Mental Work
The other day I was talking to a master teamster, and when our conversation neared its conclusion, he asked if I was going out to put harness on my horses after I hung up. Alas, that wasn’t my plan. I then shared with him that when my life changed last year, I had sold all my dead-broke ponies. My attention now is on bringing one back into work who’d had a few years off to have foals in hopes of creating my next working partner. I clarified that I knew there’s no such thing as dead-broke, and he quickly assured me he knew what I meant. He realized recently that all his horses who knew their job in their sleep were nineteen years old or older, so going out to work right now meant going out to train. We agreed that it isn’t so much about the physical work for which they need training. Instead they need mental work; they need to be reminded about the mindset of working safely and reliably.
I decided that to bring my pony back into work we would commence with ridden work before revisiting harness work. It was the right choice since it quickly exposed that indeed it is her mind that most needs attention. Something about motherhood convinced her that she knows best, and I suppose that is true where the safety of her foals was concerned. In fact that was indeed the assignment I had given her. Now, though, I have had to explain to her that in our working relationship, I will have a say.
I received a gift of a small book from a Fell Pony friend. Reading it, I had been entertained through the first 80 pages, but I suspected at some point I would get even more out of it. Sure enough, the author eventually came around to talking about mental work. The key, he says, to working with animals is to engage with them mentally not just physically. More importantly, that mental engagement should be one of equal footing, not superior to inferior as we humans often do to the animals in our lives. We must recognize that they are aware of our thoughts at some level, and the more honestly we recognize that and utilize our thoughts in our relationship, the more profound the relationship becomes.
I have no problem with this concept of engaging with animals on equal terms mentally. I have spent the better part of the last two decades seeing more of my animals than of people, so it has been fairly easy to establish communication with them. I do have a long way to go, though. And my mare reminds me daily on our rides both where I am now and what is possible if I keep training myself. Two or three times each day on our rides, she catches me thinking something and she alters her movement to reflect my thought, whether changing gait or line of travel away from ice or, worse, finding something more interesting to do since my mind has wandered. When I realize what she has done, I collect my thoughts and reengage in the task at hand and endeavor to keep my mind on what we’re doing. That she is so tuned into my thoughts is a reminder of how much potential there is in our relationship if I were to be as aware as she is.
My master teamster friend said he was headed out to feed hay to his cattle with a gelding put to the hay sled. The gelding knew where to stop for him to fork off the hay and when to start up again, obviously fit mentally for that job. I was headed out, in contrast, to do a chore related to my breeding program. My master teamster friend kindly acknowledged the challenge of actively breeding while also trying to put horses to work regularly; there are rarely enough hours in the day for both. For sure, I may not get training done as quickly as I might if putting my ponies to work were my only job, but my motto is that if I just show up each day, in time we make visible progress. And showing up daily is the most important thing right now for the mental work we need to do.
© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020
You can read more musings like this one in my book The Partnered Pony, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.