The Soul of a Horse (12 page)

Living in the wild, horses eat a varied diet that usually includes legumes like alfalfa, but the majority of the diet will be of the grass family. Dr. Strasser reports that horses have an instinct for what medicinal properties certain plants have, and they know when there is a need for such natural medicine. In the wild, for example, they’ll go for thistle when their liver is irritated.
Before
it becomes a problem.

In conventional boarding, horses are usually fed two or three large meals a day, leaving lengthy periods with no ingestion. A horse’s stomach is very small in relation to his size, perfectly suited for virtual continuous ingestion of small amounts of vegetation; and he needs to be continually processing roughage for his digestive organs to be in good health. When there are hours between feedings, which often consist of grain or pellets, without roughage, his body cannot function as it was designed to function. It makes him crazy, contributing to the stress of being confined, and helping to create those so-called stall vices.

The horse has taken care of himself for millions of years. It only requires a bit of research, effort, and imagination for us to figure out how to help him replicate as much of that life in the wild as possible that will cause him to be happier, healthier, and live longer.

Why would we not?

16

Love Is the Gift of Oneself

T
he young Powhatan sat on a boulder watching the golden stallion play with one of his foals in the herd. The boy had grown tall, and lean, and muscular, and was no longer a boy. His ability to run, and hunt, and think had endeared him to the Shoshone chief and he had become a special adviser to the great leader of the tribe.

It was his twelfth time to return to this spot where he had given his blessing and prayers to the stallion and encouraged him to follow his calling and join the herd. It had been a sad day for both of them, but the young man had well understood the great stallion’s wish for fulfillment, for he, too, was a man now.

When they had first encountered the herd, the young man could sense the stallion’s emotions and knew what he wanted. He talked to him, his head buried in the stallion’s mane, and prayed to the great spirit to take care of him. Then, finally, he stood back and told him he was free to go. The horse stood for a long moment looking deeply into the eyes of the human with whom he had shared so much. Then he wheeled and raced away down the hill.

The reigning stallion of the herd was actually glad to see him, for he was old. There was no fight for supremacy, no confrontation, just a passing of the torch, and the old gentleman was allowed to remain with the herd.

Since that day, the Powhatan always returned on the first day of snow and when the spring flowers began to bloom. And the herd was always there.

The matriarch began to move her charges into a stand of trees, but the stallion remained. He turned toward the hill and his friend sitting on the boulder. Then he came, just as he had done each of the times before, trotting up the rise, only stopping when he was nose to nose with the young man. They nuzzled for a bit, then talked about things. Although neither probably fully understood what the other had said, the moment, the history, and the bond were well understood. The Powhatan was glad that his adopted tribe wasn’t around to see the tear drop from his cheek, because he had no desire to hold it back. He loved this horse more than he had ever loved anything. Which is why there had been no choice but to release him.

17

Horses Aren’t Us

F
or three hours I sat on a big, hard rock watching four of our horses investigate their new world. Our natural pasture was, at this time, unfinished, but we thought it wise to put it to the test before locking down the final touches. The horses paraded from the north end to the south, frolicked and played and moved each other around. They ran up and down the hill, nibbled on stray weeds, and otherwise had a fine time being out in the wild, so to speak. Everything went very well.

Until we left the pasture.

Kathleen and I decided to allow them to make the short walk back to their smaller turnouts untethered. These horses mind really well and the property is fenced, so they couldn’t wander off. We felt it would be a happy extension of their new freedom.

You guys just come on along. Follow us.

Three of them did.

I was walking out front and didn’t notice that Cash had paused to nibble a weed. When I discovered that he wasn’t with us, I walked back and called out to him. He looked up, realized he was all alone, and, as Pat Parelli says, went totally right brained. He leaped from a dead standstill to a full gallop, racing right past Kathleen and me, to catch up with the other horses. None of that would’ve been a problem were it not for a small section of concrete driveway that must be traversed on the way home.

A small section that makes a tight U-turn.

Going downhill.

