The Soul of a Horse (21 page)
Read The Soul of a Horse Online
Authors: Joe Camp
Afterwhinny
J
oe has known me since I was nine. I’m almost eleven now. He really doesn’t know from whence I came, nor does my former owner. Only that my name, Cash, came with me. Joe believes that the story he told of wild horses throughout this book is a fable. I’ve heard him say that there’s no validating written record. And he’s not old enough to have been there for most of it. But I’ve also heard that very few good stories are pure fiction. There’s a place where a storyteller’s life, his cares and concerns, his passions, and his imagination all come together into something magical that’s part truth, part
could be,
and part
maybe not.
I know Joe, and I know this to be true: His story of my ancestors came from the heart. And from good research. Because any or all of it
could’ve
happened just as you read it. That’s the way it is in the wild. Joe was trying to illustrate how we are supposed to live, and how truly easy it is to
be
one of us, and to allow us to live as we should, as we always have.
I’m sorry that Joe believes his story to be a fable. Especially the part about where and to whom I was born. Because Joe doesn’t know. He wasn’t there.
And I was.
A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS
If the last Benji movie,
Benji Off the Leash,
had been a big success, we would’ve never owned horses and this book would’ve never been written. The movie was not a big success. It was unable to compete as an independent film against the huge promotional dollars being spent by the Hollywood studios these days. That experience left a huge, gaping hole in my life. I was convinced that
Benji Off the Leash
was going to raise the bar for family films. Be an example that would show Hollywood the error of its ways. It had a strong story that set a good example, without the use of four-letter words, sexual innuendos, or violence. I was certain that God was using
Benji Off the Leash
to prove once and for all that good stories do not need to lower the bar to entertain. It was clear, at least to me, that God had been involved in the movie from the beginning, that He wanted it to be made. The money was raised in record time. We were forced to accept Utah as a production location, against our wishes, but once we were there, many of the usual production problems miraculously vanished. And we found Tony DiLorenzo, a young composer searching for his first movie. He wrote an amazing score that we could never have afforded with a seasoned composer, and I believe Tony will become one of the finest film composers in the business.
Yet with all of that, the film did not do well.
And there was this huge hole to fill.
When depression tries to claw its ugly self into your being, there are but two choices. Give in to it or grab it by its scrawny neck, sling it to the ground, and pull yourself out of that hole.
Growth always seems to arise out of adversity.
I, of course, didn’t know it when it was happening, but God was telling me it was time to move on. To fill another need. To make a difference.
If the movie had been even marginally successful, He knew I’d be off working on another one.
But I wasn’t to go there.
Instead, I tried to forget by turning to horses. And learning about them. I wanted to fill the emptiness of that dark hole. Then, slowly, Kathleen and I began to realize that something was amiss with the traditional methods of caring for these beasts. And, quite unexpectedly, an amazing journey of discovery lay before us.
A new passion was born.
My first acknowledgment, therefore, is to God for never failing to do whatever it takes to make me listen, no matter how hard I try not to. For the tough love I so often need. For caring that much. And for using me as a humbled instrument of His will.
Next, from the bottom of my heart I thank the investors in
Benji Off the Leash,
dear friends all. At best it will be a long time until you recoup your investment, yet I have never lost your support, or your friendship. In addition to funding a terrific movie with a wonderful message, you have inadvertently made a difference for horses everywhere.
During the promotion of the film, one of the publicists set up a radio interview by telephone with Dr. Marty Becker, well-known author, syndicated columnist, radio host, and
Good Morning America
’s vet in residence. A week or so after the interview, Marty called and asked if it would be possible for me to bring Benji to a fund-raiser in his hometown of Bonners Ferry, Idaho. We were in the middle of a coast-to-coast, major-market promotional tour for the film and he was asking that we pause for two days and come to a town of 2,700 people for a benefit screening. “We could also do one in the neighboring town of Sandpoint,” he added. A much bigger town, almost 8,000 people.
It was clearly another God thing, because I took one look at Marty and Teresa’s beautiful ranch—and their horses—and convinced everyone involved that it would be a nice breather between Seattle and Chicago. Kathleen met me in Spokane and we drove up to Bonners Ferry for a perfectly wonderful two days nurturing a pair of new lifelong friendships.
