I'm not just talking about horses here when it comes to work in progress. I have to admit its mostly me that needs to work on my attitude, emotions, approaches and responses.
In my past, working with horses, I've usually encountered more horses that required a firmer response & approach. When Tosana wasn't responding/learning from my prior applications, I got frustrated. We all do at some point but I felt that everything I was doing was just causing more and more frustration for the both of us. So, I decided she isn't the horse for me and put her up for sale. Then I got to thinking, how can I sell a horse I'm not necessarily willing to ride for people who come to meet her?
My little aha moment happened when we rescued a 13 year old cat from the pound. I immediately started working slowly with him on gaining my trust and building confidence in that he is safe. I didn't necessarily ask him to start doing things right away like sit in my lap or enjoy our catio in the office. I would give him the opportunity to explore the idea but never got frustrated when he didn't want to do any of that. Over the course of a couple months, he finally decided sitting my lap or checking out the catio wasn't as scary.
When I spotted what I had done with Rupert, I thought it was worth a shot to try similar tactics with Tosana. She is sensitive and in all honesty, she's nervous/scared of her world with me. So I started with allowing her explore my idea but not force her to do it. Just encourage and continue exposing her to the idea until she accepts it and even enjoys my idea as if it is her own. She is a mare after all 😂
We have basically started over. It may seem like boring work but feeling her become trusting of what I am asking can't quite be seen on video except that she wanted cuddles when I asked to clean her foot. We compromised and accomplished both. You're just going to have to trust me on this 😉
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