Grey Horse Growth and Learning

Boston's striking colouring makes him stand out from a distance. But he has a remarkable ability to camouflage himself in the trees, to the point where I can be looking straight at him without realising he's there. However, his spots blend in far better under a red box tree with its rounded leaves than under the peppercorn with its long fronds.

There's something here about blending in and standing out ... when is it safe to stand out? how do we know when it's better to stand out, or to blend in? How much are neurotypical people aware of the effort some people have to make to blend in?

Boston can't change his stand-out spots. But he also stands out for his gentle nature and his ability to put people at ease. And he enjoys the opportunity to seek out and graze on green grass in dry times.

Jet's thinking style is definitely on the optimistic side. See a bucket, check it out.

How we explain the events in our lives makes a difference to our sense of well-being, and can be crucial in managing difficult times. I love the notion of 'Explanatory Style' to describe the ways we think about events. We may not be able to change the events themselves, but the way we think about them matters. Martin Seligman’s work on ‘Explanatory Style’ and ‘Learned Helplessness’ is important for both horses and humans.

We know that ‘shut-down’ horses have learned to tolerate inconsistent or harsh handling, especially when they are punished for showing resistance. When signs of stress are ignored, they either fight or go inside themselves and give up. Learned helplessness happens in humans too, especially to those whose pessimistic thinking style tells them that any success is just a one-off, that failure is always going to be more likely than success, and that they will fail in almost everything they do.

On the other hand, optimistic thinking leads resilient and healthy people to own their successes, to see occasional failures as one-offs and to be creative and optimistic about all their endeavours, even in the face of setbacks.

At Warwick Schiller’s Masterclass last week, he said, “Beware of dishonest absolutes.” For example, ‘I can never catch my horse’ or ‘My horse always does X’. ‘Never’ and ‘always’ are signs of a pessimistic thinking style, and horses are sensitive to the tensions that our thoughts create in us. Understanding explanatory styles means we have the opportunity to be both realistic and resilient. And our horses will appreciate it.

In this case, Jet had to be realistic - and wait until tea-time.

I'm opening up places for Single Session Therapy (or 'ONEplus Therapy') as a way of offering sessions designed to meet the immediate needs of clients at the time they need it. As part of a course I attended recently I learned that of those clients who only attend one session, 80% find that it helped enough for them to make the changes they need. Food for thought.

Over the summer I've been exploring the advantages of the 'Single-Session Thinking' approach. I love the idea of actively engaging with each session as if it may be the only opportunity I will have to see a particular client. This approach, while still leaving open the opportunity for further sessions, is a great way to make the most of every encounter with a client. It fits well with the principles involved with equine assisted therapy.

Just back from spectating at a Warwick Schiller clinic at Werribee. I'm always amazed at his ability to let horses know how much he is aware of their need for safety. Big takeaways (but not the only ones) from this weekend:
1. Stopping the behaviour only masks the symptoms. Focus on the reasons for the behaviour, not the behaviour itself.
2. Connection before training - there is no point in trying to teach a horse something unless you have established connection first.
Seeing Warwick demonstrate these principles with 'difficult' horses was a lesson in awareness.

Now that the summer is nearly over and afternoon temperatures on the arena are becoming tolerable, the horses at Grey Horse are ready to consider afternoon sessions again. We've been particularly dry over the summer here at Smiths Gully, and this week's rain has been particularly welcome.

I thought this worth sharing again.
All my horses are 'serviceably sound' but none would pass a pre-purchase vet check.

Lucky for them their jobs don't require perfection, just patience and kindness.

Sarcoid
Old age
Previous neurological back injury
Previous neck injury
Previous hamstring injury
Girth gall scars
Chronic sleep deprivation
Worn front teeth
Worn back teeth
Chipped front tooth
Club foot
Flat soles
Melanomas
Melanomas
Melanomas

What Ever Happened to “Serviceably” Sound? - The Plaid Horse Magazine By David Ramey, DVM When I first got out of veterinary school and started looking at horses prior to purchase (usually referred to as a “vet check” or a prepurchase exam), the horses usually fit into one of three categories. The first category was the horse with no problems noted at the time of ...

Still struggling to work out whether or not this page is published to the public! Hoping to master the intricacies of Facebook's page management system in the near future..

Nevertheless, Grey Horse Growth and Learning is up and running for 2022. Tiny, Rascal, Dan, Boston and Jet have enjoyed the summer and are looking forward to some cooler autumn weather.

Grey Horse will soon be opening up again for NDIS clients. Call for information about bookings.

Experimenting with a page for Grey Horse Growth and Learning! Not sure what is visible publicly and what isn't!! Another learning curve coming up! 🌻

I'm thinking it'll soon be time to open up Grey Horse again. Lockdown will end (this year, maybe?). Looking forward to seeing faces again on the arena. Tiny and the others are shedding hair everywhere in preparation for a new post-lockdown season. The birds have more nesting material than they can cope with.🐦