Passive Leadership

I do not make a living working with horses.  I  don’t feel the need to compete or prove anything.  My self esteem isn’t wrapped up with having a special horse and being the best at any particular discipline.  I don’t think that makes me unmotivated.  That is just who I am.  Now, if I had the funds available, maybe I would like to learn to train a dressage horse!   But I wouldn’t want to sacrifice my horse’s happiness and and well -being for any of it. I do know however, that there are horses who actually enjoy learning and performing and even racing!  I don’t doubt that!

I enjoy being with my horses.  They make me feel ‘balanced’.  Very hard to define, but I trust any horse-person would understand!  When I was at the barn tonight, listening to them slurping their (weekly)wheat bran mash, I remembered something I watched on TV.  It was a show about a man who truly loved bears. They came to accept him -even in the wild!  He said that they didn’t especially like him…but they trusted him.  And I thought that about my horses.  When I make a quick movement, even toward their face, they don’t flinch.  There is no fear.  They trust me.  And I don’t even care anymore whether they ‘like’ me…they trust me and I want to trust them.  That is the relationship I am trying to build.  Everyday I do something to seal that bond.  I don’t know if this is a good example, but Ginger is the nervous Nelly type.  I haven’t had her very long.  She lived the past 2 years at Doxy’s Horse Recovery.  If they didn’t buy her, she would have been sent to Canada and slaughtered for horse meat.  I know she was ridden at times while up there.  I don’t think her particular nervousness was worked with.  They just accepted her for what she was and hoped for a suitable buyer.  I was the ‘suitable’ buyer. ( And it was all on impulse.  But that doesn’t matter anymore.)  She is the nervous type.  While she eats her grain, I shut the sliding door.  She cannot get out of that part of the barn.  She knows it.  She would become frantic at first.  Take a bite of grain, go to the door, another bite, another walk to the door.  Then it became a few bites, to the door, and so on.  Now she eats her grain all at once.  She then goes to the door.  By then I have put hay in her hay box.  I have sat down next to the hay box.  She still goes to the door, and then back to her hay- but she isn’t Frantic.  Much less nervous.  Then I open the door.  She looks out, sees that all is well, and continues eating her hay.  I need to keep doing this.  I think she will learn something from it.  Hopefully to trust me.  To trust me NOT to keep her locked up forever.  And if she ever has to be locked up for the night, that she will know she will be okay and wait for me to let her out.  No harm will come to her while she is in my care.  That is what I want to convey.  To all the horses.  I want our relationship to be built on trust.  I want to trust them too.  Yes, that involves training too.    I just remembered a book I read!  It was about passive leadership.  I need to fish it out and put on my list!  That is what I am trying to emulate: being a passive leader!  There are so many how to books out there!  It can get so confusing!  How to do this and that and what method to follow!  This book simplifies some of it.  I found it to be very useful!  P.S.  I had to shut Ginger up tonight.  It is 12/26 now.  We are having a heck of a storm.  Brego is next to  her in the other part of the barn.  There is a large opening between them so she is NOT alone.  She was not happy at all when I left her.  I heard her neighing.  But with the snow blowing and possible sleet that may come; I just had to make that decision.  Brego was happy, he doesn’t care about being a ‘natural’ type of horse in inclement weather!  He likes comfort!  I trust all will be well in the morning when I let them out.  Hopefully Brego will tell her to just chill!  The old girls, Sassy and Stormy, are in another separate part. They are ‘rooming’ together.

The name of the book is:  Horses Never Lie, the heart of passive leadership.  It is by Mark Rashid.  Here is an excerpt:

“…The funny thing about all this is that during the first three weeks we did absolutely nothing with the horses that most folks would consider training.  And yet those three weeks seemed to make the difference in the horses being able to accept what would happen in the future.  In short, I think it showed them that we weren’t interested in  harming them, and so they were able to let their guards down just a little.  At that point, they started seeing us as someone they could possibly put some trust in.   The hard part was being able to keep that trust once it was given to us.  And the three things we found that helped more than anything else in keeping their trust were to be quiet, consistent, and dependable at all times-much like that passive leader that horses choose to follow when they live in a herd.

When it comes right down to it, I think it’s just like the old man said.  There’s something about horses that we all need to understand- their only real job in this world is to stay alive from one day to the next.  Nothing else really matters.”

Awesome book.  Simple, easy reading.  Hope you all can read it!