Why does any of that matter? Because if it hadn’t been for the movie, the investors, and God, this most unusual meeting with Marty Becker would have never happened. And if the meeting had never happened, Marty Becker would never have become such a giving and loving friend, and he would’ve never have introduced me to his literary agent, David Vigliano, easily one of the best in all the world. If I had never met David, it stands to reason that he never would have become my agent and I would certainly be, by this time in the process, completely insane. And, without David, I’m sure the book would’ve never made it to Shaye Areheart, the most loving publisher on the planet.
So from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much, Dr. Marty Becker. Maybe our horses will be pasture mates yet. And thank you, David Vigliano, for loving the book right from the get-go. For believing. And for saying exactly the right thing every time I needed it. Thank you, Shaye Areheart, for having the faith to put the power of America’s largest publishing house behind these meager words of mine. I’m still aghast.
Next has to be my editor, Peter Guzzardi. What a thankless job, trying to pull the best out of a paranoid independent writer and filmmaker who, having always been independent, never once had the blessing of a sensibility like Peter’s to make something better. And when there’s no one there to try, one can become very possessive, fearful, mistrustful, unreasonable, and obsessed. Yet somehow Peter managed to carefully weave his way through my insecurities and help me make this book so much better. Thank you, Peter. I hope it was somehow not as bad an experience as I imagine. I would hate to have to deal with me.
Thank you, Monty Roberts, for your friendship and for being there with Join-Up as we began this process. If we hadn’t given our horses that choice to be with us, right in the beginning, our entire experience would have been sadly different, for it was that moment of Join-Up with Cash that caused me to change from owner to partner. From
like
to
love.
From the boss to a member of the herd and a true leader. You have blessed me with the soul of a horse.
Thank you to all the clinicians, trimmers, vets, and authors listed in the Resources section of this book, many of whom have become friends since those early days not really so long ago. Thank you for sharing your decades and decades of rich experience that allowed us to get so quickly up to speed, to understand the truth, and to become yet another messenger to carry your mission forward.
Thank you, Cash. Thank you to all of our horses. Each of you has such a wonderfully unique personality, and you have brought so much into our lives. But especially Cash. I wonder if you understand how very much you mean to me. When you cock your head and peer straight into my soul, I believe, somehow, that you do.
Lastly, there is my editor before Peter, the love of my life and my second soul mate, Kathleen. How does one become so fortunate as to have two such intelligent, caring, compassionate soul mates in one lifetime? Whenever I’m buried in a project, Kathleen is always there. If I’m editing a film, she consults every evening on what we’ve edited that day. And she’s so brutally honest that afterward we might not speak for hours. It’s difficult, emotional work that deserves combat pay. The same is true with this book. She read every word, every chapter, over and over again.
“I don’t see any changes,” she might say.
“What do you mean? The third word in the eighteenth paragraph is changed.”
Combat pay, indeed.
Thank you so much, Sweetie, not only for your help and support, your love, your glorious ideas, and, yes, for the title of this book, but also for allowing me to tell your side of this journey as it actually was: fearful, frustrating, and embarrassing. I’m sure there were times when you simply wanted to quit and walk away. It is your book as much as mine. I love you so much.
