What's my real goal?

"What am I trying to do?"

"You're trying to get her to the other side of the creek."

"No, I'm trying to get her to be okay with the idea of going through the water and build her trust in me for new environments in the future. If I just wanted to get her across, I could backtrack to an area without water. If I just wanted her to go through the water, I could just get off and lead her across myself. Those are both much faster options, but neither will ensure that she will go through water again in the future or that we won't have a similar problem in five minutes. Do you see what I'm saying? Getting across isn't my goal."

This was the conversation between me and my client (let's call her Maggie). We were working with her and her horse because she'd been having some issues with her. She got her from me so I came out to help her figure them out. She was a first time horse owner and a beginner. She hadn't been pleased with the barn owners methods previously (story to come) .

I was working with Honey and right away I noticed she wasn't paying any attention to me up on her back. She was spooky and stubborn. So step one was to get her attention back on me. After that we worked on going past the stubborn spots, and doing it over and over and over again until she just wanted to walk right past and never look back.

Now we had come to a small creek bed, possibly a drainage ditch that Honey was not having any part of. So I hunkered down in my saddle to wait it out and get there one step at a time. I had no agenda so we could stay there until she got bored for all I cared.

Maggie kept trying to call Honey across and encourage her to take a step,
"Come on! You can do it! Just another step, come on!" Which was effectively trying to rush her across. She offered to lead her across for me. I declined. After all, my goal was to fix the problem, not just put a bandaid on it.

So we worked with a lot of nudging and kissing and turning the head side to side. Honey was clearly nervous about the whole thing so I wasn't going to rush her. Slow step by slow step (and several steps backwards)  we edged our way down to the waters edge.

Finally she lifted a foot and started pawing at the water, sending muddy splashes everywhere. Maggie was delighted and again tried to encourage her to come across before she changed her mind. I sat and let Honey splash away. Then she gradually put one foot in- then another. Then she rushed through as quickly as possible, nearly leaping out onto dry land.

Where she got a rest break and some petting. Maggie asked if we were going to move on now. I laughed.
"No, we're here until she's okay with it and trusts me. Just because she went across the water once doesn't mean she's okay with it. We're going to do this again."

So we repeated the process, which was still slow going although not as slow as before. Finally after a lot more splashing, we walked across. Petting and release followed. Then we walked through again and this time there was very little arguing. We continued this about 6-8 times until she didn't argue at all and wasn't interested in the water one bit.

The entire process probably took between 35 to 45 minutes.

Then it was Maggie's turn to ride. When she got to the 'stubborn spot' she visibly tensed up in anticipation and Honey reacted accordingly. She tried to turn around and go back. Obviously something was wrong with that spot if her rider was getting scared of it too! So I told her to just stop her, it didn't even matter if she kept turning her around, and take a couple of deep breaths.

"Just stop for a minute. Relax. What's the rush? Do you have somewhere to be?"
"No, I just want to get her past this place."
"And you will. Eventually. For now, just relax and stop. Stop yourself and take a time out. Just trust me."

So she did, and amazingly, Honey calmed down. (Well, shocking to her anyway.) Then I asked her to walk past the spot, imagining that Honey wouldn't even hesitate. She did and Honey walked past it with just a slight look of contemplation.

"We did it!"
"Excellent! Now do it 5 more times."
(The look I got at that comment was priceless.)

By the fifth time Honey was bored with the spot and Maggie wasn't nervous.

Then they continued down the mini trail with me staying behind to watch. When they came to the little creek bed, Honey walked right through it without a second thought. I might add that she looked quite proud on the other side.

"She just went through it like it was nothing!" *lots of petting*
"That's because we didn't rush her. I didn't care how long it took so she had all the time in the world to think about it. My goal wasn't to get her to cross the water that one time, but to trust her rider's judgement about water in the future. After all, in her mind that water could be 200 feet deep and just filled with horse eating monsters. On a sunny day like this, where it's reflecting everything she has no way of telling how deep that is. Heck, she might even think she'g going to fall into the sky. So from her point of view, not going through it seems pretty reasonable."

"She never has a problem crossing it if there's another horse ahead of her."

"That's because they've already proven to her that there isn't danger. As her rider, you have to prove you're trustworthy enough to make those decisions for her on a regular basis."



And with that we walked back to the barn where we worked on several more issues that had came up after the barn owner had messed with her.

"Act like you have five minutes and it will take all day. Act like you have all day and it will take five minutes."
So the saying goes, and it's as true today as it ever was.