by Joe Camp
Simply hanging out in the pasture, observing, studying, interacting at the horse’s discretion, has taught us so much. That’s why we wouldn’t pay someone else to regularly feed and muck, even if we could afford it. Yes, there are mornings when we’d love to sleep in, especially in the summer when the kids are out of school and we don’t have to wake up before dawn anyway. But doing our own feeding and mucking guarantees no less than a couple of hours a day with our horses. Over time, those hours help to dissect and internalize each horse’s individual personality, which determines how leadership is expressed in different ways to different horses. It provides insight into how weather affects their behavior. It has taught us, virtually by osmosis, how subtle our language can be, or not, with each unique horse. And it continually confirms us as members of the herd.
“I just never have enough time,” one woman said to me.
“Then maybe you should acquire something that doesn’t depend upon your leadership, relationship, compassion, and understanding for its health and happiness.”
I didn’t really say that, but I thought it. You see, I am learning.
Spending time with the horses also reminds us to always be thinking ahead, questioning, anticipating what could happen or go wrong by doing things this way or that.
Only yesterday, with enough mileage in the pasture to know better, I was accidentally knocked down by big, muscular Pocket. She’s our other paint. Besides Scribbles. Major big. Not so tall, just big. Probably pushing twelve hundred pounds.
The incident wasn’t her fault; it was mine. And the time I had spent in the pasture told me so immediately, even as I sat on the ground staring up at her. Still, my first reaction was anger. I wanted to yell at her. And I know folks who would have. I know people who would whip any horse that would do what Pocket had just done, with no thought to understanding why it had happened. They would rather have a horse who is totally afraid of them than enjoy a bond and relationship, and be truly responsible for their horse’s leadership.
This is how it unfolded.
Each of our horses has a small feed tub in the pasture and they all know which one is theirs. With the exception of Skeeter, which is another story, it takes each horse approximately the same amount of time to eat the first course, the appetizer—a half-scoop ration of pellets. Next on the menu, the antipasto, is a small amount of alfalfa hay, less than half a flake per horse, scattered in ten to eleven small piles, all in relatively close proximity, at the top of the pasture hill. The manner in which we spread it ensures that no one horse can dominate more than his share of alfalfa and no one horse gets eliminated from the game of musical chairs that follows.
Yesterday, for reasons I don’t even remember, I put several of the alfalfa piles much closer together than I usually do. Four horses bunched up on the same piece of rock, all vying for as much of the booty as each one could get. I should’ve moved out right then, but I didn’t. I continued to pull apart the flake. When the dominant Scribbles took a nip at Pocket, she leaped out of his way, bumping Handsome, who whipped around, threatening a kick. She had nowhere to go but straight toward me. She was otherwise surrounded by hostile troops. She tried to miss me, and actually just brushed my shoulder, but with force enough on un-level ground to sit me down. There was simply too much congestion for safety and decorum. Especially when a nip and a threat had spiked her adrenaline. I should’ve known better. Now it’s well implanted in my brain by the bruise on my butt.
One look at her face, however, confirmed beyond doubt how she felt about it, and perhaps told of a bit of history.
Omigod, what have I done?!
She is usually the first horse in the herd to come greet me when I enter the pasture. Our bond is strong. But I couldn’t even get close to her for several minutes, as if she were expecting punishment. Or was really, really embarrassed about it all.
When I did finally get close, I rubbed her forehead and told her everything was okay. Well, except my butt.
And I promised to never again place alfalfa piles that close together.
One cold blustery day, Scribbles, the paint who is dominant in the herd, was acting out a bit more than he normally does in asserting his God-given right to eat first, to be the head of the table, so to speak. I was entering the pasture with pellets, heading for his tub. He was flipping his head at this horse and that, and quite without thinking he turned and flipped his head at me and launched a tiny kick. He was ten or fifteen feet away, not within striking distance, nor did he have any intention of striking. It was just a misplaced dominant gesture in the middle of his dance. He got carried away. I stopped walking, swelled my body like a balloon, looked him straight in the eye with eyebrows raised and one finger pointed straight at his forehead…and just stood there.
That doesn’t work for me!
You could literally see the gleep on his face. I could almost hear it. It was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud.
I stood there for at least thirty seconds, way longer than Scribbles could normally stand still when food was on the way. But stand still he did. And his head dropped almost to the ground, a very submissive posture.
Boy, am I sorry. Didn’t mean to. Really! It’s that cold wind. The devil made me do it.
I walked over and rubbed his forehead, and then proceeded to his feed tub.
Without a word spoken. Without any physical threat.
The relationship, the bond, carried the load.
It happens with every horse in the pasture. Not every day. With some, not even every week. But it’s there, and it makes everything else so much better.
