Called to Teach

If you haven't yet met Little Love, the protagonist at Song of the Black Horse, you should cyber-scurry on over there and get acquainted. Hers is a fascinating and instructive saga in many ways, but right now I'm intrigued by the fact that this mare has begun to express an interest in educating humans. She seems keen to extend her circle of influence beyond her owner and immediate friends, even perhaps beyond the world of horsey people.

Lately, I've begun to feel that George also has a vocation to teach. Strange, perhaps, that one who came into my life as an irascible and possibly dangerous character, someone who apparently needed to be taught rather than teach, was all along a sort of frustrated guru - although in all likelihood he himself was not initially aware of this.

Why do I feel this? I'm processing.

First of all, I'm remembering when my son-in-law - a horse neophyte - rode George recently. George very clearly picked my son-in-law to be the person who would ride him. He looked extremely happy while he was tied up to the fence being groomed and readied for the ride, not his habitual attitude at such a time. My son-in-law was totally on board with the idea of always asking permission, and I believe George felt part of the process of educating him. My son-in-law later astutely remarked that George's initial engagement with him had given way to a more distant attitude as my son-in-law's confidence grew. This was not a negative thing, but perhaps next time I should aim to keep it 100% positive by consciously keeping George in the role of instructor, rather than one of the props.

When the vet came to (try to) give shots, George and I (after a false start) worked with the vet on "respecting the horse's no." I believe George was extremely happy about this, and very pleased with our results.

For the next few days, George was unusually affable, and one day - as a thank you? - out of his increased confidence?  - he taught me something extremely useful for myself. He showed me the habitual tension in my feet, and this knowledge has been of enormous benefit to me. Here is his face as he's telling me about my feet:

I began to wonder if he had a desire to be a healer/teacher, and one day I asked him outright if he wanted me to bring him a young boy I know of who needs help. He gave me his foreleg, which he has never done before or since. I now have a plan to get the kid over here. His mother and I have decided that we're going to rope the kids into a chore like picking up manure from the horse field or spreading crushed stone. I'll appreciate the help anyway, and while they're in the field with the horses, George (or any of the others) will be free to come over. I'll have a word with the horses first. Also, I think I'll have the boy's mother come over by herself first to meet George and discuss with him. He might want to help her too.

And now is when some people (myself a few years ago included) are saying, "Ok, crazy lady, you've gone too far now."

Going back over a year, when my niece rode George, I told her about "ask, don't tell." At first she was confused as to how you could ever get anywhere, but then she and George began to work it out. Looking back, I think George rather enjoyed that day too.

This summer, while we were sitting on the lawn, George came over to visit with my brother-in-law.  Here's the photo I posted then:

You can see the sweetness in George, and the discomfort in the human. At the time I just thought George wanted to be part of the company, but maybe there was more to it than that. Perhaps I should have asked the human to identify his discomfort and engage in the dialog that George was trying to start? Or maybe that would have been totally annoying and inappropriate?!?!

I think George really is not interested in me teaching him the usual stuff - I mean, how boring, right? Backing up, and turning, going forward, stopping, blahblahblah. There may come a time when he becomes interested in how it makes him feel. But for now I think he wishes I would kindly provide him with more important work.

A Challenge

Well, just in case we were getting all too complacent and comfy around here, we had a good old shake-up today. Did I say, "If that means half an hour has gone by and nobody has their shots yet, and [the vet] has to leave and come back another day, then that's ok"? What I obviously meant was "an hour and a half."

