When I first met Faith, she was more or less feral.
(Okay, so maybe 'feral' is a bit of a strong word; but she had only been very lightly handled, despite being nearly 10 years old; and she had seen very little of the world outside of her tiny little field, where she had lived for the past 5+ years - so take from that what you will)
I mean, you could put on a head collar on her, and you could quite easily throw hay through the window of her stable (so long as she wasn't looking!)
...but that was about it 😳.
❌ She wouldn't walk forwards.
❌ She wouldn't back up.
❌ She didn't know how to turn a corner while someone was walking next to her, without trying to bite them for being too close; or accidentally standing on their toes with her great big furry uncoordinated feet.
❌ She couldn't be groomed without trying to bite at whoever happened to be closest. She also couldn't be tacked up without similar issues! And as for getting her to wear a rug? DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED! 🙈🙈🙈
❌ She didn't know how to pick up her feet nicely (and on the odd occasion that we did manage to lift them up, she would stomp them down so quickly that it was always a miracle that my fingers and toes were still in one piece.
❌ She used to crib bite.
❌ She used to charge at the door whenever anyone tried to open it / walk through (she'd even do the same thing to the 2 little ponies that she lived with if they happened to reach the door before she did).
❌ She would guard food and water like her life depended on it.
❌ She had never been in a trailer or lorry.
❌ She hadn't seen the vet, farrier, or dentist since she was very small...if ever.
❌ She didn't know how to go faster than a walk when being lead. The same thing applied for when she was under saddle (apparently her old owner just got on her one day and decided that she was going to be a riding horse now...so yeah, there's that 🤦♀️).
Basically, she was very well acquainted with humans bringing her food...but that was about as far as it went.
So at almost 10 years old she was probably about as well-handled as most of your typical 1-2 year olds are
*CUE THE ENTRANCE OF 16 YEAR OLD ME*
(a.k.a. A COMPLETE NEWBIE TO THE HORSE WORLD)
Fresh out of secondary school, and with Faith being the first horse I'd ever had sole responsibility for; it was almost inevitable that we would make A LOT of mistakes in the early days (and we did 😳🤦♀️).
But the one 'mistake' that I want to tell you about (which I promise is related to The Pick 'N' Mix Method mentioned above), is the day that I didn't listen to her when she told me that she was worried about the bouncy castle at the end of the road...
#STORYTIME
We'd gone out for a little ride around the houses - just like we did most days - and on our way back home, we had to ride past a pub beer garden that just so happened to have an event going on that afternoon.
I could hear children's laughter from behind the wall of the pub garden, and I instantly felt Faith starting to get tense and jiggy underneath me; but naive and inexperienced 16 year old me thought that we could get past the noise, unscathed, so I squeezed Faith on and pushed her to go past it, as going past the pub was the quickest and most direct route home.
Little did I realise at the time was that the children were laughing because they were having loads of fun bouncing up and down on a brightly coloured [and quickly deflating] bouncy castle.
I also didn't realise that there was a group of rowdy drunken men hanging out by the back gate of the pub garden, who were - to my alarm - about to shout obscenities at me as we passed by.
So anyway, onward we marched - completely oblivious to the potential dangers lying in wait; with Faith jigging away underneath me - the bit between her teeth, neck set high and curved, and haunches tucked and ready to bolt at the slightest sound or movement - while I sat atop, willfully ignorant to her "naughty behaviour" as I could physically SEE the gate that we needed to get to at the other end of the road; so I refused to "let her win" and wind up having to go the long way home from then on.
But then disaster struck!
and a whole multitude of things seemed to happen all at once...
1️⃣ A glass smashed on the ground.
2️⃣ The quickly deflating bouncy castle dipped out of sight behind the wall, and then randomly popped up again.
3️⃣ One of the men from around the gateway shouted something obscene about my riding abilities (🙄)
and
4️⃣ An exhaust backfired somewhere off behind us, which sounded like a gunshot exploding out of a barrel.
Quite understandably, Faith - who was already primed and ready to run -
BOLTED!
She set off at a gallop and ran blindly up the tarmac for about 200m before I managed to slow her down to a fast canter by sitting deep in my saddle and pulling hard against her reins.
HOWEVER
As we already know, Faith had jammed her bit between her teeth during our 'conversation' about how the bouncy castle was making her feel, so my pulling did very little in terms of asking her to stop, as she couldn't really feel the contact against her teeth (🙄). And her high set, strong and muscular neck was no match for my weedy little 16 year old arms - so onwards we ran.
Past parked cars.
Past people in their houses.
Past an older lady walking a rather large dog (who may or may not have barked at us as we whizzed by - I honestly couldn't tell you one way or another as I was too busy seeing my life flash before my eyes as we headed straight for an oncoming car...