P
HOTOGRAPH
C
REDITS
Stallion in the Wild—American West
Photo by Pete and Ivy Ramey
Joe and Cash
Photo by Kathleen Camp
Horses in the Wild—American West
Photo by Pete and Ivy Ramey
Joe and Kathleen’s Tack Room
Photo by Joe Camp
Herd at Ortega Mountain Ranch
Photo by Laurra Maddock
Joe and Cash
Photo by Kathleen Camp
Babies Sleeping—Carpe Diem Farm
Photo by Joe Camp
Joe and Kathleen’s Natural Pasture
Photo by Joe Camp
A Family in the Wild—American West
Photo by Pete and Ivy Ramey
Pocket and Sojourn Communicating
Photo by Joe Camp
Two Wild Horses Communicating—American West
Photo by Pete and Ivy Ramey
Cash, Joe, and a Pawleys Island Hammock
Photo by Kathleen Camp
Rusting Shoes and Nails from Cash, Handsome, and Pocket
Photo by Joe Camp
Dancing at Sunset—Arrowhead Mountains
Photo by Ginger Kathrens
Pocket—Before We Knew
Photo by Joe Camp
Stallion in the Wild—American West
Photo by Pete and Ivy Ramey
Sophie Having a Blast—Ortega Mountain Ranch
Photo by Laurra Maddock
Joe and Cash
Photo by Kathleen Camp
Family Band in Snowstorm—Arrowhead Mountains
Photo by Ginger Kathrens
Kathleen and Skeeter
Photo by Joe Camp
Wild Herd—American West
Photo by Pete and Ivy Ramey
Joe and Kathleen’s Remaining Hitching Post
Photo by Joe Camp
Sojourn on the Run
Photo by Joe Camp
Circus Ball Going for a Ride
Photo by Joe Camp
Going to the Water Hole
Photo by Ginger Kathrens
Joe Flexing Cash
Photo by Kathleen Camp
Members of a Wild Herd—American West
Photo by Pete and Ivy Ramey
Miss Mouse—Shortly After Coming Home
Photo by Joe Camp
An Empty Stall—Handsome’s Lead Rope
Photo by Joe Camp
Joe with Skeeter, Pocket, and Cash
Photo by Kathleen Camp
Joe with Cash
Photo by Kathleen Camp
R
ESOURCES
There are, I’m certain, many programs and people who subscribe to these philosophies and are very good at what they do but are not on the following list. That’s because we haven’t experienced them yet, and we will only recommend to you programs that we believe, from our own personal experience, to be good for the horse and well worth the time and money.
NATURAL HORSEMANSHIP
This is the current buzzword for training horses or teaching humans the training of horses without any use of fear, cruelty, threats, aggression, or pain. The philosophy is growing like wildfire, and why shouldn’t it? If you can accomplish everything you could ever hope for with your horse and still have a terrific relationship with him or her, and be respected as a leader, not feared as a dominant predator, why wouldn’t you? As with any broadly based general philosophy, there are many differing schools of thought on what is important and what isn’t, what works well and what doesn’t. Which of these works best for you, I believe, depends a great deal on how you learn, and how much reinforcement and structure you need. We have more or less shuffled together the first three whose websites are listed below, favoring one source for this and another for that. Often, this gives us an opportunity to see how different programs handle the same topic, which enriches insight. But, ultimately, they all end up at the same place: When you have a good relationship with your horse that began with choice, when you are respected as your horse’s leader, when you truly care for your horse, then, before too long, you will be able to figure out for yourself the best communication to evoke any particular objective. These programs, as written, or taped on DVD, merely give you a structured format to follow that will take you to that goal.
www.montyroberts.com
Start here, please. Learn Monty’s Join-Up method, either from his books or DVDs, on sale at this website address. Watching his
Join-Up
DVD was probably our single most pivotal experience. Even if you’ve owned your horse forever, go back to the beginning and watch this DVD, then do it yourself with your horse or horses. You’ll find that when you unconditionally offer choice to your horse and he chooses you, everything changes. You become a member of the herd, and your horse’s leader, and with that goes responsibility on his part as well as yours. Even if you don’t own horses, it is absolutely fascinating to watch Monty put a saddle and a rider on a completely unbroken horse in less than thirty minutes (unedited!). We’ve also watched and used Monty’s
Dually Training Halter
DVD and his
Load-Up
trailering DVD. And we loved his books:
The Man Who Listens to Horses, The Horses in My Life, From My Hands to Yours: Lessons from a Lifetime of Training Championship Horses,
and
Shy Boy: The Horse That Came in from the Wild.
Monty is a very impressive man who cares a great deal for horses.
