>>There is a fine line between discipline and
abuse. To the ignorant eye, it is invisible. But
it's ok, because that is >>what helps people sleep better.
I'm appalled by the people on here that advocate
whacking a horse over the head, especially with a board! Plastic ball bats and
hands are bad enough, but a piece of wood? I believe in disciplining my animals,
but not like that. This, like so many other things, is a shortcut to good
training. I despise shortcuts, they ruin more horses than they help.
My horse was broke by one of the old style cowboys,
except she didn't break like an average horse. The brutality people like that
use on their horses horrifies me. Just today we found scars along her poll,
looks like she was beat on the top of her head with barbed wire! The fear that
such shortcuts instill in an animal is awful, and they never get completely over
it. Even now, after being a normal horse for almost 3 years my horse will have
"flashbacks" for lack of a better word when she hears or sees a certain thing.
I've had to be left on the trail, holding her head, while she trimbles,
terrified because of something stupid like my riding buddy yelling at her horse,
or hitting it with a whip. Maybe I'm jaded because I've got a horse who was
abused severly, I didn't know that when I bought her, they were very good at
concealing her problems.
BTW, Ray, how many horses have you actually used
your advice on? I did let Star go to one cowboy trainer who guaranteed me he
could break her of her "problems". I was at the end of my rope with her, never
seen anything like it with the warmbloods I had before, so I let him have her.
He whacked her on the top of the head with a pipe, she didn't rear the rest of
the ride, but when he got off she came up and tried her hardest to trample him
into the ground. That was Star's and my turning point, from there on out I
researched training and got rid of all my gadgety things and just hung out with
her. It was worth the year and a half of "quiet time" before we rode out with
groups or any activity with other people, she's still got a few problems, but
every ride they get better. The big thing, and I don't think people like Ray can
say this, is that she trusts me, and I trust her. Sure your horse may not balk
and may do everything you ask, but does he really want you to be with him? Would
he rather be with you as his pasture mates?
