Patience and Diligence
By Caryn A. Tate
The subject I'm writing about is something I have mentioned before, but I believe the importance of it warrants another (deeper) mention. I'm talking about the importance of patience and diligence when training your horse. As a trainer, I don't believe there's a replacement or substitution for these things. I don't know that there's a way around them. In my experience, when I've seen someone else or myself trying to make a shortcut or to find a way around patience and diligence, it only results in at least another problem or develops some other negative result.
One of the main reasons these two things are so necessary is because it’s unfair to your horse if you neglect to use them. If your horse is “trained” without patience and/or diligence, he either does not learn very many things properly (and so they may not stay present in his mind), or else he may become jumpy, head-shy, or even to simply dislike people in general. That is one of the most horrible things I’ve seen happen because of a lack of patience, especially because it is just unnecessary.
I don’t know if anyone could accept my advice in this regard, but I feel that the importance of it warrants my stating it. If you don’t think you have the patience to train a horse properly, to allow him to learn and apply the methods you want to teach him, then please, please let someone else train him who does have that patience. This is not to say that all trainers should never feel impatience with a horse or to feel many things. But the main thing is not to act on those feelings, and if you think that you would be unable to just feel impatience, anger, etc., without allowing them to surface with negative results to your horse, then I’m talking to you.
As far as diligence is concerned, the reason it’s so important is this: if you do have the patience I mentioned above and the discipline to not allow your feelings to come out every time you feel impatient or angry with your horse, but then you don’t have the diligence to follow through with the lessons you’ve been teaching your horse, then those lessons and patience were in vain. A horse, just like a human, needs some repetition to learn. And just like people, some horses may need more repetition than others. So it’s important to remain diligent and focused when training your horse to make sure that he understands what it is you’ve been trying so hard to teach him.
These two factors are really not difficult to apply once you make the commitment to utilize them. The best way to attack them (and any problems that may have been created previously in your horse by the lack of these qualities) is to have the self-discipline to declare to yourself that you will utilize these two qualities, and if a time ever comes when you do feel that you’re in danger of exploding with your horse, that you will walk away and come back later. Whatever happens, please don’t allow that anger to surface with him and result in something terrible. This is not to say that I don’t agree with disciplining your horse (in my past articles I’ve spoken about this); but there are ways of disciplining him without hurting him either physically or mentally.
Make the commitment to self-discipline as well as patience and diligence, and see how well they work for you and your horse. As usual, please e-mail me or post any questions or comments on my site.
About the Author:
I have lived around and worked with horses my entire life, and learned how to ride when I was a small child. Riding and training horses are great loves of mine, and I enjoy helping other people overcome training issues with their horses. I love working with horses and developing relationships with them, as well as talking about them with other people who are as passionate about the subject as I am.
Caryn may be contacted by email at scribe_79@yahoo.com.
Article courtesy of Suite101.com.
