Ground work and straightness training

Now that the nights are dark weekday ride and leads are out, but we do have a flood lit school to our disposal. I have also been feeling a bit guilty that Sofie has been so side lined by Tonto’s health so wanted to re-ignite my ambition to do ground work with her in the school after work.

There is an instructor at the yard who does do groundwork and bonding lessons. This seemed like an easy place to start so I thought I would give it a go. Our first lesson was really interesting. We worked on the concept of ‘grounding’ which is the ‘being present’ thing from the trust technique course I did a while back. Interestingly I found this really uncomfortable with Sofie. I felt very anxious around her. I didn’t expect her to react to me but she almost instantly started to sinc with my breathing when we started. She was also very keen to be with me, at one point dragging the instructor to me when I managed to ground myself with positive energy. The only problem is Sofie is so insecure that she wants to be ontop of me, which then makes me worried. When I worried, Sofie shuffled. My main worrisome thoughts were ‘I can’t do this’ which is something I often think. Something for me to start to tackle I guess.

We then moved onto walking and parking – to try and improve Sofies space issues. The idea is that Sofie learns to take ques from me for where I want her to be, and learns that it is OK to be standing away from me. This had a slightly faulty start when the instructor tried to demonstrate what she wanted… but applied too much pressure and Sofie reared. I felt bad about that because I forgot to mention the rear thing – Sof hasn’t reared since May so I had forgotten about the trick. It also made me anxious again as I don’t like her rearing so close to me. Never-the-less we continued and I got her to do some parks. Sof clearly felt worried about what I was asking so I never got her to stay in one place too long. All in all we were out there for 45 minitues. The time passed so quickly!

Last night I gave parking another go. This time I focused on being relaxed and positive. After all we are only walking and halting! Once I stopped stressing Sofie was much happier. She got it really quickly, only taking a few goes. I then decided to stop there before she got too bored and worked with Tonto. I find working with Tonto much more comfortable. He doesn’t make me as nervous and Sof. Tonto understood park almost instantaneously, this shouldn’t surprise me. We have had 17 years to understand each other, we are like an old married couple in this respect.

Going forward I plan on doing more with Sally (the instructor) and also working on straightness training to see if I can build in some physio aspect. This might help both ponies with their aliments. I’ve already downloaded and read Marijke de Jong’s e-book and signed up to some fb groups. Silke at the yard is also going to give us a lesson on Monday night which I am looking forward to. It is really nice to do something proactive for a change, and I look forward to learning some new stuff. 

Inpromptu trust technique

Tonto’s health has been failing and it feels like my world is falling apart.

I am doing everything I can for him, but it feels like I am loosing the battle atm.

Fridays blood results (got some blood on a third attempt poor boy) reveal that he is still borderline not cushions (27.5 on ATCH test, anything below 29 is considered normal) and his liver and kidneys appear to be holding up (there were low level white blood cell markers again, but this could be due to stress). Whilst this all sounds very positive – it means that the source of T’s discomfort is most likely arthritis – something I cannot cure with medication. It is looking very likely that Tonto has seen his last Christmas.

Of late Tonto has been a bit depressed, he spends a lot of time standing with his head lowered. He has pain written across his face with tense eyes and pursed lips. He has not kept his weight and feels the cold easily. He has lost his confidence with others and is being bossed around which is unlike him. And he is sometimes very slow, and stands camped up, shifting weight uncomfortably between his back legs. I think he might also be struggling to get up and down to the ground. His quality of life is not great and I cannot let him continue to suffer.

I have been feeling the weight of this terrible decision and have been very low.

Yesterday I was pleased to see that Tonto was having a good day. He whinnied when he saw me at the gate and he and Sof came happily trotting over. We had a lovely walk, Mr T was striding out and dragging Karen around. She had kindly offered to lead him – but in reality T lead her around the block. Perhaps the recent rain has made the ground more comfortable for him.

Sof and Tonto with matching plats (and missing manes) before the sun came out

After I turned them back out I decided to inspect the track and collect last weeks’ haynets. It had drizzled most of the day but the evening was warm with bright blue skies and radiant green from the fresh grass. It was a nice evening for a stroll. I passed the snoozing bunnies who seem to take little notice of me. I was on the loop back, enjoying the nearby bird song, when I noticed Tonts trundling towards me.

At first he was a bit apprehensive – unsure of the haynets in my hand. I showed them to him and he soon relaxed. He then just stood fairly close by to me, seemingly enjoying my company. I decided to give him a little scratch, which he enjoyed, and then we stood, leaning on each other, enjoying the evening sunshine peacefully.

