I agree with what you’re saying, I’ve noticed that with my animals too and working with a couple other horses. At first they’re uncomfortable if it’s hurting them (like treating a wound) but once they find out that it helps, they seem to enjoy it almost.
I’ve really noticed that with the chiropractor. As with a human chiro, I think initially it hurts the horse but eventually they really start to enjoy it and relax into it.
I think forgiveness is a huge thing I want in my horses and also try to remember to forgive them when they do something dumb.
One of my favourite quotes goes something like “eating healthy for one day won’t make you healthy. But eating poorly for one day, won’t make you ”
I think that’s important to remember. It’s about consistency and what we do regularly. If we hurt our horse once, I think they’re more likely to forgive us because we are more often nice to them.
Same as abused horses are more hesitant, they’ve been abused so many times that one good thing won’t erase all the bad and it takes time to build that trust with them.
I remember when I first got my horse, he hated being ridden and would buck every single time I asked him to lope. He threw me every single ride. I lost all my confidence, was scared to lope even the lesson horses, and was terrified to even think of riding Chance again. Eventually I decided it had to be a tack fit issue. I’d had the saddle professionally fitted so I knew that wasn’t the issue. I had a full vet check done. Twice. The chiropractor. Supplementing feed. And giving him time off. Nothing helped. Finally ordered him a new saddle pad and tried that. For the first few rides I just walked and some trot, he seemed to go a lot better. He led better from the pasture, and stood well for saddling. I really thought it had helped but was still terrified to lope him.
I thought that it had hurt him for so long, he would just assume that it was going to hurt again. I assumed he wouldn’t give it a chance. He would just buck immediately to remove the pain. So I started lunging. Almost every day. I would lunge him and make him lope on the ground fully saddled so he’d learn that it didn’t hurt anymore.
I did that till finally one day my farrier pushed me to lope him. And that was one of the best days ever. I still remember the feeling of loping him. I remember the day we loped the entire field without any bucking. I remember how I stopped him after and just hugged his neck and cried, cuz we finally did it. We’d done it. I was so proud of him.
That was long, but moral of the story, I think that horses in general want to trust us and forgive us, sometimes we just have to show them that they can.