www.parelli.com
Pat and Linda Parelli have turned their teaching methods into a fully accredited college curriculum. We have four of their home DVD courses: Level 1, Level 2, Level 3, and Liberty & Horse Behavior. We recommend them all, but especially the first three. Often, they do run on, dragging out points much longer than perhaps necessary, but we’ve found, particularly in the early days, that knowledge gained through such saturation always bubbles up to present itself at the most opportune moments. In other words, it’s good. Soak it up. It’ll pay dividends later. Linda is a good instructor, especially in the first three programs, and Pat is one of the most amazing horsemen I’ve ever seen. His antics are inspirational for me. Not that I will ever duplicate any of them, but knowing that it’s possible is very affirming. And watching him with a newborn foal is just fantastic. The difficulty for us with
Liberty & Horse Behavior
(besides its price) is on disk 5, whereon Linda consumes almost three hours loading an inconsistent horse into a trailer. Her belief is that the horse should
not
be
made
to do anything; he should
discover
it on his own. I believe there’s another option. As Monty Roberts teaches, there is a big difference between
making
a horse do something and
leading
him through it, showing him that it’s okay, that his trust in you is valid. Once you have joined up with him, and he trusts you, he is willing to take chances for you because of that trust, so long as you don’t abuse the trust. On his trailer-loading DVD, Monty takes about one-tenth the time, and the horse (who was impossible to load before Monty) winds up loading himself from thirty feet away, happily, even playfully. And his trust in Monty has progressed as well, because he reached beyond his comfort zone and learned it was okay. His trust was confirmed. One thing the Parelli program stresses, in a way, is a follow-up to Monty Roberts’s Join-Up: You should spend a lot of time just hanging out with your horse. In the stall, in the pasture, wherever. Quality time, so to speak. No agenda, just hanging out. Very much a relationship enhancer. And don’t ever stomp straight over to your horse and slap on a halter. Wait. Let your horse come to you. It’s that choice thing again, and Monty or Pat and Linda Parelli can teach you how it works.
www.downunderhorsemanship.com
This is Clinton Anderson’s site. Whereas the Parellis are very philosophically oriented, Clinton gets down to business, with lots of detail and repetition. What exactly do I do to get my horse to back up? From the ground and from the saddle, he shows you precisely, over and over again. And when you’re in the arena or the round pen and forget whether he used his left hand or right hand, or whether his finger was pointing up or down, it’s very easy to go straightaway to the answer on his DVDs. His programs are very task-oriented, and, again, there are a bunch of them. We have consumed his
Gaining Respect & Control on the Ground, Series I
through
III
and
Riding with Confidence, Series I
through
III.
All are multiple DVD sets, so there has been a lot of viewing and reviewing. For the most part, his tasks and the Parellis’ are much the same, though usually approached very differently. Both have served a purpose for us. We also loved his
No Worries Tying
DVD for use with his Australian Tie Ring, which truly eliminates pull-back problems in minutes! And on this one he demonstrates terrific desensitizing techniques. Clinton is the only two-time winner of the Road to the Horse competition, in which three top natural-horsemanship clinicians are given unbroken horses and a mere three hours to be riding and performing specified tasks. Those DVDs are terrific! And Clinton’s Australian accent is also fun to listen to…mate.
T
HE THREE PROGRAMS
above have built our natural-horsemanship foundation, and we are in their debt. The following are a few others you should probably check out, each featuring a highly respected clinician, and all well known for their care and concern for horses.
www.imagineahorse.com
This is Allen Pogue and Suzanne De Laurentis’s site. Allen’s work has unfortunately cast him as a trick trainer, but it’s so much more than that. We’ve just recently discovered Allen and are dumbfounded by how his horses treat him and try for him. His work with young horses is so logical and powerful that you should study it even if you never intend to own a horse. Allen says, “With my young horses, by the time they are three years old they are so mentally mature that saddling and a short ride is absolutely undramatic.” He has taken Dr. Robert M. Miller’s book
Imprint Training of the Newborn Foal
to a new and exponential level.
www.johnlyons.com
John Lyons’s work is terrific, and he is very well respected. But his system is entirely different from the preceding three (which demonstrates that there are many ways to communicate with horses, and once you have a good foundation, you can pretty much develop the type of communication best suited to you and your horse). To follow John’s system, you have to begin at his beginning and stick with it. If you try dropping into the middle, it’s like trying to understand Greek.
http://users.elknet.net/circlewind/buster.htm
We stumbled onto Buster McLaury at the Texas trail ride mentioned earlier. Very much a natural horseman, he gave a wonderful demonstration. Buster’s website chronicles his writings in various horse publications and contains his clinic schedule. He apparently has no DVD programs at the moment, but if he’s in your area, we recommend a look-see.
www.charleswilhelm.com
I have read one of Charles Wilhelm’s books,
Building Your Dream Horse,
and would like to read more and see some of his DVDs. He’s very, very much a natural horseman, expressing a lot of care and love for the horses he works with. He offers multiday workshops at his place, but doesn’t seem to have a structured DVD program that starts at the
very
beginning and goes as far as you want to go, which is what we felt we needed when we began. Still, I recommend his material. It might suit you fine.
www.robertmmiller.com
Dr. Robert M. Miller is an equine veterinarian and a world-renowned speaker and author on horse behavior and natural horsemanship. I think his name comes up more often in these circles than anyone else’s. His first book,
Imprint Training of the Newborn Foal,
is now a bible of the horse world. He’s not really a trainer, per se, but a phenomenal resource on horse behavior. He will show you the route to “the bond.” You must visit his website.