As reported in my last entry, I invited the vet to come to my place to discuss the possibility with the horses of their receiving shots. I told him in advance that we were going to be willing to relinquish any and all tangible accomplishments of a veterinary nature.
This morning, I had the horses confined to the yard, and had Bridget ready with her halter and leadrope. The vet arrived, introduced his nice new young assistant, and produced cookies for the horses. Bridget was quite willing to be swabbed, and to have her temperature taken and her heart listened to. Foolishly, I then let the vet prepare three shots for her - rabies, eastern/western/tetanus, and potomac. Foolishly, because I should have said to get only one ready, and we'd see.
Bridget was positively, no way, don't even think about it, totally not willing to be stuck in the neck. I was very careful that we gave her space, paused, left the rope loose, etc. But when she felt that needle, she was pissed off. The vet got the rabies stuck into her, but then she pulled away, and hopped about until she shook it loose. We backed off and then worked on familiarizing Bridget with the capped hypodermic. Her curiosity kept bringing her back to see what the vet was holding in his hand, and she finally allowed the vet to touch the syringe to the scary spot on her neck. At this point (which, I might add, took quite a long time to get to), George hove into view. I decided to take this as notification that we should quit while we were ahead with Bridget, cut her loose, and start with George.
I think at this point, I was losing my focus (or hadn't found it yet) - after a brief introduction, we started right in with the vet tech swabbing George's neck, which - sorry to say - lead to George reaching round and biting the poor girl's arm. Without waiting to see the damage, I got really mad at George, and whacked him several times with the lead rope. I'm sorry, I just want George to be quite clear that serious bites will cause me to attempt equicide. Maybe it's not fair, but that's the way it is. Actually, I whacked him precisely the right number of times, plus one. Because he stood there and let me whack him, until the last time, when he said, "Nope, that's enough, you made your point," and sortof bucked. So I stopped, and he calmed right down and came back to me, physically and mentally.
Fortunately, the vet tech had on long sleeves and a sweatshirt and so was unharmed. She's a horsewoman and remained cheerful and unfazed. I must say George's outburst brought us to a more focussed place, which was needed. Up to this point, I really wasn't very specific about what I wanted the vet to do, and all of a sudden there was a lot more clarity to the situation.
First of all, we started discussing George's past, and his personality. I had not originally wanted to bring any of this up, as I don't think it's fair to throw a horse's past in his face if he's moved on. However, George is obviously still very, very protective of his body, and I felt we really needed to talk about it. We talked about how sensitive he is, how his aggression is based in fear and defensiveness. I told the vet how far George has come, how it's taken him a year to let the mares into his space, and how he's only recently taken to enjoying being scratched, etc., etc. I said I thought he had been weaned too early and turned out at a young, defenseless age with larger, meaner horses.
Then we started working in earnest. We stood with George, and the vet asked him if he could listen to his heart. The vet's first approach was to raise his arm with the stethoscope and hold it out towards George and wait for his pinned-ears/stinkeye look to subside - a sortof desensitization approach. But I asked him to try something different - namely to look for the "no" and retreat immediately upon seeing it. So he raised his arm and then retracted it as soon as George looked askance. Pause, ask again. Retreat, pause, ask again. In this way, the vet was able to listen to a few seconds' of George's heartbeat. Importantly, in the process the vet became very tuned in to George. Again, we quit while we're ahead - the vet could hear all he needed in a very short space of time.
Then George did something quite remarkable. He swung around and turned his rear end to face the vet and began grazing. For George to do that shows a lot of trust. I told the vet that all George's aggression is at the front - for George, it's all about the crosshairs and the head-on offensive, whereas Bridget will stake her claim with her hindlegs too - for George to turn his back on someone shows he is comfortable with them. I began scratching George's tummy, and he began to stretch out his neck and do the happy nose-waggle, and I told the vet he could scratch George too. Lo and behold, George did the happy nose-waggle for him too. After a while, the vet leaned on George's back and remarked that sometimes he hated to gain the horse's trust and then "betray" it by jabbing him in the neck with a needle. I said, Let's just quit for the day, and we cut George loose.
We talked some more. The vet was interested to hear about Imke Spilker and wants to check out her website. He had quite a brilliant idea for George - some dogs are greatly helped with anxiety issues by the "thunder vest" - a sort of swaddling jacket, which hugs them tight and enables them to deal emotionally with thunderstorms and other slings and arrows of that sort. The vet said that there's this post-colic surgery band which is wrapped around a horse's torso to protect the incision, and that maybe it could function like a horse thunder vest.
I tried to explain my approach. I said it is an approach, not a technique or a method but that it might help to say the main tenets are "the horse is allowed to say no" and "ask, don't tell." I said I used to be into natural horsemanship and John Lyons and stuff, but that the mantra of natural horsemanship - "Make the right thing easy and the wrong thing hard" was not something I followed any more. My intention is to win the full, free cooperation of the horse simply by asking. I told him one or two anecdotes to suggest that this is possible.
I told him that George had really opened up to him at the end, and he agreed that he'd really felt that.
Here are some other points of note:
1) I was actually nervous when the vet first arrived.
2) When we were intially working with George, Bridget was getting in the way, so I put her through a gate into the field. Chloe and Rose were out of sight around the house, and Bridget started going crazy. When she slipped and fell, I decided I'd better go let her join the others, but as the vet was holding George, I didn't want to just open the gate and let her charge through. So I went in with a halter to fetch her out. She refused to let me catch her - which has never happened before - to the point of starting to rear up or strike at me when I attempted. So in the end I did just open the gate, and charge she did. However, it didn't rattle George. There must have been a Strange Disturbance in the Force for Bridget to act like this.
3) I found myself able, as we went along, to become more articulate and more authoritative toward the vet, which helped him understand the situation.
4) When we started working with the vet and the stethoscope, George several times "nipped" my arm - but not really a nip, more like just a little tug or something. Each time, I just said "No, I really don't like that." But it was a gesture of communication, not aggression.
5)  Despite our differences, Bridget and George stayed engaged with us and did not attempt to leave.
6)  Afterwards, I kept finding myself tempted to say to the horses, "Well now, you got off lightly today, but next time he comes, you'd better behave ...." Nuh uh, not the point of the exercise.
7) This has made me realize how deep in this I am. I don't even know how to explain this.
8) I am $220 out and no shots. This could happen again, and again, and .......
9)  When George bites, the universe unfolds.

