Old School Philosophy for Modern Day Horsepeople Warren Bengston has a heart for horses and people. He's spent 42 years as a farrier, 3 years breaking horses, and 10 years as a missionary to the Ojibwe Indians. You will find pieces from each part of his diverse background interwoven into the fabric of his writings.

The pursuits and endeavors of life usually consist of steps and chapters that build on each other for good or bad, depending on how they unfold:
Learning: the road to knowledge.
Being: the process of our learning shaping who we are.
Doing: our activity in a particular pursuit that is solidly rooted in being.
Often when we want to do something we take classes, read, or in some way learn, so we can do. With some pursuits that is enough. Not so with horse handling. Who we are is very important to a horse. Our attitude, demeanor, and body language signal to him who we are. An important ingredient in the way learning changes who we are is the element of struggle. We learn (acquire knowledge) by many different means. We watch, listen, and read, then we struggle to assimilate and categorize it all in our thinking. We are not learning how to weld or do stained glass. We are learning how to relate to and handle a living being with its own mind and its own world view.
We used to raise a few call ducks. They are small ducks about the size of a pigeon. One day I picked up an egg that was starting to hatch. I held it in my hand and watched and watched. The little guy struggled and struggled. I so badly wanted to tear the egg open and spare him the interminable struggle. I didn’t. I just watched as he struggled and rested, struggled and rested. Finally he kicked the door open that he had worked so hard to create and just lay there exhausted. I thought he was done for. He wasn’t. He grew up and did just fine. Later I was telling a seasoned bird person about that experience. I was told that if I had helped him, I would have jeopardized his chances to survive. That struggle is calibrated to release him from the membrane lining the shell in stages. If those stages were skipped, there would be injury or even death.
Novice horse owners, if you are struggling, take heart. The struggle is part of the deal and is worth it. The process of your struggle is more valuable then you can imagine. We struggle before we hatch. We hatch before we swim. We swim before we fly. If you are struggling, all is well. Perseverance always precedes the prize. If we dodge the struggle, we may not hatch.
This reminds me of the time out West when there was a horse show going on at the fairgrounds. I wondered what an old-timer would think of the show so I went out to the edge of town to an old cemetery and dug up an old cowboy. I jabbed him with a stock prod and woke him up. His clothes were in bad shape so we went back to town and I got him some new clothes. (He didn’t have any money.) Then we went out to the horse show and sat down in the bleachers. After several classes went through, he asked me, “What are these people doing?”
“Oh,” I said, “We are cowboys. Just look at our nice hats and shirts. Our saddles got silver on ’em and our spurs cost a lot of money.”
The old man turned back to watch the show. After a few more classes he asked, “What are these people doing?” He obviously forgot my first answer.
I said, “We’re cowboys, don’t you understand? We’ve got trailers with all the comforts of home and our pickups are warm in the winter and cool in the summer. We travel many miles in these rigs so we can do what you are watching right now.”
He listened with a quizzical look on his face and then turned back to watch. He was obviously deep in thought. I knew what he was thinking. He was remembering cattle drives with choking dust. There were other cattle drives in continuous rain. Stampedes. Rattle snakes. Salty broncs. There were the times he was tending to a calf and the cow pretty near got him. There were the ropes that got under his horse’s legs and he had to maneuver out of it without getting killed. He was remembering real cowboy life and was having a hard time understanding my claim that we were cowboys. We were playing at being cowboys in controlled and comfortable surroundings. He knew nothing of that kind of thing except the occasional contests they held at the end of a cattle drive. His understanding of cowboy life was one of harsh reality, survival, and struggle. He learned, he became, and he did what he had to do with what he had at his disposal. He acquired knowledge that shaped who he was and his life as a cowboy was the end result.
Our present-day competitions with horses and cattle are all we have. We are expressing an appreciation and admiration of days gone by. The difference is that we believe our affluence and spare time can spare us from what we see as unnecessary struggle. The truth is that we cannot buy what only struggle can give us. However, if we don’t live in reality and truth, the struggle will not end in hatching, it will simply go on and on without purpose or hope.
Struggle, hatching, swimming, and flying take time, blood, sweat, and tears. Because we are somewhat jaded by affluence, convenience, and instant gratification, the whole idea of commitment in our struggles is no longer a given. Struggle the verb may well become engulfed by struggle the noun and have no hope of resolution. Struggle must only be a stage, not a permanent condition. The little duck struggled briefly and left that particular struggle behind. The old cowboy would probably have no trouble identifying with the little duck.