When Cash hit the concrete at full stride, trying to make the turn, his feet flew out from under him and he landed with a loud
kerwhomp
on his left side, leaving hair and bloody skid marks as he slid.

I was frozen in place, horrified.

Cash is the most athletic horse we have. The smartest. The most well mannered. The most loving. And the most accident prone.

He’s been kicked in the head and bitten, has sprained a foreleg ligament, and today, as I write this, he has a sprained right rear fetlock in a soft cast. It’s not unlike a twisted ankle, probably from stepping on a loose rock or in a gopher hole in the new natural pasture. Shortly after he arrived at our place, I watched him go straight up a rock face, petrified that he was going to wind up skiing all the way back down, maybe on his back. He managed through that one without even a scratch. The fall on the concrete left him scraped and bloody in several places, but nothing was broken or seriously injured. We were lucky.

There’s a piece of me that wants to lock him up in a padded cell and never let him venture outside. I know that if anything serious ever happens to him, in some way it’ll be my fault. I wasn’t a good leader when I let him get to that rock face, or when I allowed him to come back from the pasture on his own without a lead rope, or when I let him be in the same stall with the horse who kicked him. And, apparently, just letting him be in that steep, rocky, natural pasture leaves him open to injury.

But would I take that away from him?

Should
I take that away from him?

There lies the toughest part of entering the world of what is truly best for the horse.

Us.

We aren’t horses; and if that’s true, it stands to reason that horses aren’t us. So we mustn’t treat them as if they were. We must be able to rise to the occasion and accept the facts: What is freezing to us isn’t to them.

What is safe and comfortable to us isn’t to them.

What is warm and cozy to us isn’t to them.

What breeds trust and respect for us is different for them.

There are folks who believe that the best care for the horse is the safest care, no matter how miserable the horse’s days might be, no matter how many years are being cut off his life because of a sedentary, stress-filled lifestyle—in short, no matter what.

Cash hates—I mean
hates
—being cooped up. I think the second-happiest day in his life was when he was turned loose in that natural pasture. The happiest was the day his shoes came off. Until that day, I had never actually seen a horse smile.

What’s best for the horse is almost
never
what we humans think is best for the horse. As much as we’d like to believe that horses are like us, they aren’t. We must always ask ourselves, Is this what
I
want or what my horse wants? Is this truly best for my horse?

To ask those questions might involve embracing change. The awful
C
word. But it’s a lot easier to accomplish what’s best for the horse than most people think.

Our natural pastures, for example, were relatively simple and inexpensive to put together. We have three: two small ones and one larger, which is about an acre and a half. They’re all dirt, rocks, and steep hills.

Oh my, shouldn’t a horse pasture be flat, without any dangerous obstacles?

You mean boring?

Well, on steep rocky hills a horse might get hurt.

Tell me about it!

So it
is
dangerous.

The horses prefer to call it interesting.

Oh my.

Actually, the steep hills and rocks are good for the horses’ bare feet and teach them to pay attention to where they’re stepping, which translates well to the trail. The level of exercise is better, thus circulation and muscle tone are better, and stamina is improved.

The large pasture, where all six of our horses now spend most of their time, is enclosed with an inexpensive electric fence. In the morning each horse receives a bit of Purina Strategy, about half a scoop as a supplement, a small bit of alfalfa, and approximately six pounds of Bermuda grass hay, a total of approximately thirty-six pounds for the herd scattered in fifty to sixty small piles all around the pasture in a big circle. That keeps them on the move most of the day, checking first this pile, then that one. Night feeding is the same. The smaller pastures are odd shaped, approximately fifty by sixty feet, and would work very well even if that was all the space we had.

Our horses are out 24/7 with a single exception. If the temperature drops below 42 degrees
and it’s also raining
we’ll bring them into those cute little open stalls mentioned in chapter 2, which are half covered, with one closed side facing the usual weather. This allows the herd to stay dry if they so choose. According to most advice on this subject, neither rain nor freezing temperatures matter much to a horse unless they both occur at the same time. When the coat is soaking wet, it might not be able to protect against extreme cold, so we take Dr. Matt’s advice of better safe than sorry, and give the horses a choice of whether to stay under cover or not. We have a couple who never seek shelter. Go figure.

