A matter of Trust 12-18-09

In trying to explain to less knowledgeable horse owners why their horse is afraid when they are so nice to the horse. It dawned on me today, as Che’Cote’s owner is a 14yo girl who has had him a year, with little success and thus given up. She is not the first human to give up on him, but she was able to brush him a little and give him carrots. After having played with him for a week now, I give her a lot of credit. He must have liked her but not trusted her with his safety. Some may ask, why he would trust her enough to let her brush him but not enough to put the halter on. Being that he needs such strong leadership, I know that is the answer, but how do you explain it to someone who does not know what leadership is.
This is what I came up with.
I like my 11yo son, he is a pretty cool kid. Annoying at times, we have different interests. He likes WWE Smack down, I like horses. It is agonizing to watch it with him, but I do it for him. But just because I do that, does not mean I will trust him to let him drive my car. I trust him to start a fire in the fire place when we are home, but not when he is home alone. I like my son, I even love my son, but I would not expect him to be able to protect me against an attacker. If you think about it, we all know people that we like as friends, but we wouldn't trust them to watch our kids, balance our check book, or with a deep dark juicy bit of gossip! Most people think, in respect to being told their horse doesn’t trust them, automatically think that we mean the horse thinks they will hurt them. And sometimes this is the case, but in most cases it is just that the horse doesn’t trust you to protect them. They also may not trust your judgment. This comes about usually when you ask your horse to do something and they end up getting scared or hurt. So it is vital to set things up in a way to prove to your horse that he can trust not only you, your ability to protect him, but your ability to have good ideas as well. The more times we can have our horse do something that works out well for him the more likely he is to trust us. But it only takes one lapse of good judgment to for him to think “I knew I couldn’t trust you”. So if you don’t know what leadership is and are having problems with your horse….you need to learn and fast. If you do know what it is and are having problems you need to look at your ideas and do they not work out so great for him in the end. An example would be asking him to side pass over a barrel, you don’t keep him lined up very good, he ends up getting a leg caught on it and the barrel flings up at him and scares him or he gets hurt. He will blame you, as it was your idea. Thus causing him to question all your ideas. Eventually he will take the responsibility for navigating such things, but until your skills are good enough, he will blame you. Some horses aren’t so judge mental toward us, but those are the ones that aren’t lacking your trust causing you to seek answers.
Trust, Respect and Admiration are seperate but intertwined. Have you looked at yours lately?
Savvy On
Michelle