Transcription
Okay, all right. So here we are with Freya. She's been here since Tuesday afternoon. We had a storm roll in Wednesday, another one rolled in Friday, Saturday. So today's really the first good day we've had to just get to know each other. And we'll see how recording on three cameras goes and keep this short, at a 15- or 20-minute session. Um, Freya is a 2-year-old; she's born June 6th of '22, so she'll be three years old at the time of the adoption later in June. Um, she's 14 hands as a 2-year-old, pretty good size as a 2-year-old. She's okay with me being about a horse length away from her. She does prefer me on her left side than her right side. She's shedding; she's itchy everywhere. I'm hoping to be able to help her with those itches and scratches here shortly, but she's got to get a little more comfortable with me.
What I like doing in these first sessions is just walking with them, walking around them, seeing where they're comfortable and where they're not. She's going in to get a drink of water. Always leave water and loose minerals available to a horse during training. They get thirsty; they need a little extra electrolytes from the minerals. It helps in the training because it's helping their their bodies stay balanced, be in flow, properly hydrated, proper electrolytes helps. We'll let her drink. I am having issues with one of my three cameras, and we're just going to deal with it and hope the other two cameras keep working. Still a little bit of hay on the ground after breakfast, so she's pretty comfortable with me about, yeah, horse length away, maybe closer, maybe six feet. Just stay out of her kick zone. Walk over here on her right side; let's get her to move. So kind of keep her in the center of the pen as best we can. Walk over here and get in a right eye; not as comfortable with me over here that she is giving me two eyes at about twice the distance on her right side as her left side. And these are just observations and notes. Just walk with her a little bit. So her preferences, me and her front left quadrant. So she's going to be a little more left eye dominant. For one pesky fly somewhere, and it's on her belly. Looking and chewing is good. I'm just doing simple deep breathing, being with her more than anything. He looks at me a little bit. I'm going to walk away a little bit, so back up a little. More blinking, licking, and chewing; all signs that she's comfortable enough to process things. Some of it's inner thinkers; some of it's inner feelers. Feelers are gut, heart, body; 90, 95% of the horse is feel; five or 10% is thought processes. We as humans are mental animals, some more mental than others, but we spend a lot of time between our ears, thinky thinky thinky, go into analysis by um paralysis through analysis. And being that the horses are in the now, how they're feeling, how they're perceiving things around them is far more important than what they happen to be thinking.
So I don't really have a set agenda of haltering her, any of that. My connection or my preferences to develop that connection, and then the halter will come easy. She's a little more relaxed now. The pesky fly is on her nose. Hi, thank you. Nice look at me. The people will call that approach and retreat, and it kind of is, but um energetically you don't approach with energy, retreat with energy. Ebb and flow, high tide, low tide. Um, atmospherically you're looking at high pressure, low pressure. The pressure is part of life; that's how you navigate that pressure, that map. Ms. Oh, we want to stay in the friendly zone, stay below her threshold, and she's good right here. I go two feet closer than her; I'm probably over her threshold, and so that's pretty good. Well, hi, thank you. You. She's rewarded at looking at me, and the rewards will change. Right now the reward is she looked at me. I'm backing away. At a later point that reward might be a treat, and treat doesn't have to be hay pellets or carrot or anything edible. They can help; definitely want to keep that in your tool kit, but a lot of rewards can just be feel-goods. You feel better, and I found that feel better tends to last better than a hay pellet or a carrot. Sharing meals together is a good way to bond. CU, that's what other horses do; they share meals together. I want to do more emulation of how horse connections are made than how human connections are made, or how a lot of humans have perceived connections with a horse being made. Now I'm just going to give her a little bit of time. Come in over here and make sure things are looking good. Looks like I got three cameras rolling. We're 12 minutes in. On. Hi, yeah. The hand motion was obvious for you to see, but it was subtle in the amount of energy. Yes, you are beautiful. Thank you. Hi. Now when she looks at me, I may just look away, and that's enough of acknowledgement that I see you, see me, you're acknowledged, and you are seen. Yeah. So my breathing, deep, full body breaths, calm and relaxed. My voice is mellow. Yeah, and the snorts and the licking and chewing and some partial yawns, that's all all good stuff. It's contagious too. I'll just look away. You can look at my back. There's one thing that um Tracy Haron Scott has always said about being with wild horses, that they go through life side by side and together; it's not face to face, in your face, a side by side together. Now I'm going to offer my hand because she's wanting to sniff, but I'm not putting my hand at her; I'm pointing at a neutral spot, and then I take it back. Hands are foreign objects to a horse; I have no idea what they are. Closest they have to compare it to is probably the arms and paws of a mountain lion or a bear. Though there's a little bit of caution when it comes to hands until they associate the hands with feel-good, and she's. I have a helper over here. [Music] Hi. Not sure the hand, and that's okay. Let's work on some side step, a side step. Nice, thank you. Can I see your other side? Can I come see your other side? All right, we're pushing 20 minutes, not not that it's a hard set rule, but I found 15- to 20-minute sessions work really well. And so today's session was about as exciting as watching paint dry or grass grow, but things are things are ticking and clicking in her a sweet heart. Thank you, and that's a good place to stop.