The pasture is very close to these horses’ natural habitat. It certainly costs less than building a big barn and can often be set up in about the same amount of space, depending upon the number of horses who will occupy. For boarders, more and more natural pastures are popping up all over the United States. There’s even a racing and hunt club in the United Kingdom that requires all club members’ horses to be barefoot and live in the pasture with the herd. The name of the club is Horses First, and its horses are winning races all over the country.

As mentioned earlier, I sometimes want to put Cash in a padded room to keep him from hurting himself. Wrap him up in a thick, fuzzy blanket. Feed him warm tea and hot chocolate. But watching him pace in his stall awakens me from this human delusion. Until his fetlock ligament heals, he’ll have to remain confined. But I haven’t forgotten how happy he was when he was first turned loose in the big natural pasture. The smile on his face. The prancing. The racing. The kicking. He was eleven hundred pounds of pure frolic.

I have no choice but to let him go back as soon as he’s well.

Because I love him.

18

The Bond

T
he young Powhatan knew his horse.

Inside and out.

They had spent years together as each other’s only friend. They spoke the same language. They understood each other’s touch. The Powhatan knew, intuitively, what the stallion needed when it came time to release him. And the great stallion knew that it was okay to leave. It was the right thing. The strength of the bond between these two is rarely even dreamed of in the domestic horse world. And that’s very much a shame because it’s truly amazing how little time it has taken Kathleen and me to nurture such a bond with our horses. And how consequential that bond has been to everything else that we have done.

There are those who believe it’s not possible to bond with a horse. Dogs, yes. Cats, maybe. But not horses. Yet I experience this bond with every member of our herd on a regular basis. And sometimes the things they do to confirm it can make my day, or my entire week.

Dr. Marty Becker says in his wonderful book
The Healing Power of Pets,
“We should recognize the bond for what it is—living proof of the powerful connectedness between mankind and the rest of the animal kingdom. And the element of this powerful relationship that has always impressed me the most was the importance of nurturing another creature.”

I wonder if those who don’t believe that you can bond with a horse also dismiss Dr. Becker’s statement about the importance of nurturing another creature.

Just last week I was hauling my tripod and video camera down our very steep pasture, struggling a bit because of sore ribs, a remnant from my fall off a ladder. I was moaning to myself about it as I set up the camera to videotape herd movement. Five of our six horses would soon begin their meandering climb back up the steep grade toward where the camera was set up. Only Mariah had remained at the top.

After a moment, I heard her shuffling up behind me. She paused at my back, lip-nibbled my shirtsleeve, and then the most amazing thing happened. She nudged her nose between my arm and my ribs and pressed her warm muzzle softly against my rib cage. Precisely where it was hurting. She didn’t move for minutes, until I had to shift position to start taping. It was a moment I didn’t want to end.

How did she know?

Moreover, why did she care?

This is the horse whose relationship with humans was a blank stare when Kathleen and I first met her.

This is the bond.

Kathleen and I spend regular time in the pasture, without agenda, to foster this bond. And to learn about our horses. The relationship, generated with Join-Up, which gave the horses the choice of whether or not to be with us, continues to mature because of our time in the pasture. And we become better communicators. Everything about the relationship gets better.

Time in the saddle, in the arena, and on the trail are important. But I believe the most important time is in the pasture. Just hanging out. It has done wonders for us and our horses.

It continually strengthens the bond and our relationship.

It teaches us about the horse, his habits, his language, his individual personality, and his genetics. How to read and understand what makes him tick.

It strengthens our leadership and the horse’s respect.

It dispels fear, both ours and theirs.

And it breeds confidence.

None of that can be injected, like a flu shot. It doesn’t come as a flash when we wake up one morning, no matter how much we wish that it would. And even though books and DVDs have certainly crammed us full of insight and knowledge, they cannot replace the benefits of experience that come with being there, doing it, absorbing, learning firsthand.

