How to Train your Trainer

It is very tricky being a trainer (or an owner, for that matter). Sometimes the horses do have to bear the brunt of our stupidity as we learn. Unfortunately, the "how-to-train-a-horse" gene was not implanted in us at birth! And, it's important for young trainers to take some initiative or they'll never learn anything.

Sometimes a trainer has an ugly session with a horse. Like they get after the horse too much, or they get impatient. Most of them feel sick, and they think, talk to other trainers, read and study and next time try something else. But, trainers HAVE to be able to make seat-of-the-pants decisions sometimes. We think at the time that we are doing the right thing, and then we get more information and learn more, and years later we say, "gee that was dumb."

I find when people have pointed out things to me that I did that they thought were wrong, I started out feeling defensive and then thought about it and maybe changed my mind or my practices - or not. Usually I made some change. But I always have thought a lot about any criticism I have gotten. When you disagree with an approach a trainer is taking, talking directly and privately with them about practices you think are harmful (without getting too much on your high horse and making her feel more accused than necessary, but rather offering to be helpful as part of her problem-solving team, to help her think through her approach) is what I would encourage. But don't expect to be welcomed! This shoot-from-the-hip thing that keeps us alive as horse trainers -- because we have to be able to make fast decisions and trust that they are right -- is critical to our survival. If we don't believe, and we are always second-guessing ourselves, and waiting for a committee to help us, we die because when we needed to take a quick action we said, "let me think about this for awhile." As you all know, horses are quite large and can be very hazardous to our health!

As trainers and owners, we often have to mull it over and think it through when we have a tough time with a horse. Most of us will make better and better decisions the next time and the time after that. And, as time goes on and we get more skills and  figure out how to be more clear with our horses about what we want, etc., any harshness we may have, decreases. Our edges get smoothed off. We use more and more finesse and less and less force as our training lives go on. But that should not mean we get less of what we want. On the contrary, it just means we become more efficient and effective because we are more clear about what we want, and the horse finds peace and security in our clarity.

Every year I age I get more efficient, more "smooth" as Carlos Santana would say, and more effective. Too bad you have to get older to get better!