It's All About What's In Your Heart and How You Use It"

Yesterday I had a sharp reminder of this. I hosted a clinic here at PENZANCE with a well known local "Horse Trainer". I was hoping she would assist me in getting my two year old filly in long reins as a prerequisite to riding her in a year or two. My PMU filly with a shining copper coat and flaxen mane and a spirit of young gentleness and consideration had come to me as a 5 month old, fresh off 3000 acres in Manitoba, Canada. In her year and a half with me she'd never felt the results of aggressive, fighting reactions from a human. She's not been kicked or hit or otherwise struck. She's never encountered bullying from a human. We've gone slow in our lessons ... always patiently teaching her our human requests and trying never to cause her to fear us but, instead, to respect us as her leaders, encouraging her to learn her manners well. Any sort of youngster behavior that would be defiant or evident of a temper tantrum would reap more physical movement that she cared to feel. We move hooves around here; sometimes gently, sometimes assertively but all horses are expected to move their hooves and bodies when requested from a human. Every horse knows that higher ranking horses can move their feet, especially the ones who can do so with just a body movement or a "look" and a "feel". It's always the lower ranking horses who are the fighters and aggressors. The natural leaders move the others around with merely a look and a feel. So, here at PENZANCE we try to be assertive leaders instead of the aggressive bullies forcing our ways upon the horse. In doing our lessons in this manner I've not encountered any more except one horse who was truly aggressive towards me. This one horse was and is the product of human inconsistencies, aggressiveness and incongruencies causing extreme fear that bypasses the flight stage in the horse's reaction and throws her immediately into the fight "for life". Unfortunately the owners of this horse were so very inconsistent with their relationship with that horse that I, finally, after months of trying, said there was nothing more that I could do with the horse. She had a "short" that caused extreme aggressive behavior and, unfortunately, the humans were to blame for this as well as a possible organic reason. Until

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