Experience goes a long way to solving a lot of the frustration that results in anger. We ALL get frustrated, we all do things in anger that we regret. If you don’t admit you have been this person, quite frankly I put you in the sociopath or terminally stupid slots and try to avoid you at all costs!
What you want to be is the person who learns from your frustration fails. I often joke-but-not-really that I wish I had a do over on my first 3 horses. When my tool kit of training tools was empty, the only thing left at the bottom of the bag is frustration, and lets not kid ourselves, in my early days my tool kit only had about 2 items in it. Frustration came fast and anger generally followed it.
But in the case of anything, I try to break it down. When it came to the kick, this is what I would ask myself:
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Does my horse truly respect my space on the ground?
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I mean REALLY respect it. Do I lead him or does he lead me? (hint, about 95% of the horses lead their owners, if your horse regularly makes dives for grass there’s your answer)
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Did I set him up for success? He’s fresh, he’s frustrated. Did I watch what he and I were doing 100% of the time, or was I distracted? #putyourphoneaway
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was I holding the lead properly and keeping it the appropriate length for handwalking?
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The 2 second rule, did I apply it? (hint, you didn’t - you backed him up for more than 2 seconds). He kicked you. Even if you did a lot of things wrong and it was mostly your fault, he does have to pay for your sins. They ALWAYS end up paying for our sins one way or another. You should feel bad about that, btw. That’s YOUR punishment. But for 2 seconds after he kicked you, you had a window to correlate action with reaction. He kicks, you slam down on that chain, growl at him, whatever is the form of punishment that is “his” punishment . This depends on the horse, I had one that if I said “ahem” he nearly died. Smacking him would have been counterproductive. I’ve had others that could have cared less if I growled at them, some more physical response was called for. You need them to realize the action was wrong and the penalty outweighed the benefit. You don’t want to make the penalty so severe that they are too terrified to even make the correlation.
6 When 2 seconds are over and you didn’t do anything, then curse, because that is really your only option left. The window closed. At this point I generally say things in a monotone or sing songy voice like you mf piece of sh*t you are not even making a can of alpo, so help me god I’ll put you in a generic dog food can. It makes me feel better, it drains the anger (at my stupidity)
- Then I assess what I did wrong and try not to repeat it.
When it comes to spooking, my nature is not to ignore it. I’ve recognized I’m not a patient person and there will be a finite amount of times I can wash/rinse/repeat/ignore and still productively train my horse. So I know “Me” and I’ve adapted accordingly. If a horse wants to spook at point X in the arena, I don’t truly “ignore” it, but my path to ignoring is to do something less pleasant than just trotting past X. If that is an issue, I will work on a shoulder or a 10m circle. I find the exact point where X is NOT spooky (10 feet away?) and I start there, then I push a bit closer, but just a bit. If the horse starts to react, I ask for something else, shoulder in, circle, etc. When they relax, I relax. The goal is, hey, we can work on the hard stuff OR we can do some easy things in a place you would rather not. I may not get a relaxed spook free trot 2’ from X, but if the spook started 10’ away and we close the line to 6’ that day, it’s a win. I also fully expect that day two may start at 10’ again, but I expect to get to 6’ more quickly and maybe finish at 4’, day three should improve on that (you know until we have one of those 2 steps forward, 1 step back days that WILL happen)