I became aware that I was very relaxed, probably much calmer than I have been in several weeks, and Tonto’s bottom lip had become floppy and his head lowered – a sure sign that he is having a doze. I decided to take a seat on the floor to see if he would join me on the ground.

I then tried to actively meditate (performing trust technique). When I did I felt a weight in my chest, a heavy sadness, I could not tell if it was my sadness or Tontos. He let of a few yawns and licking and chewing, but remained sleepy. Perhaps he was letting go of his sadness, or picking up on mine. I tried to remain peaceful, whilst sporadically telling Tonts I loved him. His head dropped further and his eyes closed. He clearly wanted to lie down with me.

The moment was briefly interrupted by nosey Sof who wanted to know what was going on. She wandered over, which woke Tonto up has he whinnied and stamped his foot at her, clearly not wanting to share me. Sof ignored him, bumped her nose to my hand saying ‘hey’ then wandered off for some more grazing leaving us in peace.

Me and Tonto stayed in our on little zen world until a noise from the woods spooked him. He woke up and the spell was broken. He came up to me, gave me the same little fist/nose bump Sof had done, then wandered off to join Sof at the far end of the track for a graze.

I remained seated and considered what had just happened. We definitely had a moment. And it was a moment that Tonto had started. Perhaps he started it because I was in a relaxed frame of mind, which is becoming increasingly rare due to worry. We definitely communicated that we loved each other, and it sounds really odd, but I got the feeling that Tonto was desperate for me to be peaceful and happy. The trust technique is all about helping your animals be peaceful, but I wonder if Tonto was trying to help me.

On Friday the vet is out again to inject Tonto’s hocks and hopefully provide him with some relief. I really hope it works. Not sure what I will do without this special horse in my life.

I guess the silver lining to all this is that Tonto’s condition means that I can enjoy him for what he is. I no longer ask him to do anything, I rarely even lead him. Most of the time he is loose and follows me and Sof around. He is completely at liberty which has allowed the subtleness of our relationship to flourish.

I hope that in future I remember to make the same time and space for Sofie.

The trust technique

I came across something called the trust technique on Surrey horse and rider the other day and it caught my attention.

The trust technique is a way of working with animals, particularly helping those with behavioural issues. It is a bit hippyish, but you basically meditate with your horse and the horse chills out. Sounds weird but there were lots of videos of this working with clients horses - and I have noticed that when I am chilled Tonto is super chilled.

Curious, I decided to sign up for their one day video course pass.

I was expected to learn a bit about how to calm nervous animals - but in the end got a several hour tutorial on meditation and an investigation into my many deep routed emotional issues. I found myself unexpectedly crying at my computer on more than one occasion!

The first few videos' were all about how to be peaceful - which means removing all conscious thoughts about the past and the future from your mind and disengaging with your emotional thoughts. The theory is, if you can be truly peaceful, your animal picks up on this and it encourages them to be peaceful. It is really just an extension of the normal stuff we already know - if I am stressed and angry, Sof will pick up on this and become stressed and angry herself ect. The video's gave tutorials on how to disengage with your negative emotions and re-condition emotional responses to remembered events. Very much like CBT (for the psychologists amongst you).

But the videos went on to look at the causes of problem behaviour. They highlighted that it could be for several reasons:
a) the animal has had a bad experience and now has an emotional response which make you upset
b) you have had a bad experience and now has an emotional response which make your animal upset and causes the behaviour
c) both you and your animal have had similar bad experiences and now have an emotional response.

They had an activity called 'thought surfing' which identified which category you were in. Sof and I are in category C. I have a habit of rescuing emotionally damaged animals - I don't set out to, they just seem to find me. It would make sense that I am identifying with them, which causes me to sympathise and try to help them - but it is not something I had realised until this exercise.

At this point I had been watching the course for several hours and was truly exhausted. I went to sleep exhilarated and excited for what the next day would enfold.

Unfortunately the next day brought crushing disappointment. The latter stages of the course moved onto Reki healing. It is something I just can't stretch to. The video's suggested that you can physically 'heal' an animal via your thoughts alone. It also suggested that you could pick up on an animals thought processes, even when you are simply holding a photograph. For me this is too far. Yes I think on an emotional level you can influence your animal by being calm, they will follow suit - but reading their minds and fixing physical aliments? Nope our neural network is not that powerful. Soo disappointing because I had gotten so much from the previous day. I now almost feel silly for believing in the first few modules.

Still just because someone is wrong about something does not mean they are wrong about everything. I think I am going to try and give this meditation thing a go and see if it helps calm Mr T, Sof and my more than mental cat. I'll keep you posted.



me trusting Sof on our 'no reigns' hack last summer