This is actually not a veterinary tip. It is a horsemanship tip. Nevertheless, it may be the single most important thing I have to say about horsemanship.
Ask Yourself: Do You & Your Horse Understand “Feel”
May 2013 will mark 20 years that I have been in solely equine veterinary practice. Before that, I was a horseman. I had and trained a number of my own horses and had started colts for others. I started my first colt when I was 12 years old. But most of what I did with horses was essentially “blind.” I was “asleep at the wheel” and I am fortunate to still be here, given some of the stupid things I did in the name of “horse training.” You hear this over and over from people who later in life see a different way to interact with horses.
My profession has afforded me the privilege of touching tens of thousands of new and strange horses over those 20 years. I have asked quite a lot of many of those horses. I have asked them to tolerate me as I stuck my hands in their mouths, stuck needles in every site imaginable, cleaned and repaired painful wounds, asked them to enter dark stalls and confining stocks. I have learned a great deal asking these horses to cooperate with me in doing those things, and more and more I have studied the reactions I get from them and what those reactions mean.
Through this, there is one word that means the most to me. And that word is “feel.” I am not sure which of the clinician’s started using that term. Certainly this word is used by many clinicians today. Words don’t really do this communication justice. But “feel” is the word I too like to use to describe this communication with horses. Without my quest for understanding of feel, my vet practice would be much harder and less satisfying for me.
Here are a few things I know about feel:
Two books that I recommend, and that illustrate what “feel” means are Ray Hunt’s “Think Harmony With Horses” and Bill Dorrance’s “True Horsemanship through Feel.” In later tips, I will illustrate “feel” with some video clips. But for today, consider buying these two books, reading them, studying them, and asking yourself whether you and your horse understand “feel.”
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