This post is a 4 minute read, but will make more sense if you can watch the 12 minute video!
I know this video is long and (sigh…) a bit seasick-inducing. However, it is so cool how turning something that is so very crucial (and therefore can get “big” in my mind) into a game keeps the pressure off.
I have a lot of feelings about trailering. It scares me, or has in the past. Our last trailer didn’t make me feel all that confident - it was generally safe, but a stock trailer, and so had no way to “contain” a horse, meaning they tended to try to wedge themselves into the front in awkward ways. It was also a little too low, so if they swung their heads, they hit them. I always felt uneasy about trailering and I think that communicated to my horses. It didn’t make for calm. When I tried to pretend to be a leader, I likely made it worse.
Now, with a brand new little adolescent horse, I really am working on my own congruence. I am trying to keep this light and fun and achievable for me.
See, it is another hot, dry, windy summer already. The fire risk is HIGH. I am already a veteran of two rushed and high scare evacuations. In the first, we left our horses loose because there was literally no time to take them anywhere. In the second, Jetta never was able to recover from the shock of being taken and left alone (for an hour) in a tearing hurry.
I am working on growing the confidence and skills to not only trailer my horses, but to do it quickly, with no stress on their or my parts, and with a practiced procedure that allows an emergency plan to work out. All the way. I am doing a ton of work here to keep my brain and heart and body in the same place, at the same pace, and available for my horse. Taking you along for the ride, too!
This is very emotional stuff for me. It isn’t for my horses. They’re just horses, and as you can see, are very focused on eating grass. So I’m trying hard in this video to create a situation where the trailer is just another task in a series of similar tasks, and to make it therefore easier for me keep my confidence, my cheer, my calm, and my congruent leadership.
What do you think? How did I do?
And furthermore, do you have any tricks to keep yourself from out and out lying when you “need” someone you care about to do a behaviour they may not feel all sorts of willingness to do? It’s so hard to not get upset internally, and then maintain a sort of false positive approach, when someone needs to say yes and they end up saying no. Especially as the stakes get higher and higher. I continue to work on noting when my inner rage (because it can escalate so fast to that state!) can fan into sudden flame at my inability to control someone (animal, and often human) and thereby keep them safe.
I can’t control anyone. I can’t make anyone else (again, human or animal) do anything at all. I can only create the environment, set up the task, and invite. But I now know for sure that my inner team, my inner consensus as to safety and how good an idea this is, my congruence in general, are powerful messages for that person or animal to read, and base decisions on. Yikes. This is such a crucial skill, and it is one hard thing, for sure.
Let me know in the comments how you bring yourself back to baseline, or avoid leaving it in the first place! I need games, and repetition, and slowing down, and preparation, and breathing, and a continual reminder that I’m not God. I’m not ever going to be responsible for an outcome involving anyone apart from me. Not really even me! I have no power.
But considerable influence. I will keep on working with that.
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