Playing With Ponies

 

During Tumbleweed’s recovery from colic, I had an epiphany’ish moment, and it was this: I care about him too much to write about him in a way that minimizes the heart of his story and our journey together. 

I decided that I would either close up the blog or only post more rarely and allow his story to breathe and take shape. I settled on a weekly reflection. 

Every Monday I will try to post a thought or two. 

My thought for this Monday is regarding a Warwick Schiller webinar I attended this weekend on horses and separation anxiety. 

It was really good and informative, and he began it this way:

“Separation anxiety is anxiety and anxiety isn’t anything someone wants to have. Your perspective when you’re working on this stuff will have a huge effect on the outcome. So when I’m doing this work with horses, I’m NOT trying to fix the problem. The horse doesn’t have a problem. The horse does not feel safe, and they need to be helped. The intention behind any action can change the action. If you do something for a certain reason, it comes across one way, and if you do something for another reason, it comes across another way.”

From that beginning framework he shared his ideas on how to help a horse through separation anxiety, the most common form of it being a horse who is left behind by a buddy. 

——-

For the last couple of weeks, we have taken an approach to separation that is much more subtle and slow. 

If Epona is working, I ride Tweed off and away, then back, then away. 

If we’re on the trail, we practice leading and following. Epona might drop pretty far behind, get much further ahead, or we might ride them side-by-side. So far Tumbleweed has done exceptionally well, as has Epona, who seems made for trail riding. 

It’s so fun to have both of our “babies” on the trail together now. It feels different, like we’re not “working” anymore, but instead, we’re playing—playing with our sweet ponies.