Your Partner, Not Your Pet

 This first week of horsemanship has flown by. Each day we have been focusing on a different theme. The two themes we have been working on are compassion and decision making.

We began our week by developing compassion while working with our horses. Rancher Mac has reminded us that the horses we are working with are our partners, not our pets. When we are working with our horses, we are in a partnership with him. Therefore, it’s important for us to take care of our horse before we take care of ourselves. This can look like getting water for them, brushing them down, and working on how we communicate to them.

Teamwork and communication are also important skills that we are working on developing with our horses. When we’re with the horse, we’re a team. In order to be a good team member, we need to give our horses clear and direct instructions. When we don’t, our horses get confused and then we can get confused. Sometimes, giving the horses clear and direct instructions can be difficult because in order for us to give those clear and direct instructions, we need to know exactly what we are doing. Making quick decisions and following through with them is something we’ve all been working hard on this past week and will continue to work on.

Please use the arrows below to go through the images

An important component of communication is decision making.. Making sure that we are giving clear, and direct instructions to our horses is a lot harder than it sounds. Another important aspect of decision making is following through with those decisions. We also have to ensure that we can follow through with that decision. When the horse does not listen, it’s likely that our command has not been clearly communicated. This is, of course, frustrating. In these cases, it is important for us to quiet our hands, stop the horse, re-centre ourselves and try again.  Whether it be at school or at home, this process is also something we can integrate into our everyday lives when we get frustrated.

That’s all for today. Check back on Friday for our weekly recap!