In addition to the time we put in feeding and kicking poop, Kathleen and I usually spend no less than a couple of hours a week just sitting on a rock, watching the horses interact. Or having a cappuccino in the morning or a glass of wine in the evening on our deck just off the pasture. It’s fascinating to see what the flick of an ear, or a nose, can mean. To watch relative body positions, and how they relate to causing movement. To notice when the dominant horse will let something slide, and when not. And why. Digesting all this has seriously improved our equine vocabulary, and our natural responses to the horses. How, for example, a slight change in body position can vary the message being sent. How a simple flick of a finger, when it’s accurately placed with the right attitude, can accomplish what once took a broad arm motion.
And because they are horses, our every improvement in understanding their nature creates a greater respect, and a stronger bond, which, by the way, is not just an equine characteristic.
The experience became priceless once we realized that, most of the time, when a horse is refusing to do what we’re asking, it’s only because he doesn’t understand what we want. The better we communicate in his language, the more he will do willingly for us—and the stronger the relationship.
This has been our way of life since we finished the natural pasture almost a year ago. Sometimes we forget how other horses live. I recently visited a traditional boarding stable, a fancy one, heavily laced with dressage and show horses. I was struck with a pang of sorrow. I wanted to race through the place and pop every latch on every stall door. And pull every shoe. And rub every horse. And Join-Up with them. And listen to them.
“How often does this horse see her owner?” I asked. The horse was a beautiful thoroughbred cross, with very sad eyes, sort of glazed over. She was pacing, back and forth, back and forth. I stood at the stall door for a moment, but the horse never looked at me. Just paced.
“Oh, at least once every weekend. Sometimes twice.”
“Who feeds her?”
“We do. Our staff.”
“The stalls?”
“Our staff. Twice a day.”
“Does she get turned out?”
“Oh, absolutely. Four hours every day. Guaranteed.”
“Guaranteed, huh?”
“Absolutely.”
“Turned out with other horses?”
“Oh no. She might get hurt.”
> “Does she have a trainer?”
“Uh-huh. Comes on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”
“How does the horse know who her leader is?”
“Oh, the trainer’s the leader, if you want to call it that.”
“And the owner?”
She looked at me like I was an idiot. I should know the answer.
“The owner is the rider in the shows,” she said. “And, of course, she writes the checks.”
“I see,” I said, and walked on down the row of stalls.
In one way or another they were all the same. Horses penned up, away from any semblance of a herd. Showing stress in one way or another. Pacing, weaving, chewing, cribbing. One was kicking the wall. The stalls were all filled with a bedding I didn’t recognize, presumably to absorb the pee, but the odor was still present, digging into their lungs. And most of them wore metal shoes.
“I notice that this one is barefoot,” I said. “He doesn’t have shoes.”
“Strange owner,” she said. “He doesn’t understand that a horse has to have shoes. That’s the way it is.”
“Do you own horses?” I asked.
“Don’t need to. Just look around.”
It all reminded me of my sailing days, back when Benji was at his peak. I had a sailboat in a Fort Lauderdale marina, and I was always amazed that so many people had huge boats—mine wasn’t—yet those huge boats never left the slip. The owner would pay the boarding fees, pay people to keep the boat clean, to run and service the engine, and would come down once a month and use this big, expensive yacht as a hotel room. Never go out. Never enjoy the boat as a boat. It was just a place to hang out and sleep. And be proud of.
As frustrating as that seemed to me at the time, I suppose the good news was that it was a boat. An inanimate piece of fiberglass and machinery. And if the owner wanted to pour his money into that…well, it’s his money.
But a horse is not a boat.
A horse lives and breathes, and has feelings, and worries, and a genetic system that has evolved over millions and millions of years. A boat doesn’t pace and stress when it’s tied in a slip. It doesn’t have a herd that it should be with. It doesn’t worry about being attacked by everything that blinks. A boat doesn’t need to be out where it can move around all day and night. A boat doesn’t feel happy or unhappy, or healthy or unhealthy because it is or isn’t being ignored by its owner.
A horse does.
Mariah did, once upon a time.
But she doesn’t feel that way anymore.
Ask her and she’ll tell you which way is better.
19
Feelings
The stallion stood in the flat, searching the rise around the big rock. His friend had not shown up and it was now the day of the third snow. Winter was on its way and he sensed that it was going to be severe. Never had the snow come so early, nor the second and third snow so quickly. The matriarch was restless, wanting to move their charges south before the weather made it impossible.
The stallion left the herd and trotted up the rise for a closer look, searching the trees along the ridge and scanning every inch of ground down the rise. His friend had never missed the first snow. He had no way of knowing that the Powhatan warrior had been badly wounded in a battle between his adopted tribe and the neighboring Blackfeet. He had fought valiantly to help the Shoshone protect their hunting rights so they could feed their families.
The snow was coming harder now, blanketing the rise in white silence. The huge golden horse looked to his herd and back up the hill. He paced nervously, and the snow fell faster. He was just retreating to the herd when a movement caught his eye, high up the rise. A flutter, a shadow in the snow. He strained to see through the filter of white. But it was gone. Then back. Another movement. He was sure of it. He trotted up the hill, gaining speed as he recognized the shape on the ground as human, his human. He slid to a stop and looked down on his friend, crumpled in the snow, a trail of red stretching out behind him. The Powhatan was trying to pull himself toward the rock, the meeting place, but his strength was gone and he was shivering uncontrollably. He saw the great stallion’s feet and strained to look upward. The sight of his friend vanquished his pain. A smile spread across his face and a tear slipped down his cheek.