Simply hanging out in the pasture, observing, studying, interacting at the horse’s discretion, has taught us so much. That’s why we wouldn’t pay someone else to regularly feed and muck, even if we could afford it. Yes, there are mornings when we’d love to sleep in, especially in the summer when the kids are out of school and we don’t have to wake up before dawn anyway. But doing our own feeding and mucking guarantees no less than a couple of hours a day with our horses. Over time, those hours help to dissect and internalize each horse’s individual personality, which determines how leadership is expressed in different ways to different horses. It provides insight into how weather affects their behavior. It has taught us, virtually by osmosis, how subtle our language can be, or not, with each unique horse. And it continually confirms us as members of the herd.

“I just never have enough time,” one woman said to me.

“Then maybe you should acquire something that doesn’t depend upon your leadership, relationship, compassion, and understanding for its health and happiness.”

I didn’t really say that, but I thought it. You see, I
am
learning.

Spending time with the horses also reminds us to always be thinking ahead, questioning, anticipating what could happen or go wrong by doing things this way or that.

Only yesterday, with enough mileage in the pasture to know better, I was accidentally knocked down by big, muscular Pocket. She’s our
other
paint. Besides Scribbles. Major big. Not so tall, just
big.
Probably pushing twelve hundred pounds.

The incident wasn’t her fault; it was mine. And the time I had spent in the pasture told me so immediately, even as I sat on the ground staring up at her. Still, my first reaction was anger. I wanted to yell at her. And I know folks who would have. I know people who would whip any horse that would do what Pocket had just done, with no thought to understanding why it had happened. They would rather have a horse who is totally afraid of them than enjoy a bond and relationship, and be truly responsible for their horse’s leadership.

This is how it unfolded.

Each of our horses has a small feed tub in the pasture and they all know which one is theirs. With the exception of Skeeter, which is another story, it takes each horse approximately the same amount of time to eat the first course, the appetizer—a half-scoop ration of pellets. Next on the menu, the antipasto, is a small amount of alfalfa hay, less than half a flake per horse, scattered in ten to eleven small piles, all in relatively close proximity, at the top of the pasture hill. The manner in which we spread it ensures that no one horse can dominate more than his share of alfalfa and no one horse gets eliminated from the game of musical chairs that follows.

Yesterday, for reasons I don’t even remember, I put several of the alfalfa piles much closer together than I usually do. Four horses bunched up on the same piece of rock, all vying for as much of the booty as each one could get. I should’ve moved out right then, but I didn’t. I continued to pull apart the flake. When the dominant Scribbles took a nip at Pocket, she leaped out of his way, bumping Handsome, who whipped around, threatening a kick. She had nowhere to go but straight toward me. She was otherwise surrounded by hostile troops. She tried to miss me, and actually just brushed my shoulder, but with force enough on un-level ground to sit me down. There was simply too much congestion for safety and decorum. Especially when a nip and a threat had spiked her adrenaline. I should’ve known better. Now it’s well implanted in my brain by the bruise on my butt.

One look at her face, however, confirmed beyond doubt how she felt about it, and perhaps told of a bit of history.

Omigod, what have I done?!

She is usually the first horse in the herd to come greet me when I enter the pasture. Our bond is strong. But I couldn’t even get close to her for several minutes, as if she were expecting punishment. Or was really, really embarrassed about it all.

When I did finally get close, I rubbed her forehead and told her everything was okay. Well, except my butt.

And I promised to never again place alfalfa piles that close together.

One cold blustery day, Scribbles, the paint who is dominant in the herd, was acting out a bit more than he normally does in asserting his God-given right to eat first, to be the head of the table, so to speak. I was entering the pasture with pellets, heading for his tub. He was flipping his head at this horse and that, and quite without thinking he turned and flipped his head at me and launched a tiny kick. He was ten or fifteen feet away, not within striking distance, nor did he have any intention of striking. It was just a misplaced dominant gesture in the middle of his dance. He got carried away. I stopped walking, swelled my body like a balloon, looked him straight in the eye with eyebrows raised and one finger pointed straight at his forehead…and just stood there.

