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"If you wait until your horse is trained
before you start having fun
you will have wasted most of your life
and all of his."
One of the most common questions I am asked is, "How long will it take before my horse is trained?" The answer to this question could very well be, "never". I'm sure you have read somewhere on this website that a horse is always learning and therefore we are always teaching (training). No truer words have ever been spoken. Now I know some of you are going to say that you are not a trainer. Oh yes you are! Anytime you are around a horse, you are training. What you are teaching is another story. Obviously if you are going to have fun, you must enjoy the training, and once again, it is not the destination, but the journey. We have all seen the person who yells and screams and sometimes even hits their horse because they just can't seem to get the message across, and with this type of behavior they may never. This is a total waste of the horse and the trainers life. Personally, I would never want to spend my day fighting with anything, and I certainly would not go out and purchase something to fight with. It has been said that a horse reaches the mentality of a four year old human child. What would be the reason to fight with that? A solution to this problem might be as simple as changing the word training to playing. A child's work is its play. And through this play they learn. So goes the horse. Rather than saying I am going to train my horse to do something, I say I'm going to teach my horse a new game. What enjoyment I get from playing with my horses. It is not my quest to teach you and your horse riding disciplines, or things others think your horse should do, but rather to teach you how to have a good and honest relationship with your horse which can only be obtained through communication. Try this tip for me, as you have nothing to lose except a lot of stress. What you will gain will be a level of fulfillment that you have never known. I have dedicated my life to saving horses through educating people. I would hate to think that most of my life has been wasted.
Dennis |