Vet

Ok, so I have been sort of dreading the vet coming. The horses need their shots, particularly because we do have rabies in this area, and that is one shot you can't administer yourself.

The vet is very nice and kind and patient. However, I always feel this pressure to a) not waste his time, b) prove that my hippydippy approach to horses actually works, and c) not waste money, while at the same time d) staying faithful to my horses. The pressure, I must stress, is not coming from him, but from my own anxiety.

Inspired by Lynne Gerard's example and by her success in getting her semi-wild young Sorrais vetted, I have emailed my vet to spell out my approach, ask for his help and cooperation, and to tell him that I'm willing to pay for him to come out "for nothing."

We have to take the pressure of "getting the job done" off the table. I want him to be able to work with the horses as I do, and if that means half an hour has gone by and nobody has their shots yet, and he has to leave and come back another day, then THAT'S OK!

I was happy that he emailed back saying he was quite willing to help in this way.

I am deciding not to worry about the potential expense, which may be irrational.

Our appointment is for August 9th. Will post!

Rose's Eye

Rose's eye was a little better after the vet's visit. Then it got a little worse, and now it's a little better again. The puffiness has gone down a bit, the tearing has stopped, and the area of cloudiness has shrunk slightly.

The owner of the tack shop recommended an herbal eye wipe solution, called Calm Eyes, so I added that to the arsenal. I thought Rose could benefit from something just soothing and cleansing.

Rose does not appreciate this barrage of interference: atropine, banamine, anti-fungal, anti-biotic, fly mask (required by the atropine and the anti-fungal) and now eye cleanser.

Ok, the atropine was only to be given for three days, so that's over. But that still leaves four or five steps to be gone through twice a day.

In the wild, a horse will instinctively seek out the appropriate healing plants and minerals. It doesn't dose itself with additional remedies just in case. I don't want to put Rose through any more discomfort and annoyance than is absolutely necessary. She is already becoming very reluctant to be caught.

Enter the pendulum. My view about the pendulum is that it works in the same way as the horse's natural instinct tells it what to eat - the horse's body receives information from the plant and decides whether or not it will be helpful. In the case of the pendulum, the person's body acts as a go-between, receiving information from the energy (or whatever word you want to use) of the substance and from the energy of the patient, and the pendulum swings one way or the other to indicate whether the substance is desirable.

So, obviously, I was hoping that the pendulum would say ixnay on everything except the nice all-natural easy-to-apply-without-making-Rose-upset eye wipe solution.

I was disappointed. It did have a negative reaction to the anti-fungal, but it was all gung-ho for the banamine (Rose hates banamine) and the antibiotic - as well as the herbal eye wipe. So since yesterday, that's what I'm doing. I don't really know how to break it to Dr. Justin that I'm discontinuing the anti-fungal because my pendulum says so. I think perhaps he doesn't need to know this.

Here is Rose's poor eye - photos taken at the behest of Dr. J, who is a very conscientious vet and asked me to send him pictures today when he called for an update. The line of moisture on her face is from rainwater running off her forehead, and not from her eye.

The sore eye is closed more than the other one.

Another Visit from Dr. Justin

Well, Rose has always had this eye scar, and it's gotten worse - oedema and tearing - so Dr. Justin was called in again.

Rose put up with lots of eye interference, and I was left with a bunch of pharmaceuticals to administer. It's probably not moon blindness, there's no ulcer or abrasion; it may be a fungal flare-up. Anyway, we covered all bases. One of the meds was atropine, which enlarges the pupils, and so the vet said to put a fly mask on Rose. I'm afraid to leave nature to take its course with an eye problem.

When I returned Rose to the field, everyone went goofy and tore around galloping. I do love the sound of galloping hoofs on the turf.

Later I went back to administer the evening doses, taking treats. Of course George knew something was in my pocket and followed. I was very firm, however. I did let him share, but I kept him at bay while dealing with Rose's eye and giving her treats. Rose was almost afraid to eat her treats in front of George, but she managed. I find it easier to be tough with George now that we have more of a connection. Like when I say, "Look here, you...", I'm actually addressing the "you" to him, rather than just trying to stave off an impersonal force of nature.

Rose is very sweet. I'm going to have to get my husband started riding her. 

p.s.  Of course she's already lost the face mask.