I put Fancy’s halter on and lead her somewhere. Nope, she passes and leads me.
I get the best of Fancy and lead her somewhere. I stop, she doesn’t. She passes me.
I lead Fancy somewhere and stop. Fancy goes to investigate something interesting, like the manure tub in the arena.
I get into my play position in front of her head an prepare to ask her to move. Before I make my “ask”, she looks around to see if anything is more interesting than I am.
She circles around me and tries to run over me with her inside shoulder.
Fancy circles around me and looks to the outside of the circle instead of at me. I am lucky to get the inside ear attention.
At a standstill, I move to her side and ask her to move her hindquarters. I get beaten by her swishing tail. Her head also seems to be turned towards me with her ears pinned to her neck and possibly her teeth might want to connect painfully to my body..
Before, during or after a riding lesson with Erin Patterson, Erin explains that Fancy is arguing with me. Riding instructors have a difficult life having to explain the same thing over and over again to their students, using the same words, different sentences, different words meaning the same thing, etc. Occasionally, the student has a flash of brilliance and understands! When the student takes the corrective action, the riding instructor probably faints inside with relief and eats out that night with a overly large Margarita (or any kind of alcohol) celebration.
One day Erin was telling me that Fancy was arguing and winning for the eleven millionth time when she used these fateful words. “It’s the “LITTLE THINGS THAT MATTER.”
I spend the next couple of days pondering these four words along with the disrespect Fancy is showing me during our online ground time. If I have disrespect on the ground, it’s not going to get any better with me on her back.
Why can’t I just skip the ground stuff and get on with the riding excitement, my brain whines. Sadly, my brain knows better. My brain starts to beat me with the years of natural horsemanship knowledge installed by Tony and Jenny Vaught and the Parelli psychology.
“Dammit”, my-go-faster-do-more inner self says. I have to get her respect on the ground. I have to be the leader and be more interesting than that tub of manure that she loves to go sniff in the arena.
In the blog before this one, I explain that the Regu-Mate has made a 95% difference in Fancy and that I would tell you the other 5% later. This is the other 5%. Be the leader! Fancy isn’t in hormonal caused pain which incites her dominating spirit and I am on the winning side of being the leader.
It’s the Little Things That Matter! Thank you Erin for those words.
Note: The weekend after I wrote this, Fancy and I had a clinic with Tony and Jenny Vaught. Tony was helping someone and said these words. Being able to do the little things is important. Doing the little things successfully allows you to do the big things.
http://www.forthehorseranch.com
Wow! Two of the most amazing horsemanship people in my life said the same thing!