Why Tame the Beast?

I know what a lot of people are thinking when they read the title of this ELI and my previous blog post. “Well, Kristina, I get that you like horses and all, but what does it benefit?” What a lot of people don’t really realize is that training a horse is very similar to raising a very weird, very large child. The way the trainer acts and reacts to the horse’s behavior directly affects the horse’s mental state and attitude toward humans in general.

I know, it sounds really confusing. “Wow Kristina, I’m sure that a horse can’t pick up on all of that. It’s just an animal!” Well, reader, you are right, they are animals. But have you ever watched those shows where those “animal cops” go and rescue the poor, abused animals from scarring and neglectful situations? Well, those animals have to recuperate mentally and physically from the abuse that they suffered, which is why they go through training and obedience and are really never quite the same afterwards.

If you think about it, it’s really the same with people, and especially kids. Kids, when put in scarring and neglectful situations, react the same way as animals. They are scared of the abuser and likenesses of the abuser, and they are overall unsure. (Mady’s ELI is a better source of this kind of stuff.) Children and adults must go to counseling for something like that, right? And so do animals.

That’s why this style of training is so important. It is also a type of therapy for abused and neglected horses. Natural horsemanship is a trust-building method that allows the horse to not be afraid of humans, but see us as a handicapped, bald lead horse. And that is also what is so cool about this style; you get to see distrusting horses terrified of human touch transform into these cuddly little cuties that follow anyone around and will risk their lives to protect anyone that gets in the way of their human. And honestly, that’s pretty cool.

So what I am trying to get at here is this program isn’t just a training process to better your horse, but a type of confidence- and trust-building journey for the horse, kind of like therapy.

~Kristina