THE HYSTERICAL HORSE
If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll keep getting what you’re getting
By Marie Burke
Years ago I bought my first horse. I was a complete novice, having only taken riding lessons in a riding ring. It seems like everyone insists that when a novice buys a horse, s/he must have a trainer. I would say the same, but I find it interesting that one can have a newborn baby (the human kind) and leave the maternity hospital completely ignorant as to how to change a diaper; nobody insists she must have a trainer. Nevertheless I had a trainer.
Trainers are imputed with all sorts of wisdom and knowledge when in fact they are mostly high school graduates who learned from their trainer, who learned from their trainer, who learned from their trainer. Facts and “cowboy wisdom” are interchangeable. For that reason, ignorance abounds. It’s worse than ignorance, because they’re so sure they know something you don’t. It’s a special kind of smugness.
Like many novices, I was bamboozled into buying exactly the wrong horse. A novice horse owner should purchase an older, calmer, experienced horse. I was persuaded (by said requisite trainer) to buy a younger, greener horse on the theory that we would “grow together.” That’s a recipe for black and blue. What you end up doing is getting hurt together.
The horse was panic-prone. Spin, kick out, bolt 50 yards; then stop and turn around to see what spooked him. That was his method of operation. He was high-strung by breed and by nature. As with many high strung children and animals, his temperament was mishandled early on. So he also was worried and anxious about being mishandled.
When I tried to handle him gently, I was mocked by people who subscribed to harsh training practices. I solicited my husband’s help, but he also subscribed to the old-school, force-based training practices. My horse only got worse. This reinforced my feeling that I could not handle my horse. The worse my horse got, the less I could handle him. The less I could handle him, the more I called on my husband. My husband only had one tool — force.
My horse was injured several times at the hands of harsh trainers. Twice he reared and flipped over, injuring his back and neck. The crisis drove me to search for a better way. It wasn’t until I got outside that vicious cycle and subscribed to the training practices of natural horsemanship, that things turned around. Within weeks I was able to control my horse and understand him better. He had a fear of being hurt. The harsher that people were, the more his fear was realized. With gentle practices, he came around.
I only wish I had learned these important lessons ten years earlier, because my son was once that hysterical horse. He was born prematurely and was very hyperactive. He was a handful, for sure. I trusted my husband’s handling, as I trusted him implicitly with all things. I’d been raised with girls and my husband had been raised with a brother. “What do you know about boys?” was his refrain. But his child rearing, like his horse handling, was very old-school and harsh. The harsher he was, the more hysterical my son became.
It started so early that I couldn’t even remember anything else. The more my son acted out, the less confidence I had in handling him. The less confidence I had, the more I called upon my husband. It wasn’t until I broke out of that vicious cycle and consulted a psychiatrist, who encouraged my gentle handling, that I was able to bring about any change at all. But, as with the horse, there was real damage done in those interim years.
There’s a Parelli saying in the horse world, “A horse doesn’t care how much you know, until he knows how much you care.” It’s hard to trust the simple act of caring as a primary qualification. No one will ever care about your child as much as you do. You are the expert on your child. And it doesn’t matter if you were raised with boys, girls, or wolves, you are qualified because your caring will keep you inside the boundaries of safety.
There is physical safety and there is emotional safety. No one feels physically safe when they don’t feel emotionally safe; and vice versa. The greatest risk is disregard. Disregard opens you to all manner of danger, from recklessness to abuse. The abusers are always the loudest voices. They want converts so they can normalize their own recklessness. It’s easy to be brave with someone’s else’s bones and heart; when someone else pays the price. CALM is the signal that you are moving in the right direction.
