Cooperation instead of Dominance (or even Leadership)
This topic has been one that I have been pondering for quite awhile. It's probably been since I read Bobby's Diaries by Jenny Pierce. Jenny teaches a version of horsemanship where cooperation is the priority over dominance and even over leadership. This makes sense to me with the history that Gunny and I have had.
Just the other day I had a realization that sometimes the difference between seeking and getting cooperation and stepping into leadership or dominance is a slight difference in timing.
I was feeding the horses and I feed them one at a time. Each horse is to wait politely and patiently for their turn and also give space to me and to the horse that is being fed. Gunny had taken a step closer to me than I wanted him to be. I asked him to back up by wiggling my finger. He turned his head to the side and as I kept asking him to back up, he chose to turn and go towards the horse standing next to him with his ears pinned. I stepped between them and sent Gunny away and kept him away while the horse that was eating finished.
But later as I was thinking about it I realized that this was a spot where I missed the opportunity to look for and cultivate cooperation and instead I had slipped into a version of leadership or even dominance because I was focused on getting him to back up even though he clearly wasn't going to back up. Also, because I slipped into this version of trying to make him do something he didn't want to do at that moment, I probably contributed to him feeling the need to dominate the horse next to him.
Instead, when I wiggled my finger and he turned his head, I could have paused in my request and done something to get his attention turned back towards me. Once I had his attention back on me I could have requested the back up again with a finger wiggle. Or I could have asked him to back up in a different way.
But the important part is that this one or two second difference in timing is what turned my request for cooperation into a dominant request.
Next post I will talk about what cooperation is and isn't and what it looks like when we are interacting with our horse.
Just the other day I had a realization that sometimes the difference between seeking and getting cooperation and stepping into leadership or dominance is a slight difference in timing.
I was feeding the horses and I feed them one at a time. Each horse is to wait politely and patiently for their turn and also give space to me and to the horse that is being fed. Gunny had taken a step closer to me than I wanted him to be. I asked him to back up by wiggling my finger. He turned his head to the side and as I kept asking him to back up, he chose to turn and go towards the horse standing next to him with his ears pinned. I stepped between them and sent Gunny away and kept him away while the horse that was eating finished.
But later as I was thinking about it I realized that this was a spot where I missed the opportunity to look for and cultivate cooperation and instead I had slipped into a version of leadership or even dominance because I was focused on getting him to back up even though he clearly wasn't going to back up. Also, because I slipped into this version of trying to make him do something he didn't want to do at that moment, I probably contributed to him feeling the need to dominate the horse next to him.
Instead, when I wiggled my finger and he turned his head, I could have paused in my request and done something to get his attention turned back towards me. Once I had his attention back on me I could have requested the back up again with a finger wiggle. Or I could have asked him to back up in a different way.
But the important part is that this one or two second difference in timing is what turned my request for cooperation into a dominant request.
Next post I will talk about what cooperation is and isn't and what it looks like when we are interacting with our horse.
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