The Good: Getting to experience other cultures, foods and ways of living without spending lots of money. It's a great time for self realizations, making new friends and learning new things.
The Bad: Free time is a myth. Time to go exploring on your own and see other cities, is limited to nonexistent. Going to see places on your free day is possible, however, you have to go alone because it’s unlikely they can spare both you and your new awesome friend who’s doing the same thing, long enough to give you the same day off. If you do get time off together, it’s probably a Sunday and everything is closed. If it’s not a Sunday, neither of you probably have a car and your hosts are too busy to take you anywhere.
The Ugly: what you look like after an exhausting day cleaning stables, horses and helping 17 children get their horses prepared and put away.
But on a more serious note:
Overall I would consider my working holiday experiences to be a success; I’ve learned a lot, became more self confident and reliant and met some great new friends. However, there have definitely been some road bumps. Traveling from location to location has been a nightmare, both by train and by air and staying with hosts has been, while overall a positive experience, rather frustrating.
The frustration comes from the fact that with perhaps one exception, all of my hosts didn’t exactly tell me what I was supposed to be doing, and my last host didn’t really show me how to do, well, anything. I had been in Italy for 3 days when I got to train the new girl on how to do things. It’s lucky that I had previous workaway experiences and that I have spent years working for stables and as a trail guide because she had only started riding a year and a half before, and had never worked in anything like this before.
The first time she tried to put on a halter, she put it on backwards. I tried not to giggle, but I failed a little. She was even more frustrated than I was since she had no idea what to do, and she had told our host that before arriving. Yet, even knowing that she had no experiences with this kind of work, our host basically threw her off the deep end. So I helped her, because that wasn’t fair to her. Even then, I was not an ideal choice of mentor since I myself was only learning how this host likes things done. Thankfully she was a quick learner and eager to improve and she became a good friend.
At one point she asked me if I ever got mad or annoyed that I was always doing more work than her.
My response:
"Why would I get mad? It's not fair to expect you to do things as fast as me. It's easier for me because I have more muscle built up from doing this for 3 months and I have lots more experience with this in the past."
Sandra : "Well, yeah, but you're still doing a lot more work, it just takes me so much longer to do things."
Me: "Let me put it this way, if you were a horse, it would be ridiculous to expect a green horse I had just bought to do the same amount of work and respond as well as my well trained and conditioned horse that I've had for years. That's just not fair."
My hosts however didn't seem to share this sentiment as they seemed to find it unfair to me. And maybe in a way it was, but that's certainly not her fault and she shouldn't be blamed. I have the muscles and experience and she's just learning and building muscle. You have to walk before you run.
In case you were wondering, different hosts and horse people like things done their way. It’s a little maddening. It’s a lot maddening when they want things done their way but they don’t want to tell you what that way is; they just expect you to know it. Now, I don’t know what kind of mind reading sorcerers you’ve had working for you in the past, but I am sorely lacking in those abilities. Because of this unfortunate habit that many of my hosts shared, the first week to 10 days can be extremely frustrating. In fact, it really feels like you’re swimming against the tide. Eventually of course you figure things out and they stop asking you “why are you doing that?!” “Why are you doing it like that?!” in an outraged or condescending tone and things become considerably more enjoyable. In the meantime, you simply grit your teeth and ask how they want it done with a smile because dammit, you’re here for the rest of the month.
Oh and that “average” of 4-5 hours of work a day thing, yeah, that’s pretty much bullshit. On average, not counting time for meals, I had between 2-3 hours free a day and we started work between 7-8 am.
Still, it is good to know that I can adapt to many situations-even those where I don’t speak the language, work harder than just about anyone else, improve at things I set my mind to and that I am stronger than I ever imagined. One way or another, things will work out and for good or for bad, time will pass by and an experience will be gained.
I’ve mentioned before that people keep thinking I’m older than I actually am, on average I get ‘30’. They say it’s because of my confidence. I’ve never felt all the confident in new situations before, now I do feel more confident because I know I can learn and I know I can figure most things out. Getting something wrong is no longer the end of the world that it used to be, because I know I can just do better next time and I won’t make the same mistake twice…. Okay, definitely not the same mistake three or four times anyway.
Without further ado, here are my major lessons I learned in Spain, France and Italy.
Spain: The first bowl of porridge was too ‘hot’.