That doesn’t work for me!

You could literally see the
gleep
on his face. I could almost hear it. It was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud.

I stood there for at least thirty seconds, way longer than Scribbles could normally stand still when food was on the way. But stand still he did. And his head dropped almost to the ground, a very submissive posture.

Boy, am I sorry. Didn’t mean to. Really! It’s that cold wind. The devil made me do it.

I walked over and rubbed his forehead, and then proceeded to his feed tub.

Without a word spoken. Without any physical threat.

The relationship, the bond, carried the load.

It happens with every horse in the pasture. Not every day. With some, not even every week. But it’s there, and it makes everything else so much better.

In addition to the time we put in feeding and kicking poop, Kathleen and I usually spend no less than a couple of hours a week just sitting on a rock, watching the horses interact. Or having a cappuccino in the morning or a glass of wine in the evening on our deck just off the pasture. It’s fascinating to see what the flick of an ear, or a nose, can mean. To watch relative body positions, and how they relate to causing movement. To notice when the dominant horse will let something slide, and when not. And why. Digesting all this has seriously improved our equine vocabulary, and our natural responses to the horses. How, for example, a slight change in body position can vary the message being sent. How a simple flick of a finger, when it’s accurately placed with the right attitude, can accomplish what once took a broad arm motion.

And because they are horses, our every improvement in understanding their nature creates a greater respect, and a stronger bond, which, by the way, is not just an equine characteristic.

The experience became priceless once we realized that, most of the time, when a horse is refusing to do what we’re asking, it’s only because he doesn’t understand what we want. The better we communicate in his language, the more he will do willingly for us—and the stronger the relationship.

This has been our way of life since we finished the natural pasture almost a year ago. Sometimes we forget how other horses live. I recently visited a traditional boarding stable, a fancy one, heavily laced with dressage and show horses. I was struck with a pang of sorrow. I wanted to race through the place and pop every latch on every stall door. And pull every shoe. And rub every horse. And Join-Up with them. And listen to them.

“How often does this horse see her owner?” I asked. The horse was a beautiful thoroughbred cross, with very sad eyes, sort of glazed over. She was pacing, back and forth, back and forth. I stood at the stall door for a moment, but the horse never looked at me. Just paced.

“Oh, at least once every weekend. Sometimes twice.”

“Who feeds her?”

“We do. Our staff.”

“The stalls?”

“Our staff. Twice a day.”

“Does she get turned out?”

“Oh, absolutely. Four hours every day. Guaranteed.”

“Guaranteed, huh?”

“Absolutely.”

“Turned out with other horses?”

“Oh no. She might get hurt.”

“Does she have a trainer?”

“Uh-huh. Comes on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

“How does the horse know who her leader is?”

“Oh, the trainer’s the leader, if you want to call it that.”

“And the owner?”

She looked at me like I was an idiot. I should know the answer.

“The owner is the rider in the shows,” she said. “And, of course, she writes the checks.”

“I see,” I said, and walked on down the row of stalls.

In one way or another they were all the same. Horses penned up, away from any semblance of a herd. Showing stress in one way or another. Pacing, weaving, chewing, cribbing. One was kicking the wall. The stalls were all filled with a bedding I didn’t recognize, presumably to absorb the pee, but the odor was still present, digging into their lungs. And most of them wore metal shoes.

“I notice that this one is barefoot,” I said. “He doesn’t have shoes.”

“Strange owner,” she said. “He doesn’t understand that a horse has to have shoes. That’s the way it is.”

“Do you own horses?” I asked.

“Don’t need to. Just look around.”

It all reminded me of my sailing days, back when Benji was at his peak. I had a sailboat in a Fort Lauderdale marina, and I was always amazed that so many people had huge boats—mine wasn’t—yet those huge boats never left the slip. The owner would pay the boarding fees, pay people to keep the boat clean, to run and service the engine, and would come down once a month and use this big, expensive yacht as a hotel room. Never go out. Never enjoy the boat as a boat. It was just a place to hang out and sleep. And be proud of.