That’s our side of the equation. The horse has a side, too. He’s forced to make the transition from his world to ours. Learning-being-doing is a very real situation for him, too. There are many philosophies with accompanying techniques out there just like there are many kinds of telephones. A technique is like a telephone. We use it to communicate. It doesn’t matter what color or shape a phone is. What matters is the clarity of the communication. If you have to keep asking, “Can you hear me now?” you know something is lacking in the communication process. The phone is probably OK but you may have to move a little. So, when it comes to techniques, it’s whatever works for you. Techniques have advantages and limitations but what matters is, do they communicate clearly to the horse what you want the horse to hear?
The first result of competent handling of a horse is the quieting of the mind. If that doesn’t happen, not much else matters. A jittery horse has a jittery mind. Sometimes we have to give a horse the jitters to get him over the jitters. That will be by design with clear intentions and the competent use of a technique. A belligerent horse has a belligerent mind-set. If a horse has not learned to be rational and peaceful, he does not know how to be. If he does not know how to be, that will be somehow reflected in what he does.
At first the horse is lost in our world. If we are lost in our own world, what is the horse supposed to do? He can’t get away and he doesn’t believe things are bad enough to fight. The only thing left for him is frustration and confusion. Shoeing or trimming a horse in that condition is a nightmare and could send the farrier to his truck limping and never wanting to see that horse again. The solution is simple. Calm him and teach him and in so doing become partners instead of adversaries.
We do that by answering his questions when he asks them. When he asks what he should be afraid of, we show him respect by taking him seriously and using our creativity to show him there is nothing to fear. If he asks us what he can get away with, we owe him a statement clearly indicating that defiance will not be tolerated. He then will be ready and willing to accommodate our expectations.
Answering the first two questions teaches the horse how to be. That is foundational to the third question: “What do you want?” When horses are at ease with what we expect of them, they will be ready to do. Those horses will have a generous measure of self-control. Let’s look at that.
In humans the unwillingness or inability to say NO to our dark side declares very clearly our lack of self-control. When we know what we should do or shouldn’t do but don’t listen to our conscience, we get on a slippery slope that can have a very bad ending.
We see that our boat is leaking so we drill some holes in the bottom to drain out the water. Of course we now have to drill more holes because there is so much water coming into the boat. We just can’t believe our boat is sinking when we went to the trouble of drilling all those holes. Instinct tells us that if we want to get rid of water, we drain it out. Reason tells us the water is coming in from the bottom. Initially a horse is prone to go with his instincts. We want to change that because in some cases his instincts will sink his boat. There is nothing like the LBD syndrome to help the horse realize that more holes just sink the boat faster.
That’s what a horse does to solve his real or perceived difficulties with his people. He does not understand our world and its expectations if he has not been taught. He does not know about leaky boats. We must take control, get his boat out of the water, let it dry, and then patch the hole. A horse cannot fix himself anymore than a boat can fix itself.
Teach him and he will become somebody. He will respond with actions and attitudes that wonderfully fulfill his side of the horse-human relationship. He will respond favorably to surprises because he no longer is a loose cannon.
In the case of badly spoiled or traumatized horses, a very effective way to help them become rational and teachable is to present them with a dilemma that exposes their twisted thinking. If we force the issue in a way that makes them face their past and then allow them to find resolution and the way out of their fear, defiance, or confusion, they will work their way through it and come to a degree of sanity. Under skilled guidance, that sanity, though fragile at first, will steadily increase.
This type of horse desperately needs success. After his mind has been cleared of all those cobwebs, he is ready to learn. His subsequent education must be in increments that are within his reach and are doable. As he succeeds in understanding and obeying the material presented to him, he will begin to experience a remarkable transformation. Hopelessness and despair are being replaced with a sense of significance and a positive world view. This horse can forge an unusual bond with his people as he discovers that he had it all wrong. His old experience and understanding that were so negative gradually dwindle away in his memory—but only if they are replaced with positive relationships and new skills. If nothing replaces all those cobwebs that got swept out, it is likely that the horse will relapse.
How do we get rid of cobwebs? That will depend on the creativity of the handler or trainer. There is no limit to the ways to deal with a difficult horse. If the LBD syndrome is not activated, our chosen methods will only prolong the struggle instead of resolving it.
Each horse will have his own journey from the past to the present and on to the future. When horse and human learn, be, and do, they can overcome surprises and obstacles, connect with each other, and enjoy the journey.

Warren Bengston