Have you ever showed up to the barn to work with a horse, brought them out of the pasture, and quickly realized that they were having a bad day? Maybe they walked away from you when you went to halter them, when they normally halter just fine. Maybe they were sticky and hesitant to move, or spooky and high-headed just walking to the barn.
It’s never fun to have something in mind for the day’s activities and then realize that your horse would rather be decompressing in front of their hay. I used to either try to press my agenda anyway, leading to frustration and disconnect, or not do anything at all. Now, unless the horse is having a meltdown, I try to take them out and modify the activity for the kind of day that the horse is having. Maybe we go to a familiar place to work, instead of exploring somewhere new. Maybe we do things for much shorter intervals, only three minutes where it would have been ten. Maybe we just hand graze right outside the gate. The horse gets an experience that’s still within their ability to cope, and I get to demonstrate that I’m able to see their stress and accommodate it. They’re able to have an experience where we go out when they’re not feeling their best and it’s not so difficult. I hope that over time this builds more trust between me and the horse. What do you do on days when your horse isn’t feeling their best?
Remimder that Standing in a Field With Horses is going to be out as an audiobook on Audible and Spotify in the next few weeks! If you’d like to read it in eBook or physical page-turning form, it’s available on Smashwords, Amazon, and other book retailers.
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