A Pony's Desire to Have a Say

I was working on the Tribute today, and here is part of what I wrote: “Welcome to the Partnering with Ponies 2025 Tribute! The organizers of the Tribute are volunteers who recognize that most ponies have a working heritage and enjoy working with their humans. Of course, they also want a say in the work! The goal of this 2025 Tribute is to celebrate and even strengthen our partnerships with our ponies, as well as to celebrate the history that our ponies have of working with their people.”

Fell Pony stallion Midnight Valley Timothy carrying me across a river bareback with just a rope hackamore.

A few minutes after writing that paragraph, I read clinician Warwick Schiller’s email that arrived yesterday. It had the provocative subject “The Value of Allowing a No.” Here’s an extended excerpt:

“Something that is hard for some people to wrap their head around is allowing a horse to say no. I get it. A decade ago, it would have triggered me the way it triggers some people these days. But these days I see things a bit differently. I see things a lot more empathetically. And in seeing things more empathetically I have discovered a very strange phenomenon. That phenomenon is that, in many cases, if you allow a horse to say no, it turns into a yes. And that yes has a different quality to it than a yes that was gained by pure obedience. You end up getting the response you want, without any of the negative side effects. It's more Naturopath than Big Pharma.

“I like to think of those little no's as ‘not yets’, and that's what they seem to be. It seems that the horses don't have a problem doing the thing you are asking, IF they have a say in it. In other words, it's not that they don't want to participate, they are actually quite happy to, as long as they have some agency.

“I can see some people replying to this and coming up with scenarios that if they allowed their horse to say no, their life would be in danger. Usually that is because they ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time, with no foundation. Speaking of foundation, it seems that the only time these no's happen is during the foundation stage, and that is a safe place to allow them. If you get it right at that stage, after that you just get yeses.”

Warwick then went on to describe a change he made to his business name. “A few years ago I changed my business name to Warwick Schiller Attuned Horsemanship. Attunement (and I love to use this definition created by Sarah Schlote of Equusoma: Horse-Human Trauma Recovery) is ‘the sense of Being Seen, Being Heard, Feeling Felt, and Getting Gotten’. It's about feeling completely understood. Allowing horses to say those little no's communicates your awareness of their little bits of concern, so they feel understood, and most importantly feel safe. That feeling of safety is not the same as a horse who is trained through obedience.” I highly recommend Warwick’s video library, Facebook page, and Journey On Podcast.

The Partnering with Ponies 2025 Tribute will involve, in part, the accumulation of 25 miles or 25 activities or a combination totally 25. The activities can be chosen from a provided list. As you’ve probably guessed by now, the Tribute is intended to celebrate partnerships of people and ponies that are safe because they are based on yeses, and allowing no’s.

More soon!