TAKING YOUR HORSE BAREFOOT
Taking your horses barefoot involves more than just pulling shoes. The new breed of natural-hoof-care practitioners have studied and rely completely on what they call the wild horse trim, which replicates the trim that horses give to themselves in the wild through natural wear. The more the domesticated horse is out and about, moving constantly, the less trimming he or she will need. The more stall-bound the horse, the more trimming will be needed in order to keep the hooves healthy and in shape. Every horse is a candidate to live as nature intended. The object is to maintain their hooves as if they were in the wild, and that requires some study. Not a lot, but definitely some. I now consider myself capable of keeping my horses’ hooves in shape. I don’t do their regular trim, but I do perform interim touch-ups. The myth that domesticated horses
must
wear shoes has been proven to be pure hogwash. The fact that shoes degenerate the health of the hoof and the entire horse has not only been proven but is also recognized by even those who nail shoes on horses. Successful high-performance barefootedness with the wild horse trim can be accomplished for virtually every horse on the planet, and the process has even been proven to be a healing procedure for horses with laminitis and founder. On this subject, I beg you not to wait. Dive into the material below and give your horse a longer, healthier, happier life.
www.hoofrehab.com
This is Pete Ramey’s website. If you read only one book on this entire subject, read Pete’s
Making Natural Hoof Care Work for You.
Or better yet, get his new DVD series, which is fourteen-plus hours of terrific research, trimming, and information. He is my hero! He has had so much experience with making horses better. He cares so much about every horse that he helps. And all of this comes out in his writing and DVD series. If you’ve ever doubted the fact that horses do not need metal shoes and are in fact better off without them, please go to Pete’s website. He will convince you otherwise. Then use his teachings to guide your horses’ venture into barefootedness. He is never afraid or embarrassed to change his opinion on something as he learns more from his experiences. Marci Lambert, our natural trimmer, and Pete are very much in sync, and our horses are all barefoot and all terrific. Pete’s writings have also appeared in
Horse & Rider
and are on his website, along with his clinic schedule, which takes him all over the United States and Europe. Recently he has taken all of Clinton Anderson’s horses barefoot.
www.star-ridge.com
This is Jaime Jackson’s website. Jaime is more or less the father of natural hoof care in the United States. He has studied and photographed the hooves of more than a thousand wild horses, hooves that are amazingly similar, no matter the variances in geography and climate. Rock solid, concave, beveled on the edges, and as healthy as can be. His book
Horse Owners Guide to Natural Hoof Care
is the “bible” and should be read. If you truly want to learn all you can learn about this subject, read both Jaime’s book and Pete’s, beginning with Jaime’s. Pete even lists Jaime’s book as a prerequisite to his. That said, this book also goes deeply into Jaime’s research of the wild horse hoof and why this trim can work for any horse. For me, this was all fascinating material. Jaime also has trimming tools, a how-to video, and various other related items on his site.
T
HE FOLLOWING ARE
other websites that contain good information regarding the barefoot subject.
www.TheHorsesHoof.com
This website and magazine of Yvonne and James Welz is devoted entirely to barefoot horses around the world and is surely the single largest resource for owners, trimmers, case histories, and virtually everything you would ever want to know about barefoot horses. With years and years of barefoot experience, Yvonne is an amazing resource. She can compare intelligently this method versus that and help you to understand all there is to know. And James is a super barefoot trimmer.
www.wholehorsetrim.com
This is the website of Eddie Drabek, another one of my heroes. Eddie is a wonderful trimmer in Houston, Texas, and an articulate and inspirational educator and spokesman for getting metal shoes off horses. Read everything he has written, including the pieces on all the horses whose lives he has saved by taking them barefoot.