Dakota

Dakota is a three year old mustang gelding. His owner is a real cowboy who has trained a lot of horses in his life, but with Dakota things weren’t going quite like they should. His methods was not very harsh, but still they were too hard for Dakota, who had a hard time handling the pressure. When he first came to David he was greatly under weight and immature, and when David started to work him he ended up collapsing when ridden. David brought Dakota to a clinic, and a few days later he decided to return with the horse and leave him for “re-starting”.
This horse wasn’t really a “problem horse” at all, but he got easily scared and confused. What he needed was to go back to basics and get those solid before proceeding. David had already ponied him, ridden him and done a lot of things with him, but the horse was still not sure of most things. Until a horse understands the basics, and has trust in the handler one can’t go to the next step, and Dakota wasn’t even ready to be sat on for the first week. It is important to find out what the horse likes, and in this case it was to get good scratches. Especially on the chest and in the girth area! I used the clicker training principle, told him he was a “good boy” for every little right thing he did, and gave him scratches as rewards. Even if Dakota wasn’t thrilled about the saddle in the beginning he put up with it willingly when he discovered that he would get rewarded for standing there. I must have saddled and re-saddled this horse 100 times over the first week, but it paid off; Dakota started to look happy as soon as he just saw the saddle blanket.
In the beginning things proceeded very slowly, everything had to be done as for the very first time… every day! But then things started to get better. It is so important to really listen to how the horse feels about things and what he is trying to tell you. It is not enough to get the horse to tolerate something, one has to make sure that the horse accepts things, that they are really OK, and there is a big difference between tolerating and accepting. One can not proceed with the next step until the horse is completely comfortable with the previous step. I don’t mean that the horse has to perform a task perfectly, but the have to be okay with the idea of it, and have a basic understanding, otherwise one will make things worse by going further. If what you are doing does not seem to get anywhere, change something. All horses are individuals and must be treated as such, just because another horse you worked with didn’t have a problem with the things you are doing doesn’t mean that it will be okay with this horse. In this picture one can clearly see how unsure he is. See how he is holding his head up high, is tense in the body and his facial expression is very unsure. When a horse is showing things like this he is not accepting things, and it would be a mistake to go further. It doesn’t even matter if one has done that task a hundred times before, TODAY it is scary. All one can do is to step back and reassure the horse until the horse decides that it is not too bad after all. Even then it might not be okay the next day, or the day after, but by giving the horse a chance to work through it he will eventually fully accept the things that used to bother him. It is important to understand that the horse is not trying to be difficult. It can’t help that it gets scared, no more than we can help it when we get scared. The only thing one can do is to help the horse through it, if one gets irritated with the horse it will not help the horse feel better about things at all. This way one will gain the horses trust.
Dakotas only problem was really that things had proceeded to fast for him. This had scared him so that he was having a hard time trusting things that humans wanted him to do, but after gaining his trust he started showing some real progress. Only when the horse is unafraid can he focus on what it is you want from him. If the horse is scared then this is all he can think about. Dakota is three, and it is easy to think that he should have been further along than he was, especially since he had already been ridden and ponied. To the horse this doesn’t matter, one has to work with the horse at the stage it is at, not where one thinks it should be because of its age and previous experience.
After about a month David came to participate in another clinic and to get “re-acquainted” wit Dakota again. They got along great and made a really pretty “cowboy” picture! And I know that they have a lot to teach each other in the years to come, providing they are both willing to listen to each other :-) David is a cowboy poet, and he actually wrote a poem about me! Since this isn’t something that happens to me every day (actually this is a first!) and because I think it’s a nice poem, I wanted to share it here with you all.
Ellen O Ellen O. Warren Just don't fit the mold. Her methods aint showey And her speeches aint bold. She don't wear a stetson Nor high top boots on her feet. She looks like any ol' gal You'd see on the street. Nary a legging nor chink, Does she have in her tack. An' spurs are a thing She'll leave on the rack. Norway and Sweeden Has lots of them blondes. Some guys there wear tu-tu's And, I think, carry wands. But Ellen teaches horses. She knows how they think. She trys helpin' cowboys When their methods stink! She summered in Texas, 110 in the shade. I'd a gone to the rockies, had I been this maid. Her sojourn is over. Back to Korea she goes. An' maybe this cowboy's learned, Some of the secrets she knows. *David Dill -99*	David Dill is a frequent participant in my English Forum, so those of you that read that will recognize him from there. He also has a really nice homepage with a lot of poems so you really should take a look. And, I just know he will never forgive me if I don’t write this, you can order one of his rope halters from his homepage, too. I have seen them and they are really good, and very inexpensive, too!