...which was being driven by a LEARNER DRIVER of all people 😱😱😱❗❗)
Eventually I managed to haul her nose round so that it was practically on my knee, and then I got her to turn her body 90 degrees so that we were facing a solid brick wall; and she did, finally, stop running.
It. Was. SUCH. a. close. call ❗❗
On the day we met the offending bouncy castle, my whole life flashed before my eyes.
And as Faith ran, I clung on for dear life; thinking,
"Holy f*"k! I am in WAY over my head with this one"
We did eventually stop, and I jumped down from the saddle and lead her back home on foot; my heart hammering hard against my chest.
Once Faith was safely back out in the field with her buddies, my legs just gave way, and I crumpled to the ground, sobbing with relief as the reality of what had just happened, sank in.
I COULD HAVE DIED THAT DAY 😳
and then a little voice inside my head, whispered,
"If you'd listened to your horse before trying to make her walk past something that was clearly making her feel worried,
then all of that drama could've been avoided!"
SO THAT WAS
MISTAKE #1
ALWAYS LISTEN TO YOUR HORSE!
Over the next year or so, we made plenty more silly little mistakes, when it came to riding and training and generally just trying to communicate with each other (as a newbie, we've all done it, right?); but none were ever as downright stupid as ignoring a very blatant display of anxiety / discomfort, which resulted in us both being at risk of crashing through a car windscreen.
HOWEVER
It wasn't until I took Faith to university with me, that I realised that we still weren't quite there when it came to finding a perfect training method / technique for her...
You see, we made a lot of changes in regards to how we interacted with one another after the bouncy castle incident:
🚫 We ditched the bit (well it didn't do anything to make her stop when she bolted up the road, did it? So what did we have to lose?)
🚫 We ditched any and all gadgets that we had previously been recommended (which to be fair, really wasn't very much at all; but away went the flash strap [obviously], away went the crop, and away went the treed saddle that I was never 100% sure ever really fitted her anyway).
🚫 We all but abandoned the 'traditional' way of working with horses, in favour of a more humane, and 'natural' way of communication. (Yep, we discovered Monty Roberts and his 'Natural Horsemanship' methodology...🙄. In my defence, he sounded great, and seemed to get really good results in a relatively short space of time, so I was sucked in by the propaganda.)
At Uni, one of the first things I learned about was Animal Learning Theory; and in doing so, I was introduced to the idea that it was possible to actively encourage a behaviour that you liked, so that the animal would repeat said behaviour more often.
Put simply: I no longer had to spend the rest of my days squashing down any undesirable behaviours that Faith displayed.
I could just teach her what I wanted her to do instead!
#MindBlown 😲🤯
The realisation that there was a whole other world outside of the [surprisingly tiny] 'traditional horse world' blew my mind.
It was like taking off a blindfold that I didn't realise I had been wearing.
My eyes felt so open. So fresh. And so keen to try All The Things.
And Faith was keen too.
She was beyond happy that I seemed to have shaken off any notion that there was ever going to be a better teacher for horse behaviour than the very horse who was standing right in front of me;
and she was incredibly eager to show me just how well she could put that clever brain of hers to good use.
So over the next few years, Faith taught me:
💕 How to be patient.
💕 How to be kind.
💕 How to reward and encourage desirable behaviours, instead of simply squashing them down, or punishing anything that I didn't like.
💕 She taught me all about the importance of good timing.
💕 And about how we can 1,000,000% aim for the stars, if that's where we wanna go; but if we're ever going to get there, then we need to start off by learning how to put our feet on that very first rung of the space-ladder! (teeny tiny baby steps are the key 🔑👍)
But I think the biggest thing Faith ever taught me was
the fact that
💕 life needs to be interesting in order for it to be worth the effort! 💕
And that, my friends, is how
The Pick 'N' Mix Method
came into existence.
🖤 It was from Faith that I learned how to break down a training task into lots of fun, little games, that we could mix and match with other things that we were working on; to keep all of our interactions fun, and light, and happy.
🤍 She is the reason why I now question absolutely everything that I learn.
(Because once upon a time we were squished into a teeny tiny box, believing that 'traditional horsemanship' was all that there was...
...oh how wrong were we!!!)
🖤 She is the reason why I will always listen to my gut when I'm trying out something new.
(and if it doesn't sit right with me, then we ain't doing it!)
🤍 And she is the reason why I will NEVER stop asking my Learners how they are feeling about what we are doing in our training. And why I will always take their opinion into account when planning new things.
🤍🖤 Because of Faith, I will never again let my ego get in the way of doing what is right,
instead of just doing what is easy 🤍🖤
I've been there. I've struggled.
And then I've found a better way to be.
and naturally, I then brought everything that I've learned over the years and stashed them all together
- here in this school -
so that you guys can make the most of our experience
without having to go through all of the struggles and heartbreak that we did 🥰
Ah!
You're going to have to hang around for the next blog to hear that story!!
SEE YOU AGAIN SOON 👋
