21/07/2024
My Peggy the Polo Pony post appears to have resurfaced somewhere as there have been thousands of new visitors to this page in the last few days. There continues to be a lot of shock and anger and sadness that a horse could ever get to that point physically, let alone still be used in some kind of work.
There also have been quite a few people expressing a sentiment I understand entirely too well.
When your radius of awareness is wider than your sphere of influence, you are going to feel powerless and like affecting change is impossible.
There is also a growing population of horse people who feel more than a bit despondent about the fact that there is SO MUCH we don't know about how horses work, what drives disease and physical deterioration, and how to pick through hundreds of data points for any given horse to try and determine the root cause of their struggles. We have an ever-increasing radius of awareness, and a lot of that awareness is around the fact that there is so much we AREN'T aware of.
That tends to leave many asking themselves why we do what we do with horses. Should we even ride? Is it ethical to sit on an animal that was never designed to be sat on?
I'm not interested in that debate. The reality is that the paths of horses and human merged thousands of years ago, and no one is going to be able to undue all that history. We are not going to debate, legislate or otherwise change the fact that the horse's role in the human world is here to stay.
What I am greatly interested in is discussing how we can make that role a better deal for the horse. And sometimes, that means being willing to acknowledge and accept that seemingly opposing ideas can both be true at the same time.
I do not think one should ride obviously lame horses, AND YET there are times where doing so is necessary and in the best interests of the horse in order to try and diagnose and treat the problem.
I do not think one should ride horses that are physically uncomfortable, AND YET I recognize that discomfort exists on a spectrum and there are times where asking the horse to use his body in a certain way is actually the best long-term solution to issue causing the discomfort.
I sometimes question whether riding is ethical, AND YET I know that my sphere of influence does not include changing nearly 6,000 years of history between hominids and horses. But, it certainly includes talking-the-talk and walking-the-walk in regards to the one tool that, above all else, is most likely to succeed in attaining long term physical and mental soundness in our equine partners, and that's good riding.
. . .
Pictured is Whiskey, my stock gelding. At fourteen, his diagnoses include a fused right hock, active degenerative joint disease in the left hock, insufficient (also sometimes called "negative") palmar angles in the right and left hind hooves, and significant bilateral navicular changes in both front hooves, with the right being worse than the left. He has a host of compensatory physical patterns in his muscling and movement that don't share one particular "diagnosis". I am fairly certain he has brachial plexus nerve impingement in his thoracic sling, especially in the right shoulder, but this cannot be diagnosed definitively. He also is very defensive and tends toward intense worrying, and is one of the toughest horses I've come across in terms of his willingness to hold onto his ideas.
He sounds like a pretty awful riding candidate on paper, and certainly doesn't sound like he should be sound...and yet here I am, sitting on him, because it's the best thing I can do for him to improve his soundness in the long term. And he improves every. single. ride.
I'm not asking him to perform to my level of expectation. I'm not demanding he do something he isn't physically or mentally ready to do. I'm not placing unreasonable or unfair asks unto him because of what I think he needs (even if I'm pretty sure he does need it).
I'm acting the way a good physical therapist would: I'm asking questions of his body, listening to the answers and respecting whatever boundaries he sets. I'm helping him find ease, balance and comfort in movement, instead of relying on long-standing compensations that are ultimately continuing to drive his discomfort. I'm helping him develop a body that will support his long term soundness instead of speeding up the process of deterioration.
I'm also acting the way a good counselor does: I'm asking questions of his mind, listening to the answers and respecting whatever boundaries he sets. I'm helping him find ease, balance and comfort in working with me and others, instead of feeling like being worried, defensive and triggered all the time is the way he has to live. I'm helping him develop a mind that will support a lifetime of improved resilience and contentedness instead of one that sets him up for a lifetime of tension, resistance and fear.
Looking at how he improves from day to day, I'm satisfied with 1%, grateful for 2% and ecstatic with 3%.
This is how we make it a better deal for horses, even those who come with baggage. Ask much, expect little and be grateful for what is offered, and then build on that as often as you can. There will inevitably still be those who simply cannot get past a certain level of dis-ease, and decisions sometimes have to be made about quality of life or suitability of use. Euthanasia is never a wrong choice for these horses: quality of life is much more important than quantity, and a horse's best insurance for a good life in the human world is to be able to do some sort of job, and do it comfortably and well. That's just reality.
What's also reality is that, like Whiskey, most horses with even significant levels of wear and tear ARE capable of doing a comfortable job provided they have the right support and the road to getting them there is compassionate, considerate and without a set expectation of how far they'll be able to go.
It is possible to affect great change, even though our spheres of influence may be small. Don't underestimate how much it means to your horses to know that someone is willing to listen, even if you don't have all the answers.
