In which I'm not finished learning how to listen to what my horse says

"Does your horse kick?" Jen asked me as we were tacking up in the parking lot.

"Yes," I said.

Truthfully, the Dragon's behavior has changed dramatically over the years, and she is mostly mellow while heading on down the trail. 

Me in front followed by Lucia with Indy, Jen with Bonnie,
photo by Rosemary (featuring Django's ears)

But not always.  

Fiddle sometimes has strong feelings about other horses (and sometimes, about people).  

She lo-o-o-o-o-o-oves babies, both equine and human.  I can often lie to her and tell her that a horse in our company is a "baby horse" (even if the horse is 15+ years old) and she will accept weird behaviors from that creature because it is a "baby."  

I absolutely recognize that it's me she's responding to:  if I say the words "baby horse," I probably relax my butt cheeks or give some other physical cue to her that the horse in question is not a threat.  

However,  sometimes, it doesn't work--probably when I am anxious about an animal, a rider, or most often, a situation.  

Whatever the reason, my horse was not totally comfortable in this group on Sunday.  

She was well-behaved at first, walking on a loose rein while the others jigged and hopped around. She was accepting weird behaviors from the two geldings (who really are youngsters) and was less happy about the mare's anxiety.  

But when they took off running up a hill--something we haven't done for a while, and aren't very fit to do--she got mad.  

In theory I could have kept her walking or trotting more sedately up the hill, but the reality of her strength vs mine is that I can steer the train but not stop it.  

When we got to the top, I guess I was worrying (worrying is one of my Major Skills), because then my horse did something she hasn't done for years:  she snaked her head and threw her feet around at the other horses.

DISCLAIMER: she didn't hit anybody.  Truthfully, she probably wasn't aiming at them.  More likely, she was trying to communicate with me and was feeling like I wasn't listening.

I did what I do when she acts out:  I turned her away from the group and made her go back down the trail at speed.  She threw a couple of feet around then, too.  "THIS ISN'T OKAY!"  she was yelling to me.   "PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT I'M SAYING!"

At a trot, we hear each other best.  By the time we got around the first bend, we were both listening again.  We turned back and rejoined the group.  I tried to keep her a bit further away from the other horses, and there was no more galloping.

Lucia and Jen are such a cute couple!

It really is nice to ride with other riders, don't get me wrong.  But I think the dynamic and size of this group made us both edgy, and when we are edgy there is room for bad behavior (which, of course, makes me more edgy...)

I wasn't sure that was the real reason for her misbehavior, though.  Maybe the weather (thick, bone-chilling fog) was causing her some arthritis pain?  There was one way to find out:

The following day, with identical weather, I took my horse out solo.

Visibility in places was maybe 40 feet, and that fog was cold!

Unlike our outing with the group, my Dragon was totally relaxed on this trip.

We walked and trotted, practiced some bending and other "couples therapy" exercises, and enjoyed the day.

We even walked by a working timber-stacker without drama

When I think back over the years of riding this mare, I know that my anxiety can cue her bad behavior.  In recent years, she's really mellowed--in part, because we removed a source of pain via the spay surgery in 2012.  

After a few hours, the fog gradually lifted

My takeaway from the experience:  this horse doesn't do things for no reason.  If she's acting out, it's almost always an attempt to get me to listen.  My goal, then, is to pay closer attention to what she says and respond before she feels she needs to "shout."

If there's something making her anxious, I need to change the situation.  If it's me making her worry, I need to change what I'm doing! 

 

Jim always says that if he needs to know how I'm feeling, he looks at my horse.  Not everyone rides a 1200-pound polygraph, but I guess I do.