The great horse dropped to his knees and stretched out on the ground next to him, trying to warm him. His friend wrapped his arms around the big stallion’s neck, clinging to him as if he were life itself.
And then he was gone.
The stallion’s scream shattered the surrounding silence, again and again. But he didn’t move. The matriarch appeared, and others from the herd, but they stood quietly and watched the falling snow cover this human warrior who meant so much to their protector. Finally, the stallion climbed to his feet and gazed down at the man, the human, with whom he had come so far. He reached to the ground and nuzzled away the mound of snow hiding the man’s cheek. The warm nostrils of this elegant stallion breathed in one last remembrance, then he lifted his head to the trees and bellowed as if his heart were being ripped apart. Then he turned and raced down the rise toward the south, flying like the wind. For hours he ran, until he could run no more, and he lay down and went to sleep.
When he awoke, he was surrounded by his herd, who had followed him south and almost kept up with him. The stallion would never again see the valley of his friend. The grasslands would turn into hard earth and rock, and then prairie, but his herd was fit and their feet were like rocks themselves, and the journey would be made without incident or injury. When they reached a fine valley with good grasses, they stopped, and there the stallion’s progeny would live for ten generations.
It would be more than a hundred years before any of them would ever meet another human. But, somehow, the memory of how much humans can mean to the horse would not be lost or forgotten.
20
Sonny Boy and Painto
We know it’s there. That relationship between horse and human. All horses. Any horse. If you know his language, understand what makes him tick, what makes him feel safe, that horse will allow you into that special place called relationship. Some feel the connection can be spiritual, even mystical. Those who believe the horse is inherently mean and must be dominated have sadly missed a very important fork in life’s road. An editorial in the New York Times following the euthanasia of Barbaro put it this way: “You would have to look a long, long time to find a dishonest or cruel horse. And the odds are that if you did find one, it was made cruel or dishonest by the company it kept with humans. It is no exaggeration to say that nearly every horse is pure of heart.”
In all his years, I believe Monty Roberts has only encountered one horse with whom he wasn’t ultimately able to establish a relationship.
“Are you saying you should try to establish a relationship with every horse you encounter?” I was asked not too long ago.
“If you intend to spend any time with him, yes,” I answered.
“Even borrowed horses, or rental horses?”
“If you care about the horse as another living being, yes.”
“Is it really worth it? Does it make a difference?”
“To you, or the horse?” I asked.
He shrugged, not sure how to answer.
“Either, I guess,” he said. “Both?”
I told him this story.
Kathleen and I were headed for a three-day trail ride west of Albany, Texas, riding borrowed horses because it was too far away to bring ours from home. This would be the first time since our nosedive into the horse world that either of us would be on horses other than our own. Horses we did not know. Horses we had not schooled. Horses with whom we had no relationship, who had never heard of Join-Up. And there was no facility to accommodate such a silly notion.
“I’m told these are good horses,” I said to Kathleen. “Well trained. Calm. Let’s just go and have a good time. Put the whole relationship thing aside for three days.”
“I can do that,” she responded,
“but I doubt that you can. It’s your scorpion.”
There’s an old story about a scorpion begging a frog to swim him across the river. The frog calls the scorpion nuts. We’ll get in the middle of the river and you’ll sting me!
Why would I do that? the scorpion replies. I’d drown with you.
That made sense to the frog so he agreed to swim the scorpion across, and sure enough, right in the middle of the river, the scorpion stings the frog.
Now we’re both going to die! screamed the frog.
I know, said the scorpion. I just couldn’t help myself.
“I can help myself,” I promised Kathleen. “I can do it.”
One of the reasons I really wanted to go on this trail ride is that we had been wrapped up in the world of horses for more than a year and Kathleen still harbored a bit of fear, rising on occasion, just under the surface. Especially when riding faster than a walk. Her prior experience with horses, before we owned our own, was, in her own words, “from the ground looking up.” Four trail rides as a teenager on a horse named Jack. She was dumped all four times. Unbeknownst to her at the time, Jack had also dumped a jet-fighter pilot. Those were her last times on a horse until she gave me the trail ride for my birthday. I was convinced that mileage was all she needed. Three days of riding, all day, every day, would take her light-years down the road toward confidence. I was certain of it.
She was now much more experienced, but she was also putting up a good front. Every time she climbed into a saddle, her insides were churning, betrayed by the number of times she quoted clinician Linda Parelli saying, “Whenever you feel the least bit uncomfortable, just get off. Right then. Immediately.”
Some say stay on a bit longer. I discovered years ago that you cannot rid yourself of any fear if you don’t push through it. If you don’t stretch yourself. The trick, then, is how to do that while staying out of harm’s way. Keeping yourself safe. Only then will you be calm and focused enough to actually learn and become confident in your skills.
