Progress and Communication with your horse

First, I did few quick follow-up videos on Fiona's recovery since our crash in January. We are both doing great. All healed up and ready to rock and roll.

After the accident, Fiona had thin soles. I am including the XRay's in this post.

What you want to look for is the thumbtacks and look how close the tip of the thumbtack is to the white part/bone. There should be WAY more space between the tip of the tack and bone.

I was thinking the other day about how my ability to communicate with Fiona has improved over time and also how this progression is similar to the progress we've made in communication in general throughout history. It used to be that writing a letter and transporting it was one of the only ways to get a message to someone. This often took months, if the letter had to be sent by ship or horseback. Then came the telegraph, this sped up the transmission but was limited to only a few locations at which a message could be sent. Then came the telephone, then email, then cell phones, etc. Now we can communicate from anywhere in the world and get our message across the globe in an instant.

The progress made in communicating with our horses takes this same type of trajectory. If you start out as a green owner with a green horse, the communication is slow and not very clear. The human can't read the horse, the horse doesn't know what on earth the human is asking them to do. It's a mess and it takes a long time to work out. Then, as the human gains more knowledge and the horse starts to feel of the human, communication takes less time and can even happen over long distances. The funny part is, you can even go "wireless" by doing at liberty work with your horse. I really like at liberty work because if the horse is scared and they decide to run, I am not attached to them, which gives me a feeling of freedom and security.

It's a powerful feeling when you can make one small movement or noise from across the arena or roundpen and your horse responds. I look forward to continuing my work with Fiona and learning how to better communicate with her. Everyday things get better for both of us and she trusts me to lead her through the scary human world.

Here are some videos of her in the arena: