had to be ready for, horses that were looking for an out, horses that only responded to brute force. I was a defensive rider. It's a habit ingrained in many of us that learned by the skin of our teeth. I was pretty darned ready for anything. I was unprepared for an animal with such trust in ME.

An offensive rider is much more effective. Hah, that sounds way wrong. Do you know what I mean? An offensive rider, assumes things will be fine, rides as if things are fine. Defensive assumes the opposite.

Merle's book is a song sung to anthropomorphism. I've never understood why anthropomorphical (I JUST made that word up) thinking has been sneered at in certain behavioural circles. People like me and you, who have always preferred translating what an animal was saying, rather than listening to humans nattering ENDlesslY on,(:) And on and on... okay, okay. I know. I natter a lot.) We can only stare blankly at people who don't see the disaster or the miracle about to happen.

Tangent, such as it is, completed.
It's how we translate the animal that counts. Our animals are constantly translating us.

Merle's owner wasn't his owner. They were partners, for life. I can't give too much away, suffice it to say, it was the best book I've read about animals and behaviour and evolution, since "Animals in Translation" came out..
It's about the inherent understanding an animal and a human can enjoy.

I'm happier, having heard Merle's story, and feel better equipped for my own. I realize now where my trust issues are, with myself and my girls.

Merle's Dad let me watch & listen to his dog, just as dogs have always wanted to be, but too often can't. It was beautiful. Funny, oh, my...
(sniffles)

How lucky my dogs are! What a life I've been able to give them so far. How glad I am to know them. To continue to get to know them, as they continue to get to know me. They know a LOT about me:)

I'm so happy to know y'all.


I'm solemn.

For Horses:)

p.s. That's a re-scanned picture of Nonchalant, the black Trakehner/TB cross gelding I rode.
Of course I have a chain-shank on him, he was an alligator when I first started working with him. He thought all humans were edible. Even bony-butt me:)
p.p.s. FernV, I mentioned GoLightly. His memories are softly filtering through my mind, reminding me to trust myself. As GoLightly trusted me.
Love to you all, and peace and health, and oh Yeah.
A Big Pot of Gold.