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| Lilah Rose is confident in herself, naturally curious, and always in you face! |
As an owner of a right brained horse who is naturally inclined to be insecure, I think and talk about building confidence a lot. However, what does it really mean to have a truly confident horse? How do we know that we are setting our horse up for success in every situation? These are questions that I didn't even know to ask until recently.
A few months ago, we moved the horses to a new barn that is much closer to where we live. Prior to the move, we had been dealing with some serious separation anxiety between our two horses. Whenever we would take one out of sight of the other, they would get very right brained and emotional, especially our curly horse, Lilah. Now, after enduring the tribulations of being uprooted, our horses are more bonded than ever. Just when I was starting to feel lost about how to approach dealing with the times we want to separate our horses, I happened to pick up and watch a DVD that was a game changer for the way I think about my horse's confidence and is the key to tackling the separation anxiety.
In the video, Linda Parelli matter-of-factly explained that as a good horse person, it is my responsibility to build my horse's confidence in five areas:
1) In myself as a leader
2) In his or herself
3) In the herd
4) In the environment
5) In learning situations
Say it with me now - "Hmm, how interesting!" I had never thought about gaining my horse's confidence in each of these areas before. In fact, now I understand why it is possible for our very left brained curly horse, who is very confident in herself, to be unconfident in new environments, because we really haven't focused on building her confidence in this area specifically. Additionally, I want to point out that the areas of confidence are compounding. For example, in a familiar environment, with the herd around, and me as a leader, my horse might have total confidence. But in a new environment, without the security of the herd, my horse might lose confidence in me as a leader, and if he is not confident in his own ability to take leadership, then you might have a mess on your hands. This is not the greatest example, but hopefully you get the idea of how each area of confidence has the potential to impact the others. You cannot ignore the ones that pose challenges. Alternatively, you can utilize your strengths to aid you in the areas in which your horse has less confidence.
It is our job to build our horse's confidence in each area to help our horse become more mentally and emotionally centered.
Eventually, if I've done my job correctly, my horse will have confidence in me as a leader, and in himself which will allow him to have confidence in our herd of two in any environment or learning situation. It is my challenge to you to work on building confidence in each of the five areas, I know I will be!
something that i am always thinking about is the fact that even when we have developed that confidence in us as a leader so they are not driven to be unconfident in new situations, they still WILL feel that way sometimes! i think before i was feeling like such a failure because though billy was confident in me as a leader and at home and in most situations away from home, if someone else handled him or he felt RB at first in a new situation i felt judged as a bad leader by the other humans there and by my horse. so now i have to remember that even if i set it all up for success he may STILL feel unconfident and go RB in certain situations. phew! that felt like a mouthful to get out!!
ReplyDeletei just think back to the horse and soul tour last year with linda and hot jazz. even hot jazz would lose confidence in LINDA sometimes in those environments!!! and he has been raised with parelli and parelli leaders. whenever i think about that i don't feel like such a failure :)