*Discipline is not a dirty word*
Positive reinforcement is good. Positive reinforcement without discipline and rules is a nightmare. Discipline is not a dirty word. Sometimes being spoiled is just as bad as being treated too harshly. Actually, sometimes it can create even more of a monster. I have never been kicked or bitten more times in my life, nor had a horse care less about listening to the rider or handler. Horses are happier when they are given clear rules and boundaries. They are like children; you need to be a parent first and a friend second. While it is undoubtedly good to listen to your horses and what they want, sometimes it’s good for them to do things they don’t want to do as well.
France: The second bowl of porridge was too ‘cold’.
Always listen to your instincts and do what you think is right.
Sometimes you need to listen to what your horse is trying to tell you and sometimes it’s okay to let them “win”. Because letting them “win” for one day is better than getting hurt and letting them “win” for week. (The “win” is in parentheses because I don’t agree that listening to them and not forcing them to do things occasionally is letting them win. I think working with horses should be a partnership with some give and take.)
I was riding a mare, Flicka, and she started acting up a little in our first lesson- refusing to go forward, wanting to go by a certain mare in the next pasture (she was in heat) and being “stuck in reverse”. My usual method is to sit still and not react until my horse has stopped reacting and started using their thinking brain again. My goal is to show them that I don’t care if they do the wrong thing, but it won’t do any good in the long run because as soon as they stop, I’m just going to ask them to do what I wanted in the first place again. This will continue until they eventually realize that just doing what I wanted them to do is a lot less of a pain in the ass than trying to throw a fit. I don’t care if you throw a temper tantrum in the store; but you’re not getting anything out of it, including my attention, and you’re just wasting your energy. I like this method as it usually ends up with the horse agreeing that maybe my way isn’t so bad after all and I don’t get hurt.
My hosts were not the type of people who shared my mindset about this. They were the kind who believed the horse needed to be corrected and do the right thing, right this second, or they’d learn bad habits. Can’t let them win. The instructor told me to use more leg and kick her! Why aren’t you kicking her? You’re letting her win! Why aren’t you kicking her?
They were not amused and told me I needed to use more leg and that it would be fine.
Not a good look for me.
(I also had the flu and my wisdom teeth removed. All in all, not a fun week.)
In the next lesson the horse’s behavior began to slowly escalate. She kept backing up and began to go up a little on the ground, and then she began refusing jumps. Which made the child riding her nervous so my host got on to show her how to handle the horse and to not let the horse win. He got her over the jumps a few times, but the rearing became that in honest. In his refusal to lose, the horse became anxious and stopped thinking. Her rearing got higher and higher, and it eventually ended up with her flipping over backwards and landing on him. He had to be airlifted to the hospital. He doesn’t remember any of it. Thankfully he was not seriously injured, but he was out of commission for the rest of the month and he spent a few days in the hospital.
The horse was now deemed too dangerous to be used in lessons, which is fair, if something ever did happen with a child and they knew the horse had done something like it before, it would be a nightmare. Still, I can’t help but be glad I listened to my instincts.
There is a time to push, and a time to back off. You can lose a battle and win the war.
So in my first place, I learned that sometimes it’s okay to insist on getting your way and in my second, I learned that it’s also okay to not get your way all the time and to pick your battles carefully.
Italy: This porridge was just right… okay, it was closer.
Set clear and consistent expectations and make the way you want it done crystal clear or be prepared for things to get messed up.
Hell, if humans don’t know what you want out of them and can’t understand how you want things done, what chance do horses have? We expect an awful lot out of our horses and we expect them to all know the same things and we get annoyed when they don’t. This is not fair to them.
"I don't know what you want me to do and I'm stressed and confused so I'm going to do the Spanish walk now and hope that's right..."
“But it’s been ridden for 5 years, why doesn’t it know neck reining/backing up/ leg pressure?!” Because it doesn’t, so stop complaining and start fixing.
Humans can be terribly confusing creatures to work with- and that’s with us speaking the same language. The fact that horses put up with our shit at all is rather amazing.
While I do believe these were the best horses I worked with overall and they were generally happy, there was still some ways of treating them I don’t agree with. However, my biggest issue was with the lack of instruction we were given and the expectations they had for us.
If you want something done your way, you need to explain what your way is. Maybe your way of doing things, or your cues, are very different from what the other person, or horse, has